How SVGs & Mockups Can Help Kickstart Your T Shirt Business

There are plenty of different reasons for running a new business that is based on T-shirt design and production. Perhaps you want to offer T-shirt printing services to businesses and people in your local area? Maybe you are adding clothing to your current line of products and have decided that T-shirts are the best way to make some initial headway. Of course, you could simply want your own T-shirt designs for your staff to wear so that your business is promoted in some way?

All of these approaches to T-shirt-based businesses are quite common. However, what some people fail to realise is just how important both scalable vector graphics (SVGs) and T-shirt mock ups can be in making such an enterprise succeed. To be clear, you do not need to mock up your T-shirt designs before printing them. Nor do you need to go down the route of utilising SVGs to come up with winning designs. However, if you make use of both, then it can be extremely beneficial to your business, especially when it is just getting off the ground.

In other words, SVGs and T-shirt mock ups will help you to visualise what you are trying to achieve in a very straightforward manner. Not only will they help you to come up with designs that really work at a lower cost than other methods, but they also allow you to show other people – perhaps your team or your clients – what to expect before you commit to a T-shirt print run. Read on to find out more about how SVGs can help you to design great T-shirts and, then, how mock ups will make them come to life in a meaningful way.

The Role of SVGs In T-Shirt Businesses

First of all, it is worth getting to grips with what SVGs actually are. If you want to use them to come up with scalable T-shirt designs on your own, then a basic understanding of them will be beneficial. In short, they are a software system used for two-dimensional images by graphic designers around the world. Officially, they are known as an extensible markup language which means they are extremely useful for web design and so on.

To put it another way, SVGs can represent any two-dimensional image. They can be edited with any compatible text or drawing software to create something new. They are compatible with all of the major web browsers so that when they are viewed on a device’s screen they always look in proportion. Before SVGs came along almost 20 years ago, some images would look very blocky or pixelated when their size was altered. If a browser blew them up to fit in with a certain screen ratio, for example, you could often see the pixels being scaled up. This is a problem with all sorts of image files, such as GIF and PNG to name but two.

Therefore, anyone using such files to come up with their T-shirt design may well see unwanted digitisation and pixelation when the design is rendered in full size. This is not the case with SVGs, however, because they scale very smoothly. So, if you see an SVG on your computer you like, then you can use it in a T-shirt design. In other words, you do not need to be a professional graphic designer to use SVGs in a highly professional manner when designing. Rather than pay a graphic designer to come up with a T-shirt design for you – which would necessarily also involve writing a design brief – you can make use of existing SVGs yourself without any hassles. Pick the ones you like, throw them together and they’ll scale automatically no matter which size of T-shirt you want to print.

Making Use of Mock Ups to Try Out T-Shirt Designs

Because many new T-shirt businesses make use of SVGs nowadays to save time, effort and money, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is all you need to do to get your business off the ground. However, showing a client a T-shirt design in an SVG format is one thing – presenting it as a T-shirt mock up is quite another. What’s more, mocking up your design on a high-quality image of a real T-shirt is child’s play and not costly, either.

You can find numerous examples of the sort of mock up shots of T-shirts you can make use of at DesignBundles. These mock up designs cover every type of T-shirt. As such, you will be able to show your customers what the proposed design will look like on round-necked T-shirts, vee-necked T-shirts and even polo shirts, depending on their preferences. Take a look at the various mock ups that are on offer and filter your results so that you are only looking at clothing ones to give you the best idea.

Alternatively, you can simply enter ‘T-shirts’ into the search bar at the top of the page to only look at mock up designs that consist of this type of garment. Bear in mind, too, that you can also mock up your SVG design with other forms of clothing if you want, as well. If your client likes your T-shirt design, then perhaps they will also be interested in buying hoodies or other types of clothing that feature it, too? As such, mocking up does not just mean your clients will be more likely to place an order with you but it also means you get a very good opportunity to upsell with other, coordinating garments.

SVGs and Mock Ups In Summary

All new businesses need to operate efficiently with low costs while still giving their customers a great buying experience. Therefore, using SVGs to ensure you obtain a design that is truly scalable for different applications is a very good idea. It will certainly help to do away with wasteful print runs and even the costs of hiring a professional graphic designer. Equally, mock ups will help your clients to visualise your designs better and provide you with an excellent marketing tool that can really give your business the kickstart it deserves.