When planning your T-Shirt campaign, the most important phase is deciding on the design (What kind of graphics will I use? What colors?) and the color of the T-shirt itself. For this stage, you have to consider your target market–their age, gender and lifestyle preferences. Hence, your T-Shirt design must deliver your product or message while appealing to the taste of your target audience.
The Most Popular T-Shirt Colors
The top 5 selling colors are White, Black, Navy, Grey and Red. This list doesn’t surprise anymore. T-shirt mills have production lines dedicated to producing blank white and blank black T-shirts. There is a market for other colors but these five make up the lion’s share of the T-shirt manufacturing business. For bolder colors, orange and royal blue are popular hues as well.
T-Shirt Colors That Work With Your Design
There are many digital tools for creating graphics so these will help you with the design. Selecting the T-Shirt color for your graphics is one of the fun phases of designing, though it can be a bit tricky. For example, some design and T-Shirt color combinations look really good on your laptop screen but not in real life as computer screens often have filters that make colors appear more vibrant. Knowing the best combinations will be helpful. Here are some suggestions:
1. White
White is the background of choice if you want your design to be the focal point. If you’ll be using artwork in bright colors, bolded fonts, big prints such as a photo or collage and black geometric figures, white is the perfect canvas. A T-shirt with a funny message plus illustration really works with a subtle white background. Also, if you’re going to use patterned accents (to embellish a shirt pocket or sleeve, for example), white is the best choice. White is a mellow and neutral hue, allowing your graphics to jump off the T-Shirt and catch attention.
2. Black
Another no-brainer combination. White design on black. From a design and print process standpoint, you can do so much with black and its color variances. Black is a perfect T-shirt color for a white geometric figure or photo and for a white font print.
3. Navy
A vintage font and graphics design works best in a navy color T-Shirt. Navy and its variations (bright navy blue, indigo dye, purple navy) work well as a backdrop for vintage fonts in white or gray.
4. Grey
Another neutral color, gray works as a background for bright colors. For a slogan T-Shirt in basic black and white (or a bolder red) fonts, gray is a good background color. Use gray as well as a backdrop for big photos or artwork in bold colors, most often seen in fashion-inspired T-Shirts. Grey also contrasts well with hyperrealist graphics and plain geometric designs. This color makes the graphics pop up.
5. Red
There will be a T-Shirt project that calls for a bolder look and using red (or even orange) will help achieve that. Think of block letters in white on a red T-Shirt, the message just pops out! Now, visualize royal blue or white block fonts on an orange T-Shirt.
These killer combinations should get you going as you do mock-ups of your T-Shirt design. These five are the safest and most popular choices, so start with them for now. Later, you will see which colors will work for a given theme and target market. Want help in your T-Shirt design project? Head on to Kanvas.ph to learn more.