How to use Inkscape to create a simple t-shirt design for printing on Cafepress

This is a simple overview of the steps needed to create a simple, text based t-shirt in the Open Source vector graphic program Inkscape and then upload your design to Cafepress where it can be printed onto a t-shirt.

Have you ever had an idea for a sharp one liner you'd like to see on a t-shirt? Maybe a single word, just your name, your pet's, name or the town you live in? - something that's personal to you?

Well now you can. A new generation of print-on-demand companies like Cafepress can make it a reality. Web based print-on-demand company Cafepress can print one, two or thousands of your design on t-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, mugs or many other items, each unique design as personal as you are. And you don't need to master screen printing or buy in stock, worry about deliveries, payments, holding stock etc. Cafepress will print and deliver as many items as your request from their website, all you need to so is up-load your design, decide which blank t-shirt you want it printed on and order a copy. Cafepress will do the rest. If you decide later that maybe other people might like to buy your item you can even create your own on-line shop on the Cafepress site and offer your designs to a wider public. Thousands of people are already making money doing this right now.

Of course in order to create a professional looking t-shirt design you're going to have to master a professional style vector graphic art program like Corel Draw, or are you? Welcome to the wonderful world open source software - for every commercial full price application that exists there is probably a free open source equivalent which will do much the same - but without the hefty price tag of a full commercial application. The application I want to draw your attention to is an open source vector graphic application called Inkscape, a highly specified vector drawing program that will allow you to create professional quality graphics suitable for Cafepress but without the price tag of it's commercial equivalent. In fact, and here's the nice surprise, Inkscape is free!

A vector graphic program, such as Inkscape will produce output that will scale in size smoothly up to the size required for a t-shirt. Cafepress requires a graphic for the front of a full size t-shirt which is ten inches square. The graphic must be in the .png file format and have the background colour set to transparent. If you produce a graphic in another package you may without knowing have set the background to white, which will appear transparent when viewed on a white screen but is actually set to a specific colour. A graphic like this would print as a white ten inch square with your design in the middle. If printed on a white t-shirt the background would still be visible but not obvious. However if you printed this designs on a coloured or black t-shirt the white box would be clearly visible and spoil the design. To overcome this you need to create a design on a transparent background. Inkscape can do this.

Let's assume, to start with, that you want to create a simple, text only design, perhaps a few words or a catchphrase. Although Inkscape is capable of a producing complex, multilayered, multi coloured designs how to do these is outside the scope of this article. As an introduction to using Inkscape with Cafepress we'll start by looking at a simple text based design.

Before we do this though let me state that that we can't just print any string of text that we want to - oh no! - we have to consider copyright issues. Even a single word or phase of a few letters might be recognised and copyrighted trademark. Things like name of sports team or band, products logos, company names, celebrities names etc. are all intellectual property which belong to their respective copyright owners. Cafépress will also, quite rightly, not print obscenities or sexist or racist language likely to cause offence. Cafepress terms of services give guidance on what is acceptable and what isn't.

Even though we are only going to be using text in this exercise there is still massive scope for the creative imagination, consider

• Using Text effects - smileys etc.
• Employing Equations
• Exploiting Underlining and italics
• Different Colours
• Various Fonts

It always amazes me how much meaning can be added to a simple word or phrase by selecting the right font. Certain fonts have certain associations and meanings, and the same word or phrase can be given many different shades of meaning by selecting a different font. Inkscape using the installed True Type fonts but many more free and artistic looking fonts can be downloaded from the web. A few minutes Googling free fonts will open your eyes a little.

OK let's get started, remember this is only and overview of the basic process and you will need to spend several hours with Inkscape going through the excellent tutorials if you want to create more adventurous designs, so let's get started.

Download and install Inkscape select the latest stable version for your operating system.

Download and install additional fonts.

Open an account with Cafepress, spend some time browsing their site and read their tutorials. Read their Terms of Service, browse what product they offer and on which you would like your design printed.

In Inkscape prepare the canvas by opening the Document Properties dialog box "File > Document Properties". In the "Custom Size" area in the "Format" section select "in" - inches as the unit of measurement and then enter 10 as the width and then 10 as the height. The drawing canvas should turn square. In the "General Section" is a bar titled "Background" click this to open the "Background Colour" dialog box. Make sure the bottom selected bar for the Alpha channel is set to 0, this creates a transparent background. Close the "Document Properties" dialog box

On the toolbox on the left of the screen select the text tool ( tip - the tool help text "Create And Edit Text Objects (F8)" will appear when you hover over the correct button). Clicking on this changes the curser. Starting at the top left of the page drag and drop down to the bottom right hand corner to create an empty text box in which to enter your text. Next type away! you will notice that the text is so small as to be unreadable so the next step is to increase the font size. This text box acts like a kind of mini word processor, when your text has filled the box you can change the font, font size or text alignment by using the buttons which appear on the text formatting toolbar at the top of the drawing canvas window. You can even experiment with running the text vertically - from top to bottom. When you are satisfied that you have filled the text box to it optimum size then you can experiment by dragging colour fills from the bottom swatch onto your text.

Using the Select tool at the top of the toolbar on the left hand side of the screen select the text block, its time to centre our text block on the page now. Do this by opening the "Align and Distribute" dialog box from the "Object" menu. Select "Page" as the object we want to align relative to and then click on the "Centre on Vertical Axis" then the "Centre on Horizontal Axis" icons in the Align section. This should centre your text page on the page.

We're done! all we need to do is export your creation as a .png file. Open the "Export Bitmap" dialog box on the File menu, check the unit are inches and that the image size is as we set it originally. Browse to a location on your hard disk and enter a meaningful name for our graphic file and don't forget the .png extension on the end. Inkscape will export your file ready to be uploaded to Cafepress

From your newly created Cafepress account log in and go to your Image Basket, the Images tab should be selected. Click on the "Upload Image" button and browse to the location where you saved the .png created previously. When the file has been success fully uploaded you will see the image preview. Beneath it are three buttons which you can use to select a background on which your graphic preview is show. Select the first, left most option "show transparency" . If your background is transparent you should see the grey and white checkerboard background behind your design. You can now add your design to a t-shirt and order it to be printed. The Cafepress site will guide you though these steps.

This has been just a very brief overview of the steps you create a basic t-shirt using Inkscape. Once you really start to use this superb application you soon unleash the creativity inside you and begin thinking analytically in terms of how a complex design can be built up from similar element. Once you get in to the swing you can also upgrade your Cafepress account to a full professional shop and sell your designs to a global market. Happy designing!