Contents

Groovy Retro Fonts
Handwritten fonts
Simple fonts
Display fonts
Bold fonts
Best font for special designs
Where to find fonts for T-shirts?
What to consider when choosing the right front for T-shirt designs
Tips for selecting using font for your design

Using funny, quirky, or sometimes, empowering and emotional text is a commonly used method to create print-on-demand designs that sell. Choosing the right font is extremely important to highlight and deliver the text message.

In the following section, we will give you some suggestions of the best fonts for t-shirt design that will help you capture the attention of customers

Groovy Retro Fonts

Vibrant, funky 70s designs are making a big comeback. It is not hard to notice the ubiquitous appearance of big, bubbly, curvy characters in vibrant colors on many of the best-seller products listed on marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, or Amazon.

The curvy and flowing lines and shapes provide a sense of dynamism and playfulness in your designs. Added with bold and vibrant colors, often the rainbow or psychedelic color scheme, these typography designs easily capture the attention of shoppers on the web.

Usually, these groovy retro fonts are combined with psychedelic patterns like colorful swirls, circles, flowers, stars, peace signs, and many other retro elements to create a lively, free-spirited, and playful vibe to the designs.

Best Groovy Retro fonts for T-shirt designs

If you want to recreate similar types of designs, here are some of the best Groovy retro fonts fonts your t-shirt designs:

Design ideas for Groovy Retro Fonts

The trendy groovy retro fonts are extremely versatile and can go with literally any niche. With their interesting and captivating look, these types of fonts can leverage your design idea and make it more fun to look at.

Here are a few design ideas that can match the spirit of these groovy retro fonts:

Music festival t-shirts: The colorful and free-spirited nature of these groovy retro fonts is the best match for music festivals’ cheerful, relaxing vibe. For this particular niche, you can create merch designs for either iconic music festivals from the past or ongoing music festivals.
Band merch: If you are a working artist who is following the kind of bright and hippie sounds and wants to create merch designs for fans, these kinds of fonts can well present your brands and your styles.
Vintage, retro designs: There is no better combination than vintage/retro design and these fun, colorful groovy fonts. They are the go-to option if you want to create designs that exude similar styles.
Hippie, boho t-shirts: Hippie and bohemian style and the groove retro text always go hand in hand. These fonts are a no-brain option for these types of designs.
Psychedelic and trippy designs: Psychedelic and trippy culture is born out of the hippie/bohemian movement. That’s why these colorful, groovy retro fonts are the perfect choice for these designs.
Self-empowerment designs: Self-empowerment designs are meant to deliver a sense of positivity and lightness, which fits perfectly with the vibrant and bold style of the groovy retro fonts.
Fall season and Halloween designs: Groovy Retro fonts best go with the bright, muted brow and orange-ish color scheme of the fall season.

Handwritten fonts

Handwritten fonts are incredibly popular in modern design. As a print on demand designer, you should always have at least a few favorite handwritten fonts under your sleeve, ready to be used at any time.

Best Handwritten fonts for T-shirt designs

Here are some of the best and popular handwritten fonts to use on your design:

Design ideas for Handwritten Fonts

Handwritten fonts are typefaces that emulate the appearance of hand-drawn or hand-written text. These types of handwritten forms feature the irregular, flowy nature of real handwriting, which creates a sense of authenticity, roughness, and fluidity that is rarely seen in regular typefaces.

As these fonts are made in an attempt to mimic the real handwriting which is highly diverse and unique, that’s why they are extremely versatile for different types of designs. Handwritten fonts come in many different forms, including flowing cursives, decorative script fonts, elegant calligraphy fonts, chalkboard fonts, minimalist monoline fonts, fancy decorative fonts, and many more.

Handwritten fonts are commonly used in T-shirt designs, and in combination with other typefaces, strike a sense of balance for your design. Depending on the messages or the vibes that you want to deliver in your designs, you can select the most suitable handwriting font.

If simplicity and elegance are what you are looking for, you can look for monoline fonts, cursive script fonts, or calligraphy fonts.

In case you want to make the design appear more authentic and creative, you can choose childlike handwriting or chalkboard fonts that look slightly messy.

Here are some of the best ways to use handwriting fonts on your T-shirt designs:

Quotes and inspirational messages: Inspirational quotes and messages are common motifs to be used on print-on-demand t-shirt designs. With such designs, you will need a font that can deliver a sense of authenticity and honesty. And there is no better option than handwriting fonts.

Especially for design with custom text, the use of these fonts can

Designs for female customers: If your designs are meant to target female customers, consider integrating handwriting fonts. These typefaces exude femininity and elegance that are very well-loved by female customers.
Natural and outdoor themes: For designs with natural and outdoor themes, These handwriting fonts are the perfect fit to create designs that look friendly, natural, and organic.
Designs for wedding themes or special occasions: Handwriting fonts can be used for wedding-related t-shirts, such as bridesmaid or groomsmen shirts, or for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.
T-shirt with funny, quirky slogans: Childlike, playful, and slightly messy handwriting fonts can be the perfect complementary font for funny t-shirt designs.
Song lyrics and Music Inspired: Custom t-shirt designs with song lyrics print are also very popular on marketplaces like Etsy. The romantic and authentic nature of handwriting makes it the perfect option for these types of designs.
Personalized and Customized Tees: Handwriting fonts are perfect for creating personalized t-shirts with names, initials, or custom messages. These designs make for great gifts or unique wardrobe additions.

Simple fonts

A simple font with a minimalistic appearance is super versatile and suitable for different styles of designs. What we love about simple fonts is that they are easy to pair with other fonts, which makes them an easy go-to option for newbie designers.

Best Simple Fonts for T-shirt Designs

Amatic SC (Small Caps)
Graduate
Special Elite
Unica One
Josefin Sans
Special Elite
Archivo Narrow
Oswald

Design ideas for Simple Fonts

When in doubt, just use one of these simple fonts. They are easy to read, very clean, and can deliver your message in a straightforward manner. Here are some of the common ways you can use simple fonts for your designs:

Custom name t-shirts: Simple custom T-shirt designs with custom name t-shirts are best to use
Motivational t-shirt designs: Simple fonts are the best option for motivational t-shirt designs. For this design theme, the text is considered the focus of the entire design. By keeping it simple and clean, the text will be more readable and straightforward.
Minimalist t-shirt designs: There is no better font to complement and enhance minimalist designs than simple fonts like these.
Tech and geek design: The clean and simple fonts are the best for tech and geek niches.
Definition t-shirt design: Definition t-shirts have been around for a really long time and don’t seem to go away anytime soon. These designs mostly focus on the funny, quirky text, which requires no fancy fonts to demonstrate. A lean and simple text is the best for these types of designs.

Display fonts

This typeface category is where you find the best fonts for shirt designs. If you want to make your text the focus point of your designs, just do for the fancier display fonts.

Display fonts are the polar opposite of the minimalistic simple fonts. These font types make use of decorative details like swashes, flourishes, ornate serifs, which create unique characters with distinctive looks and strong visual impact. On the downside, letters can sometimes look distorted, unrecognizable, and hard to read.

These types of fonts are very popular in T-shirt designs for their colorful and attention-grabbing appearance. The best part is that you can sometimes find decorative display fonts that match the themes and niches of your designs.

Best Display Fonts for T-shirt designs

Here are some of the interesting display fonts that you can use for your T-shirt designs

Aloja
Kocha Clean
Magiona Display

Design ideas for Display fonts

When it comes to display fonts, there are endless design opportunities. Each font will have its own distinctive appearance that matches specific design themes.

Here are a few examples where display fonts can play a significant role in creating the outstanding look that you desire.

Vintage and Retro Designs: Display fonts are commonly used in vintage and retro-themed t-shirt designs. They can evoke the style and spirit of a particular era, such as the 1960s or 1980s.
Street-style graphic T-shirt design: The trendy street-style graphic design is an overarching trend in the street fashion scene. One of the distinctive elements of street-style graphics is the use of bold and edgy fonts that are usually manipulated to an extreme level.
Music and band Tees: When it comes to band merch, the most important thing is to instantly draw the eyes, especially to band names or album names. And no font can do that better than display font types. Moreover, the font also plays an important role in representing the aesthetics and spirit of the band.

Bold fonts

Besides Display fonts, Bold fonts also have a strong appearance and visual impact thanks to their thick and heavy letterforms. But compared to other display fonts, Bold fonts deliver a sense of strength and prominence. Also, bold fonts, with clear and heavy strokes, are more legible than display fonts.

Best Bold Fonts for T-shirt designs

Portago ITC
Bangers
Fascinate
Blackout Midnight
Brice bold
Catalina Avalon Slab Bold
Abril Fatface
Burbon
Edmund

Design ideas for Bold Fonts

Bold fonts’ signature features include thick and heavy strokes, strong visibility, and high readability. These fonts make it suitable for creating contrast in a design when combined with thinner and softer fonts.

Slogan and quotes t-shirts: If you are aiming to make a powerful statement with your t-shirt designs, just select the boldest fonts that command attention right away. Also bold font’s strong readability also functions well for design with a strong focus on the text messages.
Protest and activism: For protest and activism design, the text is always the main medium to convey the message. In order to keep the text readable and impactful, you should definitely select bold fonts for your designs.
Team and sports t-shirt: Bold fonts are the best match for sports niche designs. Its strength and bold nature are the perfect match to deliver sports and team spirit.
Club and organization t-shirts: Club and organization t-shirts are the best way to create connections among members. Strong and bold fonts are the best options to create cohesive and strong designs that lift up the team spirit.
Anniversary and milestone t-shirts: If your T-shirt designs are meant to mark a significant milestone or achievement, like a wedding anniversary, retirement, academic landmark, or birthday, bold fonts are the best options that can help you highlight the importance of the event.
Personalized t-shirts: Personalized t-shirts are very important ideas for print on demand business. You can create personalized t-shirts with custom names, initials, or even messages. For such designs, by using bold fonts, you can make these custom text the highlight of your design.
T-shirts with funny and quirky texts: Create humorous t-shirts with bold fonts to deliver punchlines and jokes that catch the eye and make people smile.

Best font for special designs

Seasonal designs are a huge part of the print on demand business. By leveraging the sensation of these special occasions, you can create designs that appeal to a large audience.

To fully demonstrate the spirit of these special events in your designs, not only the images but the fonts should also vibe with the overall theme of the design.

In the following, we will give you some fonts that tightly closely to each single occasion.

Halloween/Horror

For Halloween season, fonts that look distorted, eerie, and spooky, integrated with some dripping effect, and blood splatters are the best choice to capture the true Halloween spirit.

October Crow
Halloween Too
Burton’s Nightmare
Billy Witch
Nightmare Pumpkins
HalloWitchZ
Zombie Dust
Upjohn
Black Sheperd
Wildwood
Creepster

Christmas

Christmas is the biggest shopping season in a year. Christmas fonts usually make use of motifs like snowflakes, bells, and stars. To show the real Christmas spirit, a bubbly, elegant, curvy font can complement the overall themes. Other types of Display or Handwritten fonts are also perfect for Christmas design.

If you want to create a Christmas T-shirt design that everyone loves, you might want to use some of the following fonts on your designs.

Fontdiner Swanky
Mountains of Christmas Bold

Valentine

For Valentine’s T-shirt designs, you will need a font that exudes a lovely, romantic vibe. Curvy, handwriting, or script fonts are some of the best typefaces for your Valentine’s designs.

Here are some font types that are best used for Valentine’s designs:

Besom
Anime niche
Gang of Three
Dela Gothic One

Back-to-school

Back-to-school T-shirt designs are meant for children and young kids. For designs targeting younger students, you should consider fonts that are playful, colorful, and easy to read, with characters designed to be child-friendly.

Handwriting fonts or chalkboard fonts, typewriter fonts, and child-friendly fonts are highly recommended:

School and Chalk
Dictionary-style font
Karmina
Special Elite
Sports
Sporty Grunge
Sport World
Varsity

Where to find fonts for T-shirts?

Collecting fonts is a fun part of the design process. You can find a plethora of typefaces online, free or paid. Here are some of the best font resources where you can find various fonts in different styles:

Paid: Creative Fabrica is a familiar resource for print-on-demand designers. Here, you can find all the various design packages including graphics, images, patterns, and fonts. It is an incredible source where you can download the hottest fonts that are very popular on print-on-demand designs and gain considerable sales for many POD sellers
Free: Google Font, Dafont, 1001fonts, Font Squirrel, Befonts, Font Bundles, Fontesk, etc.

What to consider when choosing the right front for T-shirt designs

It is usually the case that after a while, you have collected a variety of fonts. But when it comes to deciding what type of fonts to use on your T-shirt designs, you might feel overwhelmed and slightly lost as it is hard to choose a few from a vast collection of typefaces you own.

Not only that, when you are on the hunt for the typeface that meets your requirements, you might feel a bit overwhelmed with a thousand font types and not sure which one to choose.

Here are a few things that you should consider when choosing the right typeface for your T-shirt designs.

Price

In most cases, free fonts online are just about enough for your designs. However, sometimes you might want to add some flair to your designs with specific fonts with special effects. These fonts might cost you a particular amount of money.

In case you don’t have enough budget to buy some expensive fonts, consider searching for other free alternatives in the free font resources like Dafont or Google Fonts.

Design theme

Design theme is a big factor that determines what fonts should be used in your designs. You will want to choose a font that complements and enhances the vibes of the design.

To find out what fonts are best fit for a certain design theme, the easiest way is to do your research and learn how others are integrating fonts into their designs. Pinterest, Dribbles, or Behance are the best resources for inspiration for your T-shirt designs. Other than that, you can also go to other marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon, Redbubble, Society6 to see more similar T-shirt designs and get unlimited font suggestions for your own design.

Font pairing

To create a clear design hierarchy for your designs, it is recommended to use two different fonts in a design: one bold primary font to use for the headline or the main text and another less showy font for body text, subheadings, and other less important text. These two fonts must complement each other and be relevant to the overall design theme.

To save time in finding the best font pairing, you can search for inspiration on creative platforms as mentioned above. Other than that, you can also find many free online font pairing tools:

Google Fonts
Monotype’s Font Pairing Generator
Fontjoy
Archetype App
Typotheque Font Combinator
Fontpair
Mixfont
Google-Type by femmebot

Licenses

Each font will come with its own license for use. You should always refer to their license terms and usage rights to know whether it is legible to use the font for commercial purposes, especially when the font is free.

Many free fonts are exclusively available for personal and non-profit use only. To avoid further legal issues in the future, make sure that you are granted the right to use them for your T-shirt designs.

Tips for selecting using font for your design

Don’t use too many fonts

Using too many fonts might make your design more cluttered and busy to the eyes. Limit the number of fonts used in your designs to around 2 or 3 fronts. With fewer fonts, you are able to create a cohesive design, enhance readability, and maintain the design focus.

Know how to manipulate font for the best effect

Font manipulation is the key to making a unique design with a strong visual impact. For a simple design where the text is the highlight, creating a unique and bold text will make your design look stunning and impressive. Here are some common ways that you can experiment to manipulate your fonts:

Play with colors: Just by playing around with the color text, you will be able to explore different variations of the same designs. And don’t forget to take the fabric colors into consideration. Always make sure that the text will stand out from the background color or the fabric color.
Add text effects: Adding gradients, shadows, outlines, and bevels will make the text pop and add depth to the design.
Warp and distort text: Warping and distorting text is a common way that designers frequently use to add some creative flare to their design. Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop all allow designers to perform such manipulation actions.
Add texture to your text: A subtle change like adding texture can constantly make the text pop up and look much better. In case you can’t find the free fonts incorporating special texture, you can manually fabricate the texture into the regular font.
Adjust font sizes, weight, and styles to establish a clear hierarchy in your design. This simple text manipulation can significantly improve the designs.

70+ Best Fonts for T-shirts And How to Select Right Font for Your Design

Groovy Retro Fonts