How to create a T-shirt design

General T-shirt design specifications

Color of the T-Shirt	Up to you! You can choose white, black, Fedora blue, or any color you want to work with. Note that printing on darker color shirts can cost slightly more, so make sure you get quotes for both dark and light-colored shirts if cost is a very big concern.
Number of Colors for Print	Generally we use 3 colors on Fedora T-shirts: white, Fedora blue, and Fedora dark blue. (On a dark shirt, this ends up being technically '4-color' because a white color is printed underneath the design.)
Sides of T-Shirt to design for	You can create a 2-sided (front & back) design if you'd like! Or you can pick one design. It's up to you and the budget involved. For example, it may cost the same to print 1-color on the front AND back, or to print 2-color on only the front.
Main T-shirt design	You'll need to adhere to the Fedora logo usage guidelines if you intend to use the Fedora logo in your design. You'll also need a copy of the Fedora logo if you'd like to use it in the design: instructions on getting a copy are on the Fedora logo usage guidelines page.
Logos	The Fedora logo should appear somewhere on the shirt. There are also three corporate sponsors whose logos must be placed on the T-shirt. Those sponsors are in order, Red Hat, JBoss.org, and Indifex. I will email all of these logos to the designer who claims this task directly. Please understand these corporate logos are trademarked and need to be treated sensitively, which is why they are not posted on this wiki.
Fonts	You'll want to use Comfortaa and/or Cantarell for any text you've got on the T-shirt in most circumstances. Instructions on installing these are below.
Recommended Software to Use	We recommend using Inkscape to create the design itself, and using Scribus to convert the design to CMYK color.

T-SHIRT FINAL FILE FORMAT SPECIFICATIONS

Maximum canvas size per side	Your designs should fit within a 12" x 14" canvas, but don't feel obligated to take up this full space. Be creative! You can just do an upper right small chest print logo on the front, or a short design along the bottom, or a small logo aligned to the top of the back shoulders - it's up to you. The 12" x 14" is just the absolute max limit.
File Formats	* The final file format for the printer should be PDF. * Please also save and provide your Inkscape SVG file(s) * Please also save and provide your Scribus SLA file(s).

RESOURCES

Suggested Workflow

1. Sketch out a few ideas/concepts and email them to the Fedora Design Team list.
2. Once you've gotten approval on moving forward with one of your designs on the design-team list, import your sketch into Inkscape and import the [#T-Shirt_Mockup_Template T-Shirt mockup template file] into the same Inkscape file. Start implementing your design in Inkscape. Reminder to follow the [#T-SHIRT_DESIGN_SPECIFICATIONS design specifications]!
3. Once you've got a mockup or two or three that you like, email them to the Fedora Design Team list.
4. Once you've gotten approval on one of the designs from the team list, open up the SVG file of your design in Scribus, prep the design for printing using this tutorial. If your T-shirt has two sides, make sure you do this for both sides. Also make sure you set the designs to be the final printing size.
5. Attach all of your final files (Inkscape SVG(s), Scribus SLA(s), and final PDF(s) to the trac ticket associated with the T-shirt design.

Software

You will want to use the following software in creating this design:

• Inkscape - Inkscape is a free & open source vector graphics program. You'll want to use Inkscape for the bulk of your design work.
• Scribus - Scribus is a free & open source page layout program. You'll want to use it to convert the Inkscape SVG design you create to a print-ready PDF.
• MyPaint (optional) - MyPaint is great free & open source software for sketching. You may use it for your sketches or you might just want to draw on paper and scan your sketches in.

All of this software is available in Fedora and is free for download. (yum install inkscape scribus mypaint -y).

Mentorship / Help

At any point if you need help, consider the following two resources:

• Email The Fedora Design team mailing list design-team@lists.fedoraproject.org
  • More information on the Design Team mailing list
• Chat: The Fedora Design team IRC channel (#fedora-design at irc.freenode.net)
  • Not sure how to use IRC? Get help here.

Fonts

You'll want to use Comfortaa and/or Cantarell for any text you've got on the T-shirt in most circumstances. Install these on Fedora using the following command:

yum install -y aajohan-comfortaa-fonts abattis-cantarell-fonts

Fedora Logo Artwork

Please make sure you follow the Fedora Logo Usage Guidelines when working with the Fedora logo, please! :) Instructions on acquiring copies of the logo source can be found on that page as well.

T-Shirt Mockup Template

Please feel free to use this T-shirt template to mockup your T-shirt ideas. It was created by Fedora Design Team member Nicu Buculei. You can open it up in Inkscape.

• Download T-Shirt Template SVG File

INSPIRATION

We truly want Fedora shirts to be a street-wearable, fashionable shirts. Hereś some inspiration you might want to take a look at while brainstorming ideas / sketchings.

• Various Past Fedora T-shirt designs - see the types of T-Shirts that have been designed for Fedora in the past.
• Threadless - a website and store well-known for its excellent T-shirt designs.
• Busted Tees - a website and store known for really funny T-shirt designs.