Top 10 Biggest Print on Demand Design Mistakes

Have you recently started your Print on Demand journey? Not sure if you’re sabotaging your sales by making any major Print on Demand design mistakes?

Don’t worry, you will soon know every design no-no that many beginners make.

Once you are armed with this knowledge you will be ready to finally crack into the successful world of Print on Demand.

If you still need help starting your Print on Demand journey I have created the ultimate beginner’s guide to Print on Demand that will propel you to success!

No Transparent Background

This is the BIGGEST mistake I see time and time again on new POD stores.

You can see from the picture above that having a white background around your design looks very unprofessional and detracts from your design.

Having a transparent background will make your design look cleaner on your product and will make your shop look more credible and established.

If you are working on Procreate you can just untick the background colour on your canvas and save your design as a PNG.

When designing on Canva you will have to get Canva Pro to be able to save with a transparent background.

If you are on a budget however, you can use free tools such as Photopea to either create your designs and save with a transparent background or remove the background from your existing designs.

Using the wrong sized canvas

You will have to check with your Print on Demand supplier what size canvas they recommend. But if they suggest a few for various products, use the largest.

I do this for Redbubble so I only have to make my design once for it to fit on every product. A design can always be scaled down, but never up, without compromising image quality.

I use the recommend resolution of 7632 x 6480px for Redbubble (this fits every product up to and including the king sized Duvet cover).

You should also aim to fill the whole canvas with your design so that it has more impact. It will also make your product more eye-catching and easier to read when the customer is scrolling through your shop.

Using Gradients/Ombres

Whilst there is no rule against using gradient colours in your designs I would strongly advise against it.

It may look good when uploaded to your shop but once printed on to your products gradients often look blotchy and washed out. This is because gradient effects are difficult to achieve on most print on demand printers.

I would recommend sticking to solid colours for a bold and professional finish.

Choosing the wrong product for your design

Whilst I often recommend putting your designs on as many products as possible there are a few key exceptions you should stick to for a professional looking shop.

For products with “all over printing” you should create patterns and steer clear of photos.
Don’t place a text-based design on a product that will cut off your text or make it hard to read. E.g. leggings or socks.
Keep photographs to flat products such as posters and greetings cards.

Not creating Original Designs

It goes without saying that all designs you upload must be yours and designed or owned solely by you.

You must also avoid any trademarks in your designs. Don’t create any Disney or other franchised merchandise.

You can check if a phrase or theme is trademarked using the free tool Trademarkia.

Many shops have been suspended or shutdown due to trademarked designs so don’t risk your shop for one design!

Not making enough designs

Many people get disheartened when starting POD when the sales don’t immediately roll in.

You may have poured your heart into some amazing designs that you are sure will sell. You upload them with great titles and keywords, publish them and…

*crickets*

Don’t be disheartened! This is very normal!

To become an established shop on whatever platform you are on you will need many designs!

More designs makes you seem more established and trustworthy.

You also need to go through some trial and error to see what designs will work best for you.

I would highly recommend getting to at least 100 designs before you even consider throwing in the towel.

If you have over 100 quality designs and still have no sales, you may then want to look into what you need to improve on.

Making too many designs

On the flip side, I don’t want you to hear my advice and quickly upload 100 designs in a couple of days and think you are sorted.

Yes, you should get as many designs as possible, but you must prioritise Quality over Quantity.

Customers will not purchase low quality designs even if you have thousands of them!

So stay at your own pace and make as many high-quality designs as you can. But don’t be discouraged if that takes you a couple of months at first.

Choosing the Wrong Background Colour

If you have the choice of the background colour of the product, make sure you choose the best colour for your design.

You want your design to stand out as much as possible so don’t use similar colours for both your design and the background.

If you are creating text-based designs the most popular colour for t-shirts and apparel is a black background with white text.

If you are unsure with what colour to choose I would recommend sticking to either black or white depending on whether your design is light or dark respectively.

Not using Bold Fonts

If you are creating text-based designs then you must make sure it will be easily read when the customer is scrolling through multiple designs and the product photo is small.

Choose a Bold, simple font so that the words are clear and easy to read.

You will want to avoid any complicated, “swirly” fonts because these will be too hard to read and customers will just scroll on by.

Not cleaning up your canvas

This especially applies if you draw your own designs on Procreate or photoshop.

Before you save your final design you need to check that the rest of your canvas is completely clear.

If you don’t and there is a small dot or line then this will become very obvious once it is printed on the product for the customer.

This is a big problem if you sell stickers as it is likely that, that dot or line will be printed out as a separate sticker as you can see above.

To easily check that your canvas is clean you can simply change the background colour of your canvas to the opposite of your design and this should make any marks more obvious.

There you have it!

The top 10 design mistakes you may have made when starting Print on Demand.

Now you can spend a little while amending your designs so they are the best quality for your shop.

Have any more design tips? Let us know down in the comments below and we can help each other!

You can also ask any Print on Demand questions either in the comments or email me at: [email protected] and I will be happy to help.