A number of technologies exist today, from inkjet transfers to online designers, which make designing and printing your own t-shirts easy and affordable. But ease of production doesnt guarantee a good design. The following are three design components to consider when creating a design for a t-shirt: Contrast, Size, and Balance.
Contrast is the difference in *brightness* between colors. You want to have contrast between your ink colors and your shirt. For example, bright yellow, a perfectly good color, is not good for text on a white shirt because white and yellow are similar in brightness. Its very difficult to read yellow letters on a white background. Dark colored inks, likewise, do not show up well on dark colored shirts. Navy blue ink, for example, wont show up on a black shirt (or a burgundy shirt, or forest green, etc).
Another area where you need to consider contrast is the graphic itself. A graphic (or multicolored font) that is made up of a group of similar colors, such as dark blue, deep purple, and black, will be hard to distinguish; the lines and colors will visually blur together. Contrast between light and dark colors will make your graphics easy...