DesignFix Design Studio
Apparel and merchandise design
Apparel is unforgiving. A graphic that looks perfect on screen can come off the press with soft edges, a visible box around it, or colours that separated into the wrong number of screens. We design apparel graphics from scratch and we prepare existing ones so they survive the process they're going through.
What this covers
What we work on in apparel & merch
Original apparel graphics
New designs for shirts, hoodies, caps, totes and merchandise, drawn for the size they'll actually be printed at.
Print-method preparation
The same design set up differently for DTF, DTG or screen print, because each one wants something different from the file.
Redraws and rescues
A logo or graphic rebuilt cleanly when the only version you have is small, blurry, or lifted from a photo.
Clothing brand artwork
Front prints, back prints, sleeve hits, neck labels and tags kept visually consistent across a range.
Projects that fit here
Examples of the kind of thing people send us. If yours isn’t on the list, describe it anyway.
- A t-shirt graphic drawn from a rough idea or a sketch
- A design your printer sent back for being low resolution or having a white box behind it
- One graphic prepared as separate files for DTF and for screen print
- A range of shirts that need to look like they belong to the same brand
- Text and lettering redrawn as vector so it stays sharp at any size
- A customer's supplied artwork cleaned up before it goes on the press
Who this tends to be for
Print shops and garment decorators
When a customer sends artwork that can't be used and nobody has time to redraw it in-house.
Clothing brands
Designing a range, or keeping artwork consistent as it moves between suppliers and print methods.
Anyone printing merchandise once
Event shirts, team kit, staff uniforms, giveaways — jobs where the artwork only has to be right once, but it does have to be right.
Why apparel artwork gets rejected, and what fixes it
Most rejected apparel files fail for one of a few reasons, and none of them are visible on a phone screen. The resolution is too low for the print size, so edges break up. Transparency was flattened somewhere in the file's history, so what looked cut-out prints as a rectangle. Fine detail that reads clearly at thumbnail size disappears entirely at 12 inches on fabric.
The print method matters as much as the artwork. DTF and DTG will reproduce a photographic image with soft gradients; screen printing wants flat, separated colours and will not thank you for a drop shadow. A design that is genuinely ready for one is often not ready for the other, and preparing it properly means different work in each case.
That is the part we handle. We can design the graphic from the start with its print method in mind, or take what you already have and rebuild it so it holds up — redrawing as vector where the original is too degraded to save, separating colours where the process needs it, and making sure the transparency is real rather than painted on.
If you're not sure which process you're printing with, that's a fine thing to work out in the conversation. It usually changes what we recommend.
More specific
Looking for something particular?
These go into more detail on the work people most often ask about here.
T-Shirt Design
Graphics for tees, drawn new or rebuilt from what you have, and set up to print.
Hoodie Design
Front, back, chest and sleeve artwork for heavyweight garments.
DTF Design
Artwork built or rebuilt for direct-to-film, with transparency that is actually transparent.
Screen Print Design
Designs simplified, vectorised and separated so they can actually go on screens.
Embroidery Design
Designs simplified and adapted so they can be stitched — artwork, not digitising.
How it works
From a sentence to a finished design
- Step 1
Tell us what you need
One or two sentences is enough to start. You don't have to know what the work is called or which category it belongs in.
- Step 2
We discuss the project
We ask what we need to know — where it will be used, what size, what it has to work on — and tell you honestly what is and isn't possible.
- Step 3
Share files or references
Send the artwork you already have, a photo, a sketch, or examples of the look you're after. Files go straight into private storage.
- Step 4
You get a custom offer
A written scope and a fixed price for your project specifically. Nothing is charged and nothing is started until you accept it.
- Step 5
Approve and pay
Accepting the offer creates the order and takes you to payment. Decline it or ignore it and nothing happens.
- Step 6
We complete the design
The work runs through the same production and delivery process as every other DesignFix order, with revisions included in the scope.
What to send us
You don't need to know what to ask for
None of this is required, and a single sentence is enough to start. It's simply what tends to be useful, so a first message doesn't turn into three.
Whatever artwork you have
The file itself, however rough — an export, a screenshot, a photo of something printed, or the version a supplier rejected.
A reference or a sketch
Something you like the look of, a rough drawing, or an existing design you want the new work to sit alongside.
Where it's going
The product, the size, and the process if you know it. Print, garment, screen or sign changes what the artwork has to be.
Any specification you were given
A printer's requirements, a supplier's template, or the rejection message you received — that usually says exactly what needs fixing.
Colours and brand material
Existing brand colours, fonts or guidelines, so new work matches what you already have.
What you want changed
A sentence is enough. "Make this printable", "this needs to work on a dark shirt", "I want something like this but ours".
Questions
Common questions
Tell us what you need
Describe the project in a sentence or two. We’ll ask what we need to know, then send a written scope and a fixed price before anything is charged.