So You Want to Make Merch - A Beginner's Guide from a UK Printer

You've had the idea. Maybe your band needs t-shirts for the tour. Maybe your café wants branded aprons, your charity's got a fun run coming up, or your five-a-side team is tired of turning up in seven different shades of "sort of blue".

Then you started looking into it, and suddenly you're drowning in words like GSM, vector files, DTF and bleed. Every website assumes you already know what you're doing. Nobody explains anything.

This book fixes that.

Welcome to Making Merch People Actually Wear - a complete guide to custom clothing and merchandise, written by a UK printer, published one chapter at a time. The promise is right there in the title: everything you need to go from "I've got an idea" to merch people genuinely want to put on, explained in plain English, with every bit of jargon translated the moment it appears.

This is Chapter 1 - the start here page. Read this and you'll understand the whole journey before you spend a penny.

The merch journey, from start to finish

Every merch project — whether it's ten hoodies for a plumbing firm or five hundred shirts for a festival — follows the same basic path. Here's the whole thing, step by step. Keep this; the rest of the book hangs off it.

Step 1: The idea

Something kicks it off. A gig, a rebrand, a fundraiser, a staff uniform refresh. At this stage all you need is a rough sense of why you're making merch and who it's for. That's it. No sketches required.

Step 2: Choosing what to make

T-shirts are the obvious answer, but they're not always the right one. Hoodies, tote bags, hats, workwear, posters — the best product depends on your audience and budget. A charity handing out items at a summer event has very different needs from a builder kitting out a crew for winter.

Step 3: Choosing the actual garment

Two black t-shirts can be wildly different things. Fabric weight, material and fit all change how merch feels and how long it lasts. Fabric weight is measured in GSM — grams per square metre — and it's one of the first specs you'll see on any garment listing. If you've already stumbled across that term and wondered, we've covered it properly in What Does GSM Mean? T-Shirt Fabric Weights Explained.

Step 4: The design

What actually goes on the garment — the logo, slogan, artwork or illustration. This is where most beginners panic, and where most don't need to. A single well-placed logo often beats an elaborate design, and a good printer can help you get from rough idea to something printable.

Step 5: Getting the artwork print-ready

A design and a print-ready file are two different things. Printers need artwork in the right format, size and resolution — otherwise your crisp logo comes out fuzzy. If your starting point is a logo, we've already written the full guide: How to Prepare a Logo for Clothing Printing. And if your file isn't perfect, don't despair — checking and fixing artwork is a normal part of a printer's job.

Step 6: Choosing a printer and a printing method

There's more than one way to get ink onto fabric. DTF (direct-to-film — a method where the design is printed onto a special film and then heat-pressed onto the garment), screen printing, embroidery and others each suit different jobs. You don't need to memorise them; you just need to know they exist, and that your printer can recommend the right one for your project.

Step 7: Samples and mock-ups

Before anything gets printed in bulk, you should see what you're getting. A mock-up is a digital preview of your design positioned on the garment; a sample is a physical printed one. This stage exists to catch problems while they're still free to fix. Never skip it.

Step 8: Placing the order

Quantities, sizes, colours, delivery date. The main beginner trap here is the size mix — ordering fifty shirts is easy; ordering the right spread of smalls, mediums, larges and XLs takes a little thought. We'll cover that properly later in the book.

Step 9: Delivery

Your boxes arrive. Count everything, check a few items against your approved mock-up, and flag anything odd with your printer promptly. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it's a happy unboxing — but a quick check protects you on the hundredth.

Step 10: Selling and using it

The bit the whole project was for: the merch table at the gig, the team in matching kit, the volunteers in branded tees. There's genuine craft in pricing, displaying and looking after merch, and the later parts of this book cover all of it.

That's the entire journey. Ten steps, no mysteries. Everything else in this book is just detail on one of those steps.

"But I'm not a designer" — good news

Here's the reassurance bit, and it's genuinely true: you do not need design skills or industry knowledge to make great merch.

You don't need Photoshop. You don't need to know what a vector file is (yet — and when the time comes, we'll explain it in one sentence). You don't need print experience. Plenty of the best merch we see starts life as a phone photo of a sketch, a logo someone's cousin made years ago, or just an idea described in an email.

What you do need is a willingness to answer a few questions — who's this for, what's the budget, when do you need it — and to ask for help when you're unsure. That's it. The technical stuff is your printer's job. Your job is knowing your audience.

How this book maps to the journey

The book is organised around the ten steps you've just read:

• Part 1: Start Here — you're in it. The next two chapters help you decide what to make and get clear on your audience and budget.
• Part 2: Choosing Your Garments — fabrics, weights, fits, sizing, and the world beyond t-shirts.
• Part 3: Getting Your Design Right — logos, placement, colour, and designing things people actually wear.
• Part 4: How Printing Actually Works — the printing methods, print vs embroidery, and print-on-demand vs bulk.
• Part 5: Placing Your Order — samples, quantities, budgeting, and working well with your printer.
• Part 6: Selling and Using Your Merch — pricing, merch tables, workwear, and charity events.
• Part 7: Keeping It Alive — washing, restocks, and making merch more sustainable.

Chapters are written to stand alone, so you can jump straight to whatever you need — but reading in order gives you the full picture.

Your first action (do this today)

No spreadsheets, no software. Just answer these three questions — out loud, on paper, in your notes app, anywhere:

1. Who is this merch for? (Fans? Staff? Supporters? Customers?)
2. What do I want it to do? (Make money? Build the brand? Unite a team? Thank people?)
3. Roughly when do I need it?

That's your project brief, version one. Every decision in this book gets easier once you can answer those three things. The next chapter — What Should You Actually Make? — picks up exactly from there.

Quick checklist: the merch journey at a glance

Common beginner mistakes (and how to avoid them)

1. Starting with the design instead of the audience. A brilliant design on the wrong product for the wrong people goes unworn. Fix: answer the three questions above first.

2. Skipping the mock-up stage. Approving things "from memory" is how logos end up the wrong size or in the wrong spot. Fix: always review a mock-up before printing, and a sample for bigger orders.

3. Assuming all t-shirts are the same. Fabric and weight change everything about how merch feels. Fix: read the GSM chapter before choosing garments.

4. Being embarrassed about rough artwork. People sit on projects for months because their file "isn't ready". Fix: send it anyway — checking and improving artwork is normal printer work.

5. Leaving it too late. Printing takes time, and rushed jobs limit your options. Fix: as soon as you have a date (gig, event, launch), work backwards from it and start early.

6. Ordering one size for everyone. Fifty larges will not fit fifty people. Fix: think about your actual audience's size spread — there's a full chapter on this coming.

FAQs

Do I need to be able to draw or use design software?
No. Rough sketches, existing logos and written descriptions are all workable starting points. Printers deal with these every day.

How long does a merch project take from idea to delivery?
It varies with the product, quantity and printing method, so there's no honest one-size-fits-all answer — which is exactly why "start early" is the golden rule. Your printer can give you a realistic timeline for your specific job.

What's the cheapest way to start?
Usually a simple design on a sensible-quality garment in a modest quantity. Cheap garments with elaborate prints tend to disappoint; we'll dig into budgeting properly in Part 5.

What's a mock-up again?
A digital preview showing your design positioned and sized on the actual garment, so you can approve it (or change it) before anything is printed.

Can I make merch with just a logo and nothing else?
Absolutely — a well-placed logo is one of the most common and effective forms of merch, especially for businesses and teams.

Do I have to read this book in order?
No. Each chapter stands alone. But if you're a complete beginner, Part 1 in order is the smoothest route in.

What if I don't even know what product to make yet?
Perfect — that's exactly what the next chapter is for.