Choosing a good typography for any design in general can be quite challenging, especially when it comes to T-shirts. It is vital to select a font that truly enhances the message intended to be communicated through the t-shirt. This ensures that not only reading but also appreciating the design helps to understand what is being conveyed. For instance, during Halloween, one of the stores where I buy thematic items was selling t-shirts. When passing by, it wasn’t necessary to know what the message was, as the typography and design alone could convey the meaning of the t-shirt.

Typography is one of the most important elements of any design. When it comes to t-shirt designs, it can have great impact on the intention and overall aesthetic of the design, be it as a strictly visual element or by communicating a message or slogan to the observer by drawing their eyes towards the text elements in the design.

In t-shirt design, typography is used as a stylized visual element to explicitly communicate a message via readable text, while enhancing the aesthetic appeal of the concept as a whole by integrating the text elements into the design.

It involves not only selecting the best font style, but also taking into consideration multiple design elements to convey messages and emotions in the best way depending on what you’re trying to communicate.

Crafting T-Shirt Statements with Typography

Crafting a visually appealing text composition starts with choosing an appropriate font style that fits into the concept and message you’re communicating. With this in mind, we should start by taking a quick look at the taxonomy of typefaces. The various typography designs you’re familiar with such as Serif, Sans-serif, and Script, are all typically applied in different contexts, according to their design elements, to fullfill a need within a composition.

Broadly speaking, all fonts can be classified within four types, organized as:

• Print
• Digital
• Functional
• Expressive

Within each of these broad categories you’ll come across all styles of typography, and, inevitably, these categories will overlap with eachother.

Print

The first thing to consider for any given project would be the font style. For print, serif fonts generally work better than sans serif fonts, due to having “serifs” attached to their letters that help guide the eyes smoothly through each letter and word, making it easier to read large volumes of small printed texts. This is naturally not a huge consideration when it comes down to typography for t-shirt design, however, in this context, serifs can be considered more as a stylistic choice instead of a practical one.

Dylan Todd, in his article for Adobe “Typography Basics: Serif vs Sans Serif,” mentions that serif typography offers greater legibility at small scales. This means it doesn’t require as many details to be an easily readable font. This is an important characteristic in both print and design.

One of the issues when printing typography on t-shirts is that some fonts tend to distort due to their design. In other words, for printing, the simpler or more traditional the font, the better.

If you’re looking for the perfect typography for printing, we recommend the Sans-serif Display Fonts Bundle, which is ideal for printing, with excellent quality. It features 9 unique font families and 30+ fonts & variations. Desktop font files in OTF & TTF formats.

Digital

Fonts intended for use on the web are optimized and often modified to enhance readability and performance onscreen in a variety of digital environments. This can include a taller x-height (or reduced ascenders and descenders), wider letterforms, more open counters, heavier thin strokes and serifs, reduced stroke contrast, as well as modified curves and angles for some designs. Another important adjustment – especially for fonts intended for smaller sizes – is more open spacing.

Arial, Verdana and Tahoma fonts are among the most widely used on the web – this is an important datapoint, since designs should not only be appealling and relatable, but also, on the technical side, they should be compatible and accessible to a wide range of users.

Functional

As its name implies, Funcional Typography encompasses all styles and families of fonts that are only meant to be read, without any added decorative elements. While it can be argued that “all” typography is meant to be read, as we’ve discussed so far, reading is not its only function, specially in contemporary Graphic Design and specifically T-Shirt Design. You can find this typography in this Handwritten Fonts Pack

Expressive

Commonly referred to as Decorative or Display fonts, Expressive fonts will feature a variety of additional stylistic design elements meant to enhance their visual appeal, and are typically reserved for specific purposes such as logo design, headlines, complex compositions such as calligrams, and, you guessed it, t-shirt design concepts.

You can find this type of fonts with us. This Creative Display Fonts Bundle is perfect for web, with 22 creative font families, in files in OTF WOFF & TTF formats, for desktop, print, and digital design. Additionally, it features an all-caps typographic style with a variety of designs: stencil, retro 60’s, 80’s and 90’s, futuristic, outlined, and others.

Different Styles of Typography

You’ll find that every single font out there falls into at least one of these four categories, and while there are many different styles of typography organized according to the design elements each one of them features, we can broadly categorize them into the following styles:

Why is any of this important? Other than maintaining harmony within your t-shirt design concepts to make sure they are cohesive and visually appealing, there many other implications, like the custom t-shirt printing market being estimated at $3.9M in 2023. The industry is growing, and you can make sure your designs attract an audience by bringing professional, quality content into this ecosystem!

Typography Trends in T-Shirt Designs

In typography trends for t-shirt designs, you’ll find vintage, retro, clean, and minimalist fonts. Additionally, the old rules of using the same font throughout the entire design no longer apply. Now, using different types of fonts is encouraged, as it adds more originality to the t-shirt.

For the collection of designs we created on our other site, tshirtdesigns.com, we used various trending fonts. The “aesthetic” style is one trend that has remained popular throughout the year. Among these fonts are “Helvetica,” “Rustico Font,” “Macbeth Font,” and “Renitha Font,” among others, which allow for a mix of classic and modern styles.

Following this line of thought, let’s explore our top picks for the 8 best packs of typographic t-shirt designs. Each one of the following collections feature text as an integral part of the t-shirt design illustration, and, in some cases, feature typography as the main element within the composition.

100+ Typography T-Shirt Designs Bundle – 5 Vector Formats & Print-Ready PNG Files

This pack includes 100 typography t-shirt designs featuring a big variety of quotes and lettering styles, each one with 100% vector source files as well as print-ready artwork. 

Each design is delivered in 5 different vector source formats (Ai, EPS, CDR, SVG and PSD).

The letters are vector shapes which means you can modify their sizes, shapes, colors and more without damaging the image quality. 

Vector Christmas Designs Pack – 650+ EPS, SVG & PNG Designs

In this pack you will find a collection of vector Christmas designs featuring more than 650 quotes, typographic compositions, t-shirt designs and illustrations, wreaths, frames and more! 

Every asset of this bundle comes in EPS and SVG vector formats. They’re fully editable and you can customize them to your own taste: change colors, add and remove elements, scale elements up and down, all without losing image quality.

Display Typography Bundle with 86 Fonts from 26 Families

This typography pack contains 26 distinct font families including Serif, Sans-Serif and Slab Serif fonts with a variety of different design styles. 

This bundle includes a total of 86 fonts with vintage design styles, brushed, blackletters, signature/handwritten fonts, pop art fonts, script monoline fonts and many more with uniquely shaped glyphs that will change the overall look of any composition you apply them to.

These fonts come in OTF and TTF formats featuring multi language support, stylistic alternate characters and standard ligatures, multiple versions and weights on several families, and unique lettering style. 

Vintage T-Shirts Bundle, 200 Print Ready T-Shirt Designs with Vector Sources 

This pack features 200 unique illustrations for merchandise that are absolutely perfect for your vintage t-shirt designs, featuring various themes including sports, classic motorcycles and cars, boxing, airplanes and many others. 

The designs are delivered with 100% vector sources as well as print-ready full color files that you can start using right away!

Every design in the package is delivered in 5 different vector source files (including Ai, PSD, CDR, EPS and SVG formats). 

The texts on these designs are also editable, you can modify the slogans and words easily.

Every design also includes a print-ready PNG file, exported at a transparent background at full color, dimensions 3500x4900px, high resolution and print ready at 300dpi.

600 T-Shirt Designs Megabundle – Ai, EPS & SVG Vector Files, Print Ready!

This massive design bundle collection of 600 cool t-shirt designs delivered in a good variety of formats, including Ai, EPS, SVG, CDR and PSD layered source files. 

All of the designs are fully editable, 100% vector shapes that you can scale, resize, recolor, and customize as you would like without losing image quality. You also can edit the fonts/text content as well. 

This collection also delivers every design with 1-2 transparent PNG variants, print-ready at 300dpi. These can be perfect for all types of content, from digital media to print, and with the fully editable files included, you can customize them completely without much knowledge of graphic design. 

Ultimate Retro T-Shirt Designs Bundle: 300 Unique Designs, Vector Ai, PSD, SVG, EPS & CDR Files

In this ultimate retro t-shirt designs pack from Dan Roach you will find 3 t-shirt design volumes containing 300 unique designs. 

Every design is delivered in fully editable and layered Ai, PSD, EPS, SVG and CDR files that you can easily customize, resize, edit, add and remove text and export for printing. 

It comes with a wide variety of different illustrations and themes: skulls, sports, motorcycles, music, wrestling and many more, all with retro style elements that you can customize to your taste. 

100+ Textured Display Fonts Pack, 15 Unique Font Families

This bundle of neat textured typography features over 100 fonts from 15 font families, bringing you everything from vintage fonts with light and heavy distress to brush stroke fonts, sci-fi themed fonts and many more. 

The package comes with 15 separate font families with files TTF and OTF formats, with international characters for multi language support, a large selection of different font styles like serif, sans-serif, script fonts, and others. It also has a bunch of different textures to be able to suit your designs to any different type: logo designs, t-shirt designs, branding, labels and presentations. 

Twisted Fonts Pack – 20+ Bold & Heavy Fonts for Display 

This bundle of distorted fonts features 22 different font families created with heavy and bold shapes, twisted characters, decorative swashes and font variations. 

The fonts in this package are all delivered in OTF and TTF file formats. Their designs are a mix of vintage, psychedelic 60s and 70s typography, and more modern font designs, which you can use in posters, t-shirt designs, and branding projects. 

You can apply them on any other print or digital design project where you need your typography to stand out in the best way! 

Now, to conclude, it’s necessary to determine that the style chosen for the t-shirt is directly related to the font selected, along with the intention behind the design. Therefore, it’s important to consider advice such as that of Joaquín Lluis, an expert in typography, who said, “Arranging typographic elements according to hierarchy, weight, and size is key to achieving high-quality designs on t-shirts.” It’s worth emphasizing that from the design of the shirt, characteristics such as thickness, measurements, hierarchy, etc., should be taken into account to ensure a quality design.