Canva T-Shirt Design For Beginners (Complete Guide)

in this complete beginner's guide we'll be going over several methods to easily create eye-catching t-shirt designs on canva with tons of user-friendly design tools and features canva is one of the best platforms you could use to create custom designs for t-shirts and other products I'll demonstrate over a dozen examples of how to create t-shirt designs on canva including using t-shirt design templates AI image generation making Simple Text designs adding graphics and other elements from the canva library using font combinations hand much more whether you want to create a design with only text or a complex image with several Graphics you'll learn everything you'll need to create amazing t-shirt designs fast so let's head over to Cana and go over various methods to easily create custom designs for your t-shirts but before we get started in order to follow along and access all of the tools and features that we'll be covering you'll need to have a canva pro account if you haven't joined canva Pro yet make sure you unlock your free trial by heading over to learnwith jason.com or by simply clicking the Link in the video description with canva Pro you can access all the T-shirt design templates thousands of images and Graphics in the canva library gain the ability to export designs with a transparent background to add to the products in your online store and unlock tons of other tools and features to help you create eye-catching t-shirt designs fast go ahead and click the link in the video description to unlock your free trial of canva pro and access everything you need to create amazing designs for your t-shirts so the first method I'll be demonstrating to create T-shirt design is by using the canva T-shirt design templates on canva you can access thousands of t-shirt design templates that you can customize and use these are professional pre-made designs that already include text and Graphics that you can change and edit however you like this makes it easy for anyone to create professional t-shirt designs even with no prior experience so let's head over to canva and go over how to access and customize the T-shirt design templates so to access the T-shirt design templates from the canva homepage let's start by going up to the search bar up top here from here go ahead and type in t-shirt from the drop down menu you should see an option that says T-shirt with the T-shirt icon beside it let's click that now this will take you to a page where you can view all the T-shirt design templates that are available on canva if you look here you can see there are currently over 13,000 templates available and even more are being added each month if you scroll through the design templates you'll see they have templates for any type of design that you may be creating each design will feature text Andor graphics and can be fully customized any way that you like they have some free templates available but to unlock all the templates you'll need to have a canva pro account with so many templates available it can be hard to find exactly what you're looking for so let's go back up to the top here and go over how to filter our results if we look at the filters toolbar here we can view several filters that we can use to sort our results under style we can sort the templates by several categories such as illustration text corporate designs and more if we click the theme filter we can see all sorts of themes that we can filter our results by this includes things like business art holidays and more and at the very top here you can also browse several popular categories that you can sort the t-shirt designs by feel free to select the category or filter your results if you like but for this example I'm just going to browse all the templates and see what I can find as you can see the design templates come in all sorts of styles and designs and each template is fully customizable feel free to browse the templates until you find the one that you want to use but for this example I think I'm just going to go with this one when you select a template it'll open up a window where you can view the template details if everything looks good go ahead and click the customize this template button this should open up the design template in the canva editor here's where you can fully customize any of the elements on your template to make things a bit easier to see let's use the slider bar at the bottom here to make the template a bit bigger there we go if you look at the menu on the right here you can see that you have the ability to print t-shirts directly on canva but we'll be going over this a little bit later so now that I've selected a t-shirt design template let's go over how to customize it to turn it into my own design when customizing t-shirt design templates the first thing I like to do is update the text so go ahead and select the text on your template and change it to whatever you want it to say for the three text elements on my template I'm going to change it to you just got served and there we go so now that I've changed what my text says next let's change how my text looks whenever you select a text element you'll notice the text toolbar appear at the top of the page here here's where you can change your text font the size of your text colors the format add effects and other options so to change my font let's click the drop down menu here here's where you can access hundreds of fonts that are available in the canva library and they have pretty much any font that you would need whether you need something that's simple and elegant or something that's bold and stands out feel free to try out different fonts and see which one works best for your design whenever you select the font you'll see it update on your template for my text element I think I'm going to go with this font here so now that I've selected the font that I want to use for my first text element let's go ahead and go through the same process to select the fonts for the other two text elements as well simply select your text and use the drop- down menu at the top Toolbar to select a new font for some designs you may want to use the same font for each text element but for my design I'm going to use different fonts and this will depend on your personal preference your style and the design that you're creating I think that'll work whenever you change the text Graphics or other elements on your template you may have to resize or rearrange things a bit to move an element simply select it and drag it to the correct location so I've updated my font now let's go over how to change my text color when I select a text element the text toolbar should appear at the top to change the color of my selected text let's click the text color icon here this will open up a menu where you can select any color that you like for your selected text when you select a new color it should instantly be updated on your template for this example I think I'll just go with this color here when creating your T-shirt design you may want to change the background color so you can see how it looks on different color shirts to do this let's select the background then click the color icon at the top menu you can then select any color that you like to use for your background so you can see how your design looks so for my text I've changed the font and updated the colors so now let's see what else we can do if you're looking for ways to help your text stand out even more you can select to add various effects that are available on canva if you select a text element then go to the text toolbar at the top you should see a tab that says effects if you click this it'll open up a menu where you can view all the various effects that you can add to your text they have several really cool effect Styles available including the shadow effect which I use a lot the lift effect a hollow effect the splice an outline the echo the glitch a neon effect and an effect where you can add a background color to your text feel free to try out and use one of the effects if you like but for this example I think I'm going to keep it simple and not use an effect for my text if we take a look at my template here you'll notice that two of my text elements are curved if you if you wanted to add a curve to your text you can easily do this by going to the effects Tab and going down to the bottom of the menu here's where you'll see the shape section where you can add or remove a curve from your text to add a curve to a text element simply click the curve button here you'll then see a Slaughter bar appear underneath where you can adjust the amount of your curve simply move the slaughter to the left to curve your text more up or to the right to curve it more down I think I'm just going to go with this so we've gone over several ways to customize your template text now let's go over how to update the graphics we're going to be sticking with the same style as the template but let's start by selecting and deleting the default Graphics in order to create a good t-shirt design you'll need to have some good graphics luckily we can access thousands of Graphics in the canva library to access the canva library let's look at the menu on the left hand side here and click the elements tab this will open up a menu where you can browse through all the shapes Graphics photos videos and and other elements in the Campa library to find Graphics to use for my t-shirt design let's go up to the search bar up top here from here simply type in the type of graphic that you're looking for for my design let's start by searching for tennis from the results you'll see all the graphics photos videos and other elements that are related to the keyword you search for since we're only looking for graphics to use for our t-shirt design let's select the graphics tab at the top here now my results should only show all the Graphics related to the keyword tennis if we scroll through the results here you can see they have all sorts of different Graphics that you can use for your design they have a lot of free Graphics but to access all the graphics in the canva library you'll need to have a canva pro account so to replace the graphics that were at the top of my template I think I'm going to go with this tennis ball here when you click one of the graphics it should then be automatically added to your template you can then resize your graphic by dragging the corner and rearrange your graphic by clicking it and dragging it to your desired location I'm simply replacing the graphics that were originally on the template so let's put this first graphic on the right hand side of my top text and there we go and if I select the graphic and click the duplicate icon in the menu here I can make an exact copy of the graphic and move it to the left side of my text when adjusting your elements you can use the guidelines on the template to make sure everything is aligned so for my t-shirt design template I've replaced the top two Graphics now let's replace the main graphic for my main graphic let's go back to the elements library and get a little bit more specific by searching for tenis racket now all of my results should only Show graphics that are related to the search term of tennis racket feel free to take your time and browse through all the graphics to find the perfect one for your design when you find a graphic you want to use click it to add it to your template then resize and rearrange it as needed and with your graphic selected you can also use the round icon at the bottom here to rotate your graphic if you like this will help you get your graphic in the exact position that you need for your design so I like the tennis racket for my main graphic but I think we can add a little bit more so let's go back to the elements tab here and this time let's search for tennis ball all of my results should now only Show graphics that are related to the keyword of tennis ball take your time and browse through the results and find the perfect graphic to use for your T-shirt design once you find a graphic that you want to use simply click it to add it to your template when you select many of the graphics that are available on canva you'll notice a graphics toolbar up here at the top this will allow you to edit the graphic in several ways including flipping the graphic changing its position and for some of the graphics even changing the colors feel free to edit your graphic if needed and once you're finished you can then resize and rearrange it on your template there we go now I think this looks like a pretty cool tennis T-shirt design feel free to add more text Graphics or make any other adjustments if needed but once you're finished you have several options that you can use to add your T-shirt design to a t-shirt if you're using a t-shirt design template you should see a button up top here that says print with canva if you click this it'll open up a menu where you can view your design on t-shirt mockups and have canva print and ship t-shirts to you as well if we click to enlarge the mockups here we can get a larger image of our design on several t-shirt mockups feel free to browse through the mockups and make sure your design turned out the way you wanted it to for my tennis design I think it turned out pretty good if you wanted to order your design on t-shirts directly from canva you can use the same menu on the left to select a shirt color the sizes you want and the amount of shirts you can get one shirt for 20 bucks or if you get more shirts you can actually get discounts once you select your options simply click the continue button enter your payment details and once you place your order CA will ship your t-shirts directly to you but if you want to print your t-shirts using a different service or you're a print on demand seller that wants to add your design to your online store you can simply download Your Design to your device to upload wherever you like to download my design let's look up at the top right of the page and click the share button this will open up a menu with several share options let's look down at the tabs here and click the download tab here's where you can select your download settings from the file type dropdown menu make sure you have PNG selected this will allow you to export your image with a transparent background to add to t-shirts with PNG selected you should see the option here to export your image with a transparent background this will remove the colored Square behind your design and allow you to upload your design to t-shirts without any background color also for t-shirts I like to adjust the size of my design using the slider bar here to about 3,500 by 4,500 pixels this will ensure the pixel size is big enough to have a crisp and clear image on my t-shirt but keep in mind in order to adjust your design size and download your design with a transparent background you'll need to have a canva pro account so once you've adjusted your download settings go ahead and select the pages that you want to download then click the download button at the bottom and after a few seconds your new t-shirt design will be downloaded to your computer you can now print your design on t-shirts using another service upload your design as a new product in your print on demand store or use your design however else you like so now let's go over one more example of how to create t-shirt designs using canvas t-shirt design templates I'm just going to click the icon at the top right here to add a new page to my project there we go so first let's go over how to access the design templates directly from the canva editor from the menu on the left hand side let's click the design icon at the top this will open up a menu where you can view all the T-shirt design templates available on canva if you have a specific design or style that you're looking for you could narrow your results by using the search bar at the top for this example I want to create a photography design so let's type in photography in the search bar now all of my search results should only show t-shirt design templates related to the keyword of Photography as you can see no matter what topic you type in Campbell will likely have tons of t-shirt design templates that you can use but keep in mind to access most of the design templates you'll need to have a canva pro account so to create my t-shirt design I think I'm going to go with this t-shirt design template here when you select a template it should automatically be added it to the preview on the right here's what we can edit and fully customize the template however we want first let's select all the elements and make the design a bit bigger to fill in more of the template that's a bit better so when editing design templates the first thing I like to do is change the text so let's go ahead and select each text element and type in whatever we want them to say for my first two text elements here I'm going to type in let's do some shots whenever you make changes to your design template you make have to resize and rearrange things a bit this can easily be done by dragging the corners of the element for my top text here let's drag and make it a bit bigger to make the sides even with the bottom text so I've changed my main text now let's update the sub heading down here in the square graphic let's say I'm creating a marketing t-shirt for my photography business and I'm just going to put my website down here I can then make it a bit bigger and move it over to the center so now that I've changed what the text says the next thing I like to do is change the font so let's select the text element then use the drop down menu from the toolbar up top to select a new font feel free to browse through the fonts and select the perfect fonts to use for each text element in your design so I finished updating my template text now let's update the graphic if I wanted to use this graphic I could select it to change the graphic color and make other edits but for this example let's delete the graphic and see if we can find something better so to find a new graphic to use for my t-shirt is design let's look at the menu on the left hand side here and click the elements tab here's where we can search tons of different Graphics in the canva library since I'm creating a photography t-shirt design I think I'll search for a camera to view only the graphics let's select the graphics tab now I can browse through the results and see all the graphics on canva related to the keyword of camera whatever you type in you'll likely find hundreds of images so feel free to take your time and find the best graphic for this design example I think I'll just go with this graphic here when you select the graphic it'll automatically be added to your template we currently can't see my graphic because it's the same color as my background so let's select it and change the color by going to the color icon in the top toolbar When selecting colors for your graphics or your text make sure it's colors that complement your design and will be easily visible on the color T-shirt that you decide to upload to I'm just going to keep things simple and go with white so in a matter of minutes I've completely custom this template by updating the text and the graphic if you like feel free to continue updating your design by adding more text more Graphics changing colors adding effects or even by rearranging things on your template a bit this is your T-shirt design so make sure you get everything exactly the way you want it once you're finished you can use the print with canva button at the top here to check out your design on various mockups and if you like what you see you can order t-shirts directly from canva or click the share button at the top right to download your design and print it with another service print it yourself or add it to your online store to sell as a print on demand product so that's a quick overview of how to create t-shirt designs using canvas t-shirt design templates next let's go over how to use AI to create t-shirt designs with canvas's magic media app with the magic media app you can simply describe the type of image you want to create and artificial intelligence will be used to generate your image in seconds this is a great way to create really high quality designs even if you have no design skills we'll go over how to use the magic media app to generate images with AI and turn them into custom t-shirt designs all within canva so let's head over to canva and go over how to create t-shirt designs using AI so from the canva homepage let's start by opening up a blank t-shirt design project to do this I'm just going to select the create blank t-shirt option from the menu here this should open up a blank 14in x 18in design template in the canva editor from here we can use all of canvas tools and features to create our t-shirt design for this example I'll be going over how to use AI to generate the images for your designs to do this the first thing we'll need to do is access the canva magic media app so let's look at the menu on the left hand side of the page here and click the apps tab this will open up a menu where you can access all the apps that are available on canva from the search bar at the top let's type in Magic media from our search results the First Option here should be the magic media app let's click that now and this will open up the magic media app where you can use artificial intelligence to generate images graphics and videos since we want to generate Graphics to use for our t-shirt design let's click the graphics tab up top here here's where we can use AI to generate graphics for our t-shirt design and this is a super Innovative feature that allows you to generate any type of graphic that you wish so the first thing we'll need to do is use the text field here to describe the graic that we want to generate using five words or more for my first t-shirt design example let's see if the AI can generate an image of a cute teddy bear holding a blank sign remember that you can generate any type of graphic that you like so try to be as descriptive as possible once you've describe the graphic that you want to generate you can then use the next section here to select the style for your graphic let's click the SE all tab here to see all the different style options as you can see they have several design styles that we can select from this includes simple Styles Artistic Styles and detailed Styles feel free to select whatever style that you like but for my t-shirt design I think I'm going to go with the artistic handd drawn so now that I've described the image I want to generate and selected a style let's go down to the bottom here and click the generate Graphics button the magic media artificial intelligence will then analyze the details that you provided and within a few seconds provides you with several AI generated images as you can see I now have several options to select from for my cute teddy bear holding a blank sign I think the graphics came out really good and are super high quality so once you decide on the graphic that you want to use simply click it to add it to your template there we go from here you can resize and rearrange your graphic as needed so now that I've used AI to generate my graphic let's finish creating my t-shirt design for this design I think I'll add some text so let's look at the menu on the left hand side and click the text icon this should open up the textt menu let's click the tab here to add a heading to my template and there we go now that I've added the heading to my template let's change the text I think that'll work I can then click and drag my text to the middle of the blank sign here also when you have your text selected you should see the text toolbar at the top here let's click the drop down menu on the leftand side to change my font this will open up a menu where you can browse through hundreds of fonts that you can use for your design take your time and find the perfect font for your design for this example I think I'll just go with this font here once you select the font you can then resize and rearrange your text if needed so here's my t-shirt design with my artificial intelligence generated image feel free to add even more text and Graphics to your design but I'm just going to roll with this so let's see how my design looks on a t-shirt mockup by clicking the print with canva button at the top right this will open up a menu where you can view few t-shirt mockups of your design and where you can place an order for t-shirts directly from canva if we take a look at the mockups here we can see how my design actually looks on a t-shirt this is a great way to see how your design looks before placing an order or downloading it but if everything looks good feel free to place an order directly from canva or if you want to download it go to the top of the page and click the share button this will open up a menu with several share options let's look down at the bottom here and click the download tab here's where you can select your download settings for the highest quality and to make sure you can download your design with transparency make sure you have PNG selected under file type using the size slider bar I like to adjust my size to make sure my design is at least 3,500 by 4,500 pixels this will ensure your graphics and your text will show up crystal clear on t-shirts also you want to check the transparent background check box to make sure your design isn't downloaded with a white or colored Square behind it this is really important if you plan to add your design to t-shirts but in order to adjust your size and download your design with a transparent background you'll need to have a canva pro account so once you've selected your download settings go ahead and go down and click the download button and your T-shirt design will be downloaded to your computer where you can then upload it to another service to print print it yourself or add it as a new print on demand product in your online store so let's go over one more example of how to create t-shirt designs on canva using artificial intelligence let's click the add page icon at the top right here to add a new page to my project this time let's see if the artificial intelligence can generate something a little bit more complex so to generate a graphic with artificial intelligence let's start by going to the apps tab from the left hand side menu from here we can search for Magic media then click the magic media app from the search results once you get to the magic media app make sure you go over to the graphics Tab and here's what we can have ai create a new graphic for our t-shirt design this time let's see what the AI is really capable of and have it create a graphic of a cool owl wearing sunglasses and a tuxedo while holding a cocktail once you describe the graphic that you want to generate go ahead and go down to the Styles section and click the see all tab from here let's select the style that we want the AI to use for our graphic for this example I think I'm going to try out the vintage style so once you describe the graphic that you want to create and select a style go ahead and go down to the bottom and click the generate Graphics button the AI will then analyze your text and within a few seconds you'll have several high quality Graphics that you can select from so here's my AI generated cool owl wearing a tuxedo and sunglasses holding a cocktail as you can see the graphics are high quality and I think the vintage style will look really good on t-shirts so feel free to check out your graphic options and when you you select the one you want simply click it to add it to your template from here I can now resize and rearrange my graphic as needed now that I've used AI to generate my graphic I can now finish creating my t-shirt design by adding text more Graphics or anything else I like as you can see with the use of artificial intelligence anyone can create high quality professional t-shirt designs fast to see how your design looks on a t-shirt mockup go ahead and click the print with canva button at the top right from here we can view our t-shirt design on several mockups feel free to check out your design and make sure everything looks good using the menu on the right you can also change the mockup shirt color I think my design looks better on light colored shirts so let's change my mockups to White if your design looks good on the mockups feel free to order t-shirts directly from canva using the menu on the right or we can close this menu and go to the share button up top to download our design from the share menu let's click the download tab for your downlo download settings make sure you have PNG selected make sure you've adjusted your size and select it to download your graphic with a transparent background once you've selected your download settings go ahead and click the download button and your new graphic will then be downloaded to your computer if you're a new designer or just not very good at it then using artificial intelligence can be a great way to turn your ideas into t-shirt designs the graphics you can generate with canvas magic media AI app are super high quality it makes creating t-shirt designs fast and actually pretty fun so we've gone over how to generate graphics with AI now let's go over how to create Simple Text designs for your t-shirts I'll be demonstrating how to make t-shirt designs that feature text as the main focus this could include cool slogans something funny inspirational or motivational quotes clever sayings or any other text you like plain text designs are easy to create even for beginners and can look good on a variety of shirt colors and styles so let's head over to canva and go over how to create t-shirt designs with text as the main focus from the canva homepage let's start by opening up a blank template to do this I can search for t-shirt in the search bar but I'm just going to click the create blank t-shirt template option here this will open up the canva editor where we can create our t-shirt design let's use the slider at the bottom here to make my template a bit bigger so we can see a little better also I plan to create a t-shirt design for a black shirt so let's select my template background and click the background color icon at the top toolbar from here you can use the menu on the left to select whatever color you want to use for your background so now that I've changed my background color let's go over how to create text t-shirt designs since we'll be focusing on text let's click the text icon from the menu on the left hand side this will open up a menu with various options to add text to your template to add text to use for my t-shirt design let's click the add heading tab here this will add a new text box to your template that you can edit so for my first text element I'm just going to write the word travel I'm actually going to add several text elements so that I can resize and move them around individually for my next text element let's click here to add a subheading and honestly it really doesn't matter which heading you select because they can all be resized as needed so let's change the default text to the text I want to use for my design and this t-shirt design will actually be my definition for travel so this should all make sense short let's move it to the left underneath my other text element and for the last text element I'm going to add to my t-shirt design let's click here to add some body text let's make this text box a bit wider by dragging the side here and move it down a little as well also my text is currently centered so let's click the alignment icon from the toolbar up top here to align my text to the left so now let's select the default text and type in the text that I want to use for my t-shirt design for my definition of it's going to say the only thing you can buy that actually makes you richer I think that'll work so these are the three text elements that I'll be using for my t-shirt design now that I've added my text boxes and changed the text we can start having a little fun whenever you select the text element you'll notice the text toolbar appear at the top of the page from here you'll find all sorts of options for your selected text such as the option to change the font the size the color add formatting add effects and much more so for my selected text here let's use the drop down menu on the left hand side of the toolbar to select a new font this will open up a menu where you can browse through hundreds of different fonts that you can select for your text the fonts you select will depend on your design your style and your personal preference also if you already know the font that you want to use you can find it using the search bar up top here simply type in the font name and select it from the results so the font for my travel text has now been changed as you update your fonts and make other changes you may have to resize and rearrange the elements on your template a bit there we go so for my other two text elements I'm just going to select them and use the drop down menu to select the same font for both of them feel free to use different fonts if you like but for my t-shirt design I think the same font will look the best and remember different fonts can have different sizes so let's resize and rearrange my text elements to get them in the perfect location to resize my text I like to Simply select it and drag the corner feel free to take your time and make sure you get everything exactly the way you want it also when creating your T-shirt design you also want to try to fill up as much of the template as possible so let's click and drag to select all the elements on my template and I can then move and resize all my elements at the same time feel free to continue editing by changing your text colors adding supporting Graphics or anything else you like but for this example I think I'm just going to roll with this simple text design design here so to see how my design looks on a t-shirt let's click the print with canva tab up top here this will open up a menu where we can view t-shirt mockups and Order t-shirts directly from canva if we wish as well so let's see how my simple text design looks on the mockups here not bad I think it's simple yet stylish Simple Text designs like this are easy for anyone to make because you don't have to be too fancy minimalist designs with text is actually a popular Trend in fashion so let's close the menu here and add a new page to my project to go over another example of a text design for this text design I think I'll add a supporting graphic so to get started let's go to the menu on the left and click the text tab from the text menu let's click the tab here to add a heading to my template once you add a heading go ahead and change the text to whatever you want to use for your design you can then resize and rearrange your text element as needed for this design I think I'll add a subheading as well I can then add the text for my subheading and of course I can then resize and rearrange it on my template in order to resize and arrange both of my text elements at the same time let's click and drag to select them both and rearrange them on my template I'm going to make mine a bit bigger and move it towards the top Center next let's select my font then use the drop down menu from the toolbar up top to select a new font take your time and browse through the font since select the one that works best for your design keep in mind when you change your font your text size may change so you may have have to adjust the size of your text element on your template let's go ahead and select the font for my second text element as well for my second line of text I'm going to use a different font and then let's resize the text to line up with my top text there we go so here's a simple text design that we could use for our t-shirt but let's see if we can make it even better for this text design I'm going to be adding a supporting graphic so let's look at the menu on the left hand side here and click the elements tab this will open up a menu where you can browse through tons of Graphics shapes photos and other elements in the search bar up top simply type in the type of graphic that you're looking for select the graphics tab to view only the graphics and browse through thousands of Graphics that are available in the canva library no matter what you type in you'll likely find tons of available Graphics they have some free Graphics but to access all the graphics you'll need to have a cana pro account so for my t-shirt design let's just go with this graphic here once you add your graphic to your template go ahead and resize and rearrange it as needed feel free to play around a bit and find the perfect spot for your graphic and with your graphic selected you can access the toolbar up top here where you can change the position of your graphic edit the transparency flip your graphic and for many of the graphics on canva you can even change the colors feel free to continue editing Your Design but I think I'm done with this one so to preview how my design looks on a t-shirt let's click the print with canva button at the top here from the menu on the right let's click to open up the T-shirt mockups not bad I think the graphic complements my text perfectly and with access to the canva library you can find pretty much any type of graphic that you would need for your design so even when creating Simple Text designs adding a supporting graphic or shape from the Cana Library may help make your design a little bit better so let's close the menu here and add a new page to my project to go over one more example of a text T-shirt design for this example I'm going to make a text design that's a bit more complex this will show you various techniques and options that you can use while designing t-shirts so first let's go to the menu on the left and click the text tab to add a heading to my template for this text element I'm going to type the word positive let's make it a bit bigger move it up a bit then select it and use the drop- down menu from the toolbar up top to select a new font I think that'll work so for my text element here the next thing I want to do is make some dup duplicates so to do this let's select the text element then click the duplicate icon from the menu here I'm going to click it twice to make two duplicates so that each text element will have exactly the same size font color and everything else next let's move one of the text elements about halfway above the first element and the other one about halfway below it when making your t-shirt designs remember to be creative and don't be afraid to try some different things out for my middle text I want to make sure it's in front of both of the other text elements so let's select it then go to the position tab from the toolbar up top here I can then move the bottom and top text behind the middle text so my middle text is now in the front but my design still looks like a mess so let's continue editing and see what else we can do if you select a text element on your template and go to the toolbar up top you should see a tab that says effects if you click this it'll open up a menu where you can add all sorts of different style effects to your text this includes effects like a shadow effect an outline effect and even a neon effect these are all pretty cool so I definitely recommend that you experiment with them but for my design I think I'm going to add the hollow effect to my bottom text and to my top text there we go now my text is a little bit easier to read but let's see what else we can do to help it stand out a bit more from the menu on the left let's go to the effects tab this is where we can access all the graphics and shapes available on canva for my t-shirt design I'm going to add a shape behind my middle text to help it stand out more to view all the shapes available in the canva library let's click the C all tab here as you can see there are tons of different lines and shapes available on canva for us to use for my design I think I'm just going to go with this first square shape here when you select a shape it should automatically be added to your template so let's resize the square by dragging the sides then select it and use the position tab from the toolbar up top to to move it in front of my bottom text and my top text but behind my middle text and if I move the shape behind my middle text now it should form a nice background let's increase my template size so we can see a little better sometimes you may have to zoom in so you can edit the small details so I think that makes a good background for my text but I think I want to change the color so with my shapes selected let's go to the toolbar up top and click the color tab here's where I can select any color that I want to use for my shape I'm planning to upload this to a black shirt so I'm going to keep things simple and change my shape to Black I think that should look pretty cool and remember as you're designing feel free to make little adjustments as needed so next I think I'll add another text element to my design to do this let's go to the text tab on the left hand side from here I think I'll select to add a subheading I can then rearrange the text element on my template and change the text I also want to change the color of my text so let's select it and go to the color tab from the toolbar up top for this text element I think I'll go with red and using the drop- down menu on the left here I'm also going to change the font feel free to browse the fonts and find the perfect one for your design for my font this time I think I'll go with cursive and when you change your font you'll likely have to resize and rearrange your element as well there we go so from the text tab let's add the last line of text to my design this time I'm going to select the body text tab for this text element I'm going to move it to the bottom of my design I can then select it and change what the text says and of course we can select it and use the drop- down menu from the toolbar up top to change the font and for my bottom text I want it to be the same length as my middle text so let's select it and go to the spacing icon from the toolbar up top from here I can adjust my letter spacing and make it just as wide as my middle text I think that looks much better and the last thing I think I'll do is add a background to my bottom text just like I did with my middle text so let's go to the elements tab on the left hand side go to the shapes and select the square option I can then resize my square and position it behind my bottom text adding backgrounds like this is a great way to help your text stand out and actually I think this will look a little bit better if my text was black when creating your designs try to have fun with it and make any changes as you see fit so here's my new Positive Vibes living my best life T-shirt design to see how it looks on an actual t-shirt let's click the print with canva tab up top here I can then click to view the t-shirt mockups from here make sure your design looks good and it doesn't need any other changes and if everything looks good feel free to order t-shirts directly from canva or download Your Design to print yourself or add to your print on demand store but before we wrap up creating text designs there's one more thing I wanted to show you for some designs you create it may be required to add a curve to your text to do this simply select your text then go to the effects tab from the toolbar up top and if you scroll down to the bottom of the menu on the left you should see the shape section if you click the curve option it'll add a curve to your selected text and if you scroll down a bit you'll see a slider bar where you can adjust your curve simply slide it to the left to curve your text up or slott it to the right to curve your textt down adding a curve or other effects to your text can really help your design stand out so once you're ready to download Your Design go ahead and go up to the share button at the top right of the page from the menu let's go down to the download tab here's where we can select our download settings under file type make sure you have PNG selected this will allow you to adjust the size and the transparency of your design using the size slider bar I like to make my design at least 30 500 by 4500 pixels also to make sure your design isn't downloaded with the background make sure you check the transparent background option but keep in mind in order to adjust the size and download your design with a transparent background you'll need to have a canva pro account so once you finish selecting your download settings go ahead and click the download button and your new t-shirt design will be downloaded to your computer you can now add your new text design to t-shirts or upload it to your online store to sell as a print on demand product so we've gone over how to create t-shirt designs that are focused on text next let's go over how to easily create t-shirt designs using the graphics that are available in the canva library these designs will focus mainly on the image or Graphics that are used and may have supporting text as well for your main graphic you want something that stylish Shan attention grabbing unless you're an experienced graphic designer creating great graphics can be pretty difficult but luckily canvas's Library features tens of thousands of graphics on on every topic that we can use to create our designs so let's head over to canva and go over how to create t-shirt designs using the graphics in the canva library so the first thing we'll need to do is open up a canva template to open up a blank t-shirt design template you can search for t-shirt in the search bar up top but I'm just going to select the create blank t-shirt option from the menu here this will open up a blank project in canva that we can use to create our t-shirt design before we get started let's use the slider bar at the bottom here to zoom in a bit on the template there we go this should make it easier to see and edit so first let's go over how to create a simple t-shirt design using the graphics in the canva library to access the canva library let's click the elements tab from the left hand side menu here's where we can access all the shapes Graphics photos and other elements in the canva library to find a graphic simply use the search bar up top here for this example I want to make a photography T-shirt design so let's search for camera since I'm only looking for all the graphics relating to camera let's click the graphics tab at the top and this should pull up all the graphics in the canva library related to the search term of camera no matter what you type in they'll likely have hundreds if not thousands of Graphics available they have a few free Graphics but to access all the graphics you'll need to have a canva pro account so for this t-shirt design example I think I'm going to go with this graphic here when you select a graphic it'll automatically be added to your template from here go ahead and drag the corners to resize your graphic and you can click and drag it to change its location you want to try to make your Design Elements big enough to fill in most of the template and not leave too much Blank Space around them and if you click and select your graphic you'll notice an editing toolbar appear at the top of the page using the tools here you can edit your photo flip your photo change its position on the template and for some graphics even change the colors this allows you to really customize your graphics and make them perfect for your T-shirt design so now now that I've added my first graphic I think I'm going to add a bit of text as well to do this let's click the text icon from the menu on the left hand side this will open up a menu where we can add a text box to our template for my t-shirt design let's click here to add a subheading to my template once your text box has been added make sure it's selected and go ahead and change the text and for my text element I'm actually going to use the round icon at the bottom here to rotate it to match up with my graphic for any of your text elements or your graphic you can use the icon here to rotate them as much as you like so next let's select my text then go to the drop down menu from the toolbar up top to change the font When selecting a font make sure you select one that matches the style of the design that you're trying to create in different fonts may have different sizes so go ahead and use the SIDS and the corners of your text element to resize your text there we go so next I think I'm going to add another graphic to my design so let's go back to the elements tab from the menu on the left hand side and this time I'm going to search for Flash I can then click the graphics Tab and search through all the graphics on canva related to the keyword of flash for my design I think I'll add this graphic here now that I've added my new graphic let's use the round icon at the bottom here to rotate it to match my text I'm also going to drag it over to reposition it and resize it a bit I want to make this flash kind of look like it's coming out of my camera lens and while we have the flash Graphics open in the menu here let's see if we can find another graphic to add to the ends of my text I want something simple just to help my text stand out so I think I'll go with this little three stars icon here with my new graphics selected I'm going to go to the color icon from the toolbar up top to change the color to compl my design I'm going to change it to the same color as this colored strip on my camera I can then resize my new graphic and move it to the end of my text and I actually want to add the graphic to both ends of my text so let's click the duplicate button here here so we can make a copy that's the exact same size and color and with the duplicate selected let's go to the toolbar up top and click the flip tab so I can flip the graphic horizontally and finally let's take my new graphic and move it to the other end of my text there we go I definitely thinks that helps to highlight my text and so I don't leave too much Blank Space around my template let's select all the elements and drag the corner to increase the size of everything at the same time this will make sure my design fills in most of the blank space whenever I download it so here's my new I'm about to snap photography t-shirt design to see how my design will look on a t-shirt let's go to the top here and click the print with canva tab to check out some t-shirt mockups from the menu on the left you have the ability to order t-shirts directly from canva and also to view several t-shirt mockups I plan to upload my design to a white shirt so let's change the T-shirt mockup colors to White now we can scroll back up and click here to enlarge the T-shirt mockups from here we can see several examples of your design on a t-shirt with a person actually wearing it this is an excellent way to see how your design will look before you place an order or download it as you can see using the graphics in the canva library makes it super easy for anyone to create t-shirt designs so let's close the menu here and go over another example of how to create t-shirt designs using the graphics in the Campell library for this example I plan to upload this design to a shirt that's either Navy or dark blue so let's use the color icon from the top menu here to change the color of my background so to create this t-shirt design I'll be demonstrating how to combine Graphics from the Campa Library instead of just selecting a graphic and adding a bit of text we can get a lot more creative and combine various graphics and shapes to create our t-shirt design so to get started let's go to the elements tab from the menu on the left hand side for my design I'm going to start by adding a shape so let's click the see all tab on the right hand side here to see all the shapes here's where we can view tons of different lines and shapes that we can use for our designs from the shapes section here I'm going to click to add this square with the curved Corners once my shape is added to my template I can use the toolbar up top here to customize my shape for my shape the first thing I'm going to do is add a border so let's go to the toolbar here and click the Border style icon this will open up a menu with various border options for your shape I'm going to click here to add a solid border to my shape and also use the Border weight slider to adjust the thickness of my border and with the corner rounding slider you can also adjust the roundness of your shapes Corners if you like it's pretty amazing how many design options are available on canva even with simple shapes so next let's remove the color from the inside of my square by clicking the color tab from the toolbar up top instead of selecting a color let's select the transparent icon here this will make my shape transparent leaving only my Square border also I want my border to be white so let's go back up to the toolbar here and click the Border color icon and from here you can select any color you want to use for your border the shapes on canva are actually very Dynamic making them great for creating custom t-shirt designs if I needed to resize or even change the shape of my shape I could simply click and drag the corners for my design I think I'll make my square a little bit wider there we go and for my design I'm going to need three of these exact same shapes so let's select it and click the duplicate button two times now that I have my three shapes let's arrange them so that one's in the middle and the other two are evenly spaced on each side if you need to resize your shapes but want to keep them all the same size simply select them all at the same time then drag the corner to resize them I can now arrange my shapes so that there's a little bit of space in between them on my template there we go so now that I've added my shapes the next thing I want to do is add some graphics so from the elements tab here let's click the back button to go back to the main menu from here let's use the search bar up top to search for basketball hoop this will pull up all the elements in the canva library related to that search term so let's click the graphics Tab and browse through the results to find a good graphic to use for my design I just want a simple basketball hoop outline so I think I'll go with this graphic here with my Graphics selected let's use the toolbar up top to change the color to white I can now resize my graphic and move it over to the inside of my first shape I think that'll work so I've added my first graphic now I want to do the same thing for the other two shapes as well so let's go back to the elements Tab and for my second shape I think I want to add a basketball from the results let's try to find a graphic that's similar to my first graphic I think this one looks pretty close so let's select it change it color resize it and move it to my middle square and for my last graphic here I think I'll add a basketball jersey so let's find an outlined icon with a similar style add it to my template change this color resize it and move it to my last Square here and for my jersey graphic I think it looks a little plain so I'm going to go back to the elements tab here and select this number one graphic and of course I can then resize it move it over to my jersey and change this color so here's the graphics and shapes that I'm going to use for my t-shirt Des design as you can see by combining graphics and shapes you can create pretty much any type of design that you like I think this looks pretty cool but I'm going to add some text as well so let's go to the menu on the left hand side and click the text tab from the menu here let's select to add a heading for my first text element I'm just going to write the word shoot resize it and move it underneath my first Square I'm then going to duplicate this text twice to use for my other squares this will ensure that they're all the exact same size I can then move the new text elements underneath my other two squares there we go and for my middle text I'm going to change it to dribble and for my last text element let's have it say pass so here's my new shoot dribble pass basketball t-shirt design I think it turned out pretty good I can now Order t-shirts directly from canva or download my design to add to my print on demand store so let's go over one more example of how to create t-shirt designs using the graphics and shapes in the canva library but this time let's make one that's a bit more complex for this example I think I want to use a white background so to create this design I'm going to start by adding some shapes so let's go to the menu on the left hand side and go to the elements tab from here let's view all the shapes by clicking the SE all tab on the right hand side of the shape section here's where we can view all the different lines and shapes available on canva from the shape section let's just select the standard Square here next with my shape selected I'm going to use the toolbar up top to change it to a dark green I think that'll work so now let's drag the corners of my shape to resize it instead of a square I'm going to form it into a long vertical rectangle and I'm actually going to need four of these so using the duplicate button from the menu at the top here let's make three new copies of my shape I also want to make sure they're evenly spaced apart and let's drag to select them all at the same time and drag the corner to make them a little a little bit bigger to fill in more of my template next let's select the first graphic here and use the color icon from the toolbar up top to change the color to red and I think I want a darker red so let's click the custom color icon at the top left here and move the round icon on the menu over to a darker shade of red from the menu here you can select any color that you wish to use for your graphics or text also I want to select my third rectangle graphic and change it to the same color red so these four red and green shapes will form the background of my t-shirt design the next thing I want to add is some text but I'm actually going to have my text blend into my shapes so let's go to the text menu from the toolbar on the left hand side and click the add a heading tab to spell my word I'm actually going to add each letter as a separate text element for my first letter I'm going to make an H make it a bit bigger and move it over to the top of my first rectangle shape here and with my letter selected let's use the drop down menu from the toolbar up top to change the font and I'm also going to change the color to the same color red as the shape is sitting on so I've added a letter to my first shape so now let's duplicate it three times for my other three shapes this will ensure the other letters have the exact same size and font and it's a lot quicker too and now that I've moved each letter to the top of each shape let's change them to the correct letters to spell the word hike and for the letters sitting on top of the green shapes let's change them to Green as well so I finished adding my main text but now let's go back back to the text Tab and click to add a subheading I can then change the text and move it to the top of my design here and of course I can then use the text editing tools to change the font the size and the color I think that looks pretty good so I finished adding my shapes and my text so now let's add my main Graphics to access the graphics in the canva library let's look at the menu on the left hand side and click the elements tab in the search bar up top let's search for hiking I can then select the graphics tab to view only the graphics and view tons of Graphics related to the search term of hiking for my t-shirt design I think I'll go with this hiker graphic here and to make my background a little more stylish let's shorten the first and last rectangles here and for my hiker graphic let's change the color to white move it over to the right side of my design and resize it a bit I think that looks pretty good but let's go back to the elements Tab and see what other hiking Graphics we can find to use for my design to give my hiker a nice scenery to hike on I think I'll add this mountain I can now resize my mountain and move it around to the perfect location not bad it's definitely coming together I think that looks good but let's add one more graphic to fill in the bottom part of my design for my last graphic I think I'll add a hiking trail and just like the other Graphics let's change the color to white and arrange the graphics so the trail looks like it's going to the mountain to make sure you get everything exactly perfect sometimes you may have to zoom in a bit I can now use the round icon on the side here to rotate my graphic to line up with the bottom of my shapes so here's my new take a hike hiking t-shirt design feel free to add more Graphics text or shapes but I think my design looks good as is so let's click the print with canva button at the top right here and see how my design looks on some t-shirt mockups also my design was made specifically for a white shirt so let's change my mockup t-shirt color to white and there we go now my white Graphics blend in perfectly with the white shirt if you need to make any edits feel free to make some changes before ordering t-shirts or downloading Your Design if you wanted to order t-shirts directly from canva you can use the print with canva menu on the right here but for my design I'm going to download it to add to my print on demand store so let's close the menu here then go up to the top right of the page and click the share button here's where you'll find various options to share your design so let's go down to the bottom here and click the download tab here's where we can select our download settings from the file type drop down menu at the top make sure you have PNG selected this will ensure you can increase the size of your design and Export with a transparent background underneath your file type you should see the size slider bar I like to increase my design size to at least 3,500 by 4500 pixels this will ensure my design shows up clear and sharp on my t-shirt and to remove the white or colored Square from behind your design make sure you select the transparent background check box for your design to look good on t-shirts you'll have to remove the background but in order to adjust your design size and download your design with the transparent background you'll need to have a CA Pro account so once you finish selecting your download settings go ahead and click the download button and your new T-shirt design will be downloaded to your computer I can now add my design to t-shirt and other products or added to products to sell in my print on demand store so we've gone over how to use the graphics and shapes in the canva library now let's go over how to create t-shirt designs fast using canvas font combinations font combinations are pre-made font templates that you can edit and use to create text designs for your t-shirts the fonts are pre-selected to complement each other and provide a great base to start with when you want to create text designs that stand out so let's head over to canva and go over how to create t-shirt designs using font combinations from the canva homepage let's start by opening up a blank t-shirt template to do this you can search for t-shirt in the search bar up top here but I'm just going to select the create blank t-shirt option here this will open up a new 14 by8 in project that we can use to create our t-shirt design let's zoom in a bit using the slaughter bar at the bottom there we go also for my first example I think I want to have a darker background so let's select my template background here and click the color icon at the top toolbar I can then select whatever color I wish to change my background to when creating your T-shirt design you want to try to create your design on a similar color to the t-shirt that you'll be uploading to so now I'm ready to create my t-shirt design to access the font combinations let's look at the menu on the left hand side and click the text tab here's where we'll find several options to add text to our design if you scroll underneath the heading tabs here you should see the font combinations here's we can browse through tons of pre-made font templates that we can use for our design and they have several different styles and combinations and each font combination can be customized however you like they do have some free ones available but to access all the font combinations you'll need to have a canva pro account so once you find a font combination that you like simply select it to add it to your template when you first add a font combination typically the text elements will be grouped together this means we can easily resize and move everything around at at the same time so next let's select and change my top text and then change what my bottom text says as well and as you can see if you try to change your text with everything grouped together it can get a little bundled up so with my text selected here let's go down to the toolbar at the bottom and click the ungroup tab this will ungroup my text elements and allow me to resize and move each line of text individually once you finish resizing each line of text feel free to select them all and click the group tab in the toolbar to group them all together again I can now move my text around and resize it as if they were the same element if you wanted to change the font of one of your text elements simply select it then click the drop- down menu from the toolbar up top you can then use the menu on the left to select any font that you wish to use for your text so for this example let's change the font of my first line of text and also change the font for my second line of text but keep in mind when you change your font the size and alignment of your text might change as well so to fix this we'll need to ungroup our elements again and resize and arrange them as needed and once you're finished feel free to select all of your text elements and group them together again also if you want to customize your text even further such as changing the color simply select it and use the toolbar at the top here for my text I think I'll actually swap the color pattern and have my top text white and my bottom text red so here here's my first t-shirt design example using a font combination feel free to add more text Graphics or make any other edits that you like but for this example I'm going to keep it simple and go with this if you wanted to see how your design looks on t-shirt mockups go to the top of the page here and click the print with canva button this will open up a menu where you can view your design on several mockups and Order t-shirts directly from canva if you wish as well I think the design looks great and with font combinations I was able to create it super fast so let's add a new page to my project and go over another t-shirt design example using a different font combination so to access the font combinations let's look at the menu on the left hand side and click the text tab from the menu here we can scroll down and view all the font combinations available on canva so let's check out the font combinations and find one to use for my next design they all have different layouts and effects so you want to try to find one that matches the style of the design that you're trying to create for my next example I think I'll go with this font combination here and let's rearrange and drag the corners of my font combination to increase the size to fill in more of my template there we go and when you add a font combination all the text elements will be grouped together so let's select it and click the ungroup tab from the toolbar at the bottom and I can now edit each line of text individually so let's move the front text down for now so I can edit the back text and for my back text I think I'm going to change it to say world and since it has more letters now let's make the text element a bit smaller and for the front text element let's change it to say traveler and to fit on my design with this many letters I'm going to need to resize the text box I think that'll work now I can move it back in front of my back text and if you like feel free to select all your elements and resize and arrange them as needed and here's my world traveler T-shirt design created in a matter of minutes using a font combination the font combinations on canva were professionally designed to have the perfect text colors and style so printing my design as is would work perfectly but each font combination is fully customizable so feel free to change the text colors your font add effects or anything else to create your Perfect Design to help your design stand out there are several cool effects available on canva that you can add to your text to add an effect to my traveler text here let's select it and click the effects tab from the toolbar up top this will open up the effects menu with tons of different effects that you can add to your text many font combinations will already include effects such as my text here which already has the lift style enabled but we also have other style options here such as the outline effect the echo effect the hollow effect the neon effect or even add a background to your text for my traveler text here I really like the hollow effect but I think I'm going to go with the outline when you select an effect you'll notice a settings menu pop up underneath here's where you'll find several customization options for the effect you select it I'm going to change my outline color and adjust the thickness so here's my world traveler t-shirt design I think it looks pretty cool by using font combinations and adding style effects you can create some nice looking designs so let's go over one more example of creating t-shirt designs with font combinations but this time we're going to be using Graphics as well so let's start by adding our font combination by going to the text tab in the menu on the left I can then scroll down and find a good font combination to use for my design for this design I want something that's kind of bold I think this huge sale font combination will work so let's click it to add it to my template I can then resize and rearrange it as needed next let's change my top and my bottom text and I'm using more letters so everything's not fitting on the original text line so to fix this let's ungroup my text elements and resize my bottom text there we go next I think I'm going to add another line of text so let's go back over to the text menu on the left and scroll back up to the top from here I'm going to select to add a subheading I can then change the text and move it to the top of my design I'm also going to drag the corner to resize my new text I think that'll work and here's my new I need more space t-shirt design I could just roll with this but let's see if we can make it a little bit better I'm actually going to go to my middle text here delete the O and fill it in with a few spaces now that I've removed my let's look at the menu on the left hand side and go to the elements tab here's where we can search the canva library for all sorts of shapes and Graphics that we can use for our design in the search bar up top here let's search for Planet this should pull up all the elements in the canva library related to the search term of Planet since I'm only looking for graphics let's click the graphics tab at the top here I can then browse through tons of graphics on canva related to the keyword of planet for my I need more space T-shirt design I think this graphic here will work perfectly so let's click it to add it to my template resize it and move it over to fill in the empty space in my text there we go I think adding the planet really helps to take my design to the next level if you like feel free to make more changes like changing the text color changing your fonts adding effects or even adding more Graphics you can use the font combination as a base and create any type of t-shirt design that you can think of and here's my new I need more space t-shirt design to see how it looks on t-shirtt mockups let's click the print with canva button up top I can then click to enlarge the mockups and check out my new design when checking out your mockups make sure you change the shirt color to the color shirt that you plan to upload to if everything looks good you can order t-shirts directly from canva using the menu on the right but for my design I'm going to download it to add to my print on demand store so let's close the menu and at the top of the page here let's click the share button this will open up a menu with very share options at the bottom here let's click the download tab here's where we can select our download settings from the file type drop down menu make sure you have PNG selected this will allow you to adjust the size of your design and download with transparency in using the size slider bar here I like to increase the size of my design to at least 3500 by 4500 pixels and to download Your Design without the colored background behind it make sure you select the transparent background check box but keep in mind in order to to increase your design size and download it with a transparent background you'll need to have a canva pro account so once you've selected your download settings go down to the bottom here and click the download button and your new design will then be downloaded to your computer you can now use your design to create t-shirts or other products or upload it to your print on demand store to sell so as you can see using font combinations is a great way for anyone to create high quality t-shirt designs fast so that's an overview of several different ways that you can create professional t-shirt designs on canva if you enjoyed the video make sure you hit that like button and subscribe to the channel thanks for watching and I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Jason Gandy

Views: 12,303

Keywords: jason gandy, canva t-shirt design, canva t shirt design, how to design t-shirts using canva, using canva for t shirt design, create t shirt design on canva, t shirt design canva, t shirt design using canva, canva t shirt design tutorial, canva tutorial for beginners, t-shirt design tutorial, canva t shirt tutorial, how to use canva for t shirt design, how to create t shirt design in canva, use canva to design t shirt, t shirt design in canva, how to design t shirts on canva

Id: LKDaXwr8XhA

Length: 69min 41sec (4181 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024