July 12, 2023

Podcast: How to Start a T-shirt Business Using AI Images

Written by
Lucie Colomb

An effective T-shirt design is a balance of appealing aesthetics and audience-centric messaging. To kickstart our brainstorming session, we turned to ChatGPT and generated some themes:

Nostalgia Wave: Designs reflecting past decades' vibes (80s, 90s, 2000s), including pop culture, retro gaming, and vintage aesthetics.

Mindfulness and Positivity: Shirts carrying motivational quotes or symbols related to mindfulness, yoga, and wellness.

Eco-conscious and Sustainability: Designs promoting environmental awareness, featuring endangered species, nature conservation, and climate change.

Geek Chic: T-shirts catering to fandoms - comics, sci-fi, fantasy, anime, or popular TV shows and movies.

Artistic Expressions: Collaborating with local artists to create unique designs, potentially linked to certain art movements or styles.

Fitness and Sports: Shirts themed around different sports, fitness methodologies, or motivational fitness quotes.

For the podcast episode, we went with the Nostalgia Wave, specifically the 90s theme.

Designing with BlueWillow

Creating designs with BlueWillow is easy, even for non-designers. We illustrated this by generating 90s-inspired T-shirt graphics featuring popular culture symbols, vibrant colors, retro and patterns. BlueWillow subscribers have the advantage of generating 4K resolution images, which are critical for non-pixelated, high-quality prints.

Here are some prompts we used: 

Generate a T-shirt graphic inspired by the 90s, featuring graphics from popular cultures, music players, and vibrant colors.

Create a T-shirt graphic with a 90s theme, incorporating pixel art, graffiti-style text, and iconic 90s symbols.

Generate a graphic for a T-shirt inspired by the 90s, featuring a pop of neon colors, cassette tapes, retro patterns, and palm trees. Feel free to include popular quotes or sayings from the 90s in a bold font among the graphic.

Selecting a Print on Demand Platform

After creating the design, the next step is choosing a platform to sell your products. We recommended two options: Amazon's Merch by Amazon program and Printful, a leading print-on-demand service.

Merch by Amazon provides access to a vast customer base and straightforward product setup, but requires an application process and offers limited product options. 

Printful, on the other hand, offers a wider variety of products, customizable printing techniques, and integration with numerous eCommerce platforms. It's free to use, and you can set your pricing and profit per T-shirt. Both platforms handle printing, packing, and shipping, letting you focus on design and sales.

Wrapping Up

Launching your T-shirt business doesn't have to be complicated. With BlueWillow's AI, your creativity, and platforms like Amazon or Printful, you're ready to take the entrepreneurial leap.

We're excited to see the designs you'll create! 

Lastly, don't forget to join our VIP waitlist for early access to our upcoming web app and enjoy double the free credit! Visit BlueWillow.AI and sign up today. The first 50k people will be prioritized, so hurry!

Stay inspired and keep creating!