Shirt Designs

I have t shirt design and t shirt ideas and want see if I can find how to find free copyright or trademark my ideas

A few things going on here.

First, understand that you can copyright or trademark the design — as in the image — but not the T-shirt with the design. Shirts are not copyrightable; 2-D images are.

Second, while you automatically own the copyright to any copyright-eligible works that you create, the only legal proof of this copyright (the only way to sue someone for infringement) is to register your image with the US Copyright Office. This costs $35.

(Some people advocate the "poor man’s copyright" — the practice of mailing your own work to yourself and leaving the seal intact — this is NOT legal proof of copyright ownership. Any lawyer is going to mention the possibility of you mailing yourself an empty envelope and packaging it after the fact and blow a hole right through your claim.)

As far as trademarking, that’s a little more expensive. A registered trademark costs $275-$375. You can also look into unregistered trademarks, but you’ll need to get your brand out there a little more to qualify for any protection — you have to be reasonably known as the user of the trademark.

I hope this helps!

Hi, I was hoping that someone could point me in the direction of a great informational website for designing your own tee shirts… I am not looking for sites that pertain to transferring etc onto tees.. Im speaking of the actual tee shirt itself.. And if it was a site for eco friendly tees that would be even better.. Or if theyre any designers out there that wouldnt mind contacting me and answering questions Id be very grateful.. Thank You!

if yu mean creating a design to put on t-shirts, the easiest way is through the cafepress. you just create your design, upload it, create a sorefront, and place your order. the cool thing is that anybody can order a shirt from you, if you want, and you can actually make money from it.

I am a graphic design major and I have friends and family that ask me to design shirts, logos, banners, invitations, business cards, flyers and other designs for them all the time and i’m wondering how much should i charge them just to make some money since I don’t have a job.

Since you are just starting out and the work is for friends and family, you should probably charge less than you will for clients a few years from now. You should figure out an hourly rate that’s fair for an entry level designer in your geographic location, then base your prices off of that. I almost never send an estimate based off my hourly fee, I just change it to a flat fee. For example, if I charge $25 per hour and I think a business card will take me 2 hours, I don’t show the client 2 hours @ $25, I show them a flat fee of $50. People don’t seem to understand the concept of time when it comes to design, they often question why something would take so long because they don’t understand the process we go through as designers. However, when you show them a flat fee they seem to associate that with finished piece instead of the time it took to make it, so they are always happy with that.

Here’s what I would have charged as an entry level designer in the SF bay area, CA, including the initial concepts and revisions:
Business card: $50
Flyer: $75
Shirt: $50
Logo: $100
Invitations: $100
Banners:$50

Hope this helps!