Design Your Own Hoodie: Artwork Tips That Save Money
By The Velocity Wear Team
Designing your own hoodie is genuinely fun. It's also where a lot of money gets wasted, not on the hoodie but on artwork that has to be reworked, colours that need extra screens, and prints sized for a phone screen instead of a human chest. Here are the fixes.
1. Get the file format right
Vector files are best: AI, EPS, SVG or PDF saved from a design program. They scale to any size without going fuzzy. If you're working in Canva or Photoshop, export a PNG at 300 DPI at the actual print size, with a transparent background.
What doesn't work: a screenshot, a JPEG from Instagram, or a logo copied off your website. They look fine small and terrible when blown up across someone's back.
2. Size prints for real bodies
- Left chest logo: about 8 to 10 cm wide.
- Centre chest: about 20 to 28 cm wide, sitting above the pocket.
- Full back: about 28 to 35 cm wide on an adult hoodie.
- Sleeve: a narrow vertical strip, roughly 5 to 8 cm wide.
Remember the hood. When it's down, it covers the top of the back. Start a back print a few centimetres lower than you'd think.
3. Fewer colours, better result
With screen printing, each colour is a separate screen, and every screen adds cost. A design in two colours often looks bolder and more confident than the same design in eight. If you truly need full colour, DTF printing avoids the per-colour cost. See hoodie printing methods.
4. Test your fonts at size
Print your design on paper at actual size and hold it up at arm's length. Thin fonts vanish. Tiny text becomes a grey smudge. If you can't read it from a couple of metres away, neither can anyone else.
5. Think about the hoodie colour
Dark ink on a dark hoodie disappears. Bright colours on a black hoodie sometimes need an extra white layer underneath, which adds cost. A light grey or cream hoodie is kind to most designs. Tonal designs, where the print is close to the hoodie colour, are very on-trend but need to be deliberate.
6. Check you're allowed to use it
Band logos, football club badges, cartoon characters and brand names belong to someone. A hoodie for your own group is one thing, but selling hoodies with someone else's trademark will get you into trouble. Use your own artwork or properly licensed images.
7. Mock it up before you commit
Drop your design onto a hoodie in our design studio. Seeing it on a garment catches problems that look fine in a flat file: a print that's too big, a colour that clashes, a logo that sits too high.
Where to get help with artwork
If you're not a designer, freelance illustrators and graphic designers can turn a rough sketch into print-ready vector artwork. Give them the hoodie colour, print sizes, the method you plan to use and any colour references. Ask for the final file as a vector and confirm you own the rights to use it on clothing.
Then send it over
We'll check your artwork before production and send a proof. If something won't print well, we'll say so. Minimum 20 per design, sizes mixed, 10 to 15 working days after approval. Start with custom hoodies.
