OShirt was designed from the ground up to be “Photoshop for t-shirt design made easy”. As such we have made it very easy for you to design a t-shirt quickly. However, there are also many features that many people don’t know about. Both simple and advanced in nature. We’ve written a guide to seven of our favorites.
1. Image fill for shapes and text
Text and shapes can be filled in with photos to create some amazing design elements.
This effect works best with bold and beautiful fonts like Luckiest Guy, Peace, Abril Fatface, Sigmar One. See our recent article on the most popular fonts used in t-shirt designs for some more inspiration.
Select the text (or shape) you want to fill with an image and for text select fill and and then image (shapes will have a fill with image option). You will then be prompted to choose where to get your images from.
Tip: Use an image that has a subject that fills the space well as there is no option (currently) to crop the image.
Pro tip: Combine it with number 2 for some really amazing effects
2. Cut out text (and shapes)
The evil twin brother of image fill — cut out allows you to punch out images below to create a negative effect. The area that is cut out is not printed on when your t-shirt is made so it shows through the fabric underneath the photo.
To use it — select text or a a shape, place it over your image and select fill then cut-out.
Tip: Make sure your photo and t-shirt color have good contrast to get the most out of this feature.
3. Overlay effects
OShirt has some filters that you can apply to your whole design to produce certain effects.
The most popular by far is the vintage effect which makes your t-shirts look like they are twenty years old without feeling worn. Perfect for retro designs that look pre-worn.
To use effects make sure no objects are selected and click the lightning bolt effect button.
4. Double tap to edit text
Have you tried one of the many templates in oShirt and wondered how to customize the text? Well fear no more. All text can be double tapped which will pop up a text entry box and you can just modify that text as you please.
Not much else we can say about this easy but not well known feature.
5. Editing and placement tools
One of the most powerful yet least understood features of the app is the editing toolbar. Every object has the same bar and it is given a distinctive orange color so you can’t miss it.
Here’s an infographic explaining what the tools are for
6. Curved text
Did you know you can bend text with oShirt? This is a commonly used technique in t-shirt design and is used on everything from grunge band shirts through to the GAP.
After you’ve added your text, select it and tap on bend (hint: if you can’t see it you can slide the text options bar left and right to show all the tools), you can then choose the type of bend you want and the direction.
When deciding what text to bend remember that it doesn’t work well with just a few characters. Even a slight bend is best with six or more characters.
If you want to turn text into a circle you will need at least a phrase to make it all the way around. Leave a space at the end (and you can add a star or a dash) otherwise your words will bump into each other when wrapped around. You may need to rotate your text using two finger rotation (or the handle).
7. Alignment guides
Moving text, shapes and images on a tiny phone screen with your finger can be a challenge at the best of times. When you need to accurately place them it’s even harder.
OShirt has a number of features to make pixel perfect placement much easier.
Watch the video below and you’ll see that as you drag any object around the screen a number of guides will pop up to help you and as you move the object close to this guide your object will be snapped to the guide.
Garment vertical and horizontal center guides — These are the lines that show up as you move the center of your text (or other object) close to the center of the garment. Your object will be snapped to the center when moved close and you can override this by just pulling away.
Related object center and outside guides and snap. Again watching the video above you can see as the left side of the word Quick approaches the left side of The a vertical purple guide shows up to indicate they are almost aligned. As you get closer the words are snapped to the same position. This feature is great for lining up rows of text.
What’s your favorite t-shirt design tool?
Let us know in the comments below.
Now that you’re ready to start making some amazing designs you can download oShirt for Android or iOS below:
