Creating T-Shirt Designs for Threadless Using Aviary

By Meowza Katz on November 03, 2009 | 12 comments

Have you ever had the perfect idea for a t-shirt and wanted to see it in print? Do you ever find yourself perusing the t-shirt designs at your local clothing establishment thinking to yourself, "People get paid to design these???" Or are you just plain sick of being naked?

Whatever the case, you can satisfy any one of these problems by creating your own t-shirt designs and submitting them to threadless.com, where you can win up to $2500+ in cash and prizes, not to mention seeing your very own t-shirt design in print!

First, launch Raven, Aviary's Vector Editor, to draw your t-shirt design.

Then, it's all a matter of creating your brilliant idea using Raven's powerful vector drawing tools.


New to Raven? Here's a tutorial on the basic functions of Raven to help you get started creating vector art.

Here's the super hilarious design I drew for my shirt.

(Click to view layered file)

In the event your image is chosen for print on threadless, you'll need to provide them with your vector file. So, you'll want to export your design to .eps format.
To export the vector file of your image, select File > Export to EPS from Raven and click Save to generate an .eps for your design.
Once complete, simply press the Download button, name your file (remember to save the file with the .eps extension!), and save it to your computer!

Now that you have your design all created and ready to go, you'll need to prepare the submission files for threadless.
You will need to prepare two presentation images for submission; one low resolution preview of your design, and a 100px x 70px thumbnail.

Creating your submission files in Aviary is simple!
First, open the Threadless tee template in Raven, the Vector Editor.
Then, select which color t-shirt you want your design to appear on from the Layers Panel by enabling the "eye" icon next to the t-shirt color of your choice.


Next, you'll need to import your design into the template.
Select File > Import file, and select Aviary Library. From here, you can select your t-shirt design and import it directly into the template.


Then, you'll want to export a bitmap version of this image which you can upload to threadless.
Select, File > Export Bitmap and press "generate image" to save the bitmap image to your computer.


Finally, you'll need to generate a thumbnail of your image as well. You can do this by opening your t-shirt design file in Phoenix, and using the Image > Resize Image function to fit the 100px x 70px size specifics.

Then, it's all a matter of uploading your design to threadless using their handy submission form.
Then sit back, wait for the money to roll in, and do it all over again!

Go on and create some t-shirt designs yourself!
Fame and fortune await you!

Be sure to read through all the documentation provided on threadless.com prior to submitting your designs.