So you can’t afford the high price tags that come with the paid t-shirt design software?
And now, you’re looking for completely free software or app that has plenty of helpful tools and features to help you come up with professional t-shirt designs for your clients, brand, sports team, family, friends, etc.?
If yes, we’ve got your back!
Below, we have compiled the ultimate list of the 11 best 100% FREE to use apps and software you can use to come up with unique tee designs without spending a cent.
11 FREE T-shirt Design Apps and Software:
1. Inkscape
Compatibility: Linux, macOS, Windows.
This is one of the best free to use tee design apps you can use today if you don’t have the cash for the premium apps.
Despite being an open-source vector-based design app, this tool has the power and flexibility of the paid-for tools.
The fact that this software isn’t limited to vector images means you can use it to work on a wide variety of projects. It presents you with everything you need to create as well as edit your tee graphics.
Some of the top features you’ll get from this software include shape tools, pencil tool, calligraphy tool, pen tool, color tools, font and text editing, color tools, and multiple layers.
With Inkscape, you can turn existing bitmap images into vector images (using the tracing function), scale up/down your images, and export it in suitable formats for screen-printing.
The app also provides you with raster image formats like .png and .jpg.
Although this app comes with no t-shirt templates or YouTube tutorials, experienced previous designers have taken it upon themselves to provide you with free guides (like the one below). This makes the Inkscape learning curve easier for you.
2. GIMP
Compatibility: GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac OS, and other operating systems.
GIMP is another popular software for a t-shirt design that allows you to create professional-looking designs without spending hefty amounts of cash.
The open-source software has been around for more than two decades. It has always been regarded as the best free alternative to Photoshop (or the granddaddy of free photo editing and graphic design) by millions of users.
For your tee design needs, this software presents you with plenty of customizable tools, including texts, brushes, arts, etc., to help you quickly come up with fully customized t-shirts.
Just like the paid-for, this app also provides you with free templates and YouTube tutorials for first-time users.
Note that GIMP undergoes regular updating by its team of volunteers to ensure it continues solving your design needs for free.
3. Custom Ink
Compatibility: in-browser designer.
This is an in-browser design, specially made for t-shirts. It’s 100% free to use. It comes with a user-friendly interface, making it one of the easiest to use apps.
When you get down to create your designs, you’ll enjoy using hundreds of images that come with Custom Ink. Keep in mind that these images are organized into categories like animals, nature, tech, people, occupation, music, transportation, etc., so you’ll likely find the image that matches your design needs.
Or you can simply upload your own design with just a click of a button.
It also lets you easily add numbers and names to your t-shirts. This will come in handy when you want to customize tees for your sports team or project group.
Once you’re done creating your designs, this app also lets you easily share them with your friends.
And if you want to order a t-shirt with your customized design, Custom Ink lets you do so. You just create your own design, place an order, and they’ll deliver the tee to your doorstep.
4. Smart Shirt Designer
Compatibility: macOS, Windows, Linux.
If you’re looking for a free to use tee design app for your football jersey design project, you just found the Smart Shirt Designer!
This designer software comes specially designed to help you come up with professional-looking football jerseys, which explains why it comes stocked with a huge list of brand logos (including Adidas, Nike, etc.), shirt designs, and color designs. These free designs will let you come up with your own patterns for your tees.
It lets you create the front as well as back portions of your t-shirts.
Just like the premium software, this designer also gives you the option of using their free patterns or draw and design your own patterns…or upload your own images and logos.
The software will then save your complete design in its own supported format. But it allows you to export the design in popular formats such as png, jpg, and gif formats.
5. Paint.net
Compatibility: Windows.
This is another free to download and use image and photo editing software. It also comes with a pretty intuitive and innovative user interface, which makes it quite easy to figure out for those using it for the first time.
Unlike most of the other t-shirt designs apps and software out there, this app takes your design work higher by making your designs look more realistic.
In other words, it distorts and applies your design, logo, text, etc. based upon the t-shirt surface, just like the final product will look like.
The fact that this software presents you with an ‘undo’ function means you’ll not have to worry about making errors during the design process as you can always erase them.
And oh! Don’t forget that this app has an ever-growing online community, which means you’ll enjoy plenty of help, support, forums, and tutorials easily.
6. Fat Paint
Compatibility: online design software
This is another excellent, free to use online design software, so you don’t have to download or install anything to start using it. Just make sure you have adobe flash installed on your browser.
The free software comes with plenty of helpful design functions to help you come up with stunning t-shirts. These include up to 900 fonts, thousands of vector clip arts, and even 3D templates, which are sure to make your t-shirt come alive!
You can also upload your own photographs and images, and then use FatPaint to crop or resize them according to your requirements. You can also easily combine your designs with other images and texts.
The only problem you’ll experience when using this software is the advertisements that keep popping up. If you find these ads annoying, you can simply subscribe to the pro version for ad-free design experience.
7. Krita
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Krita also made it to our list of the best free t-shirt design apps. It’s an image and painting app that offers excellent competition for commercial apps such as Photoshop.
One of the key features you’ll love in this app revolves around the different brush settings. You can easily change these settings using toolbar controls to meet your design needs. You can easily adjust aspects like size, color, blending mode, and opacity.
Just like Photoshop, Krita also allows you to create shapes using paths!
If you want to use pre-made images, then this app lets you easily import it by dragging them onto the canvas. The app has plenty of filters that you can apply to your pictures or layers to make them look even more amazing.
Mark you, Krita was developed by like-minded designers who have even prepared easy-to-follow tutorials to make it easy to use for everyone.
Imagine getting all these design editing features and functions without paying a dime? This is precisely why Krita makes our list of the best cost-free platforms for you!
8. Flash T-shirt Design Software
If you want to start your own t-shirt printing company but don’t have the money to invest in high-end software like Photoshop, then this design software will be a great alternative.
The free to use features a user-friendly interface plus a bunch of high-quality features to enable you to come up with professional-looking t-shirt designs for your clients.
When you access the Flash interface, you’ll be thrilled by the multiple fonts, clipart, and colors that you can use to make t-shirt designs of your liking. The vector clip arts, in particular, will match your t-shirt colors…and you can always change the colors to suit your needs.
9. Free-T-shirt Maker
If you’re still looking for an easy-to-use free t-shirt design too, this software will also make an excellent choice.
It has such a simple and interactive interface that you even a beginner will quickly get the hang of it. You’ll easily figure out what button or control does what within a few minutes of playing with the interface.
The t-shirt maker is generous with hundreds of clip arts classified into animals, education, abstracts, flower, heart, sports, technology, and more. The software lets you modify these clip arts, resize, and even rotate them to meet your unique design needs.
As with the other t-shirt designs apps and software, this free to use tool also lets you import your own images to create t-shirt designs of your choice.
10. Tee Designer Master
Compatibility: online-based software
Here comes another cool t-shirt design software you can trust to meet your t-shirt design solutions. Being an online-based app, you don’t need to do any downloading or installation to start using it.
You directly run in on your browser, which is easy as ABC.
This is the perfect software for those who wish to design t-shirts as well as other garments like a hoodie.
Despite being a FREE software, it lets you design both the front and back sides of your t-shirt. And in the preview option, it shows you both sides of your t-shirts together.
Customizing your designs and artwork has never been easier, thanks to the multiple editing tools this software provides you with. These include the paintbrush to let you change your t-shirt color, ability to add texts, logos, images, etc. to your design.
Its library stocks over 20 different types of images that you can use in your design work. Alternatively, you can upload your own images from your PC.
11. Alma mater Store
Compatibility: online-based tool
Last but not least, we have this Alma mater store online tool. Like all the other software featured on this list, this one too lets you come up with awesome t-shirt designs.
The website lets you easily create your own designs, save them, and share them with your friends without spending a penny.
Alternatively, they can print the t-shirt for you and send it to you if you chose this option. They offer you all the possible shirt sizes to help you chose one that suits you best.
You’ll enjoy using the many included tools like the text, brush, art, name, note, number, and many more to help you come up with truly unique designs.
What’s more, the tool will let you easily create design print on the back, front, and sleeves of your t-shirt.
Pro TIP: Take Advantage of FREE trials!
If you want to experience the powerful t-shirt design that comes with industry-leading software and apps, you can take advantage of the free trials. These will give you enough time to come up with t-shirt designs without spending a dime.
For instance, you can take advantage of the Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which are products of Adobe—a leading industry standard for image editing. Both software offers you a 7-day free trial, which is more than enough time for completing quick t-shirt design jobs.
Verdict
See, you don’t need to pay those large sums of money to get a professional-looking t-shirt design. In this list, we have just outlined some of the best free t-shirt design software and apps that you can use to come up with customized t-shirts for your clients, group project, sports team, etc.
All the tools we have features on this list are 100% FREE to use — no subscript need. You simply download/install them and get down to making your customized t-shirt prints.
Despite being free to use, the tools come with powerful features that you’ll find in the paid software as well, meaning they’ll help you create professional-looking t-shirt designs.