Programs Used To Design Shirts?

Question

What is a legit program that is used by clothing companys to make the designs and art work for there clothes?

Not looking for something to make arts and crafts with this is for my clothing company.

also im looking for something for a Mac pleaseeee

THANKS

Answer 1

Adobe Illustrator or any other vector editor. T-Shirt designs are usually vector art (clean, smooth lines, solid colors, etc.) and Illustrator's got that down. However, you're likely to mix in raster images (bitmap art and pictures) as well; while Illustrator definitely handles these, it doesn't offer all the raster editing features you'll need, so Photoshop or any other Image editor will be a good compliment.

There are many options out there, from free (Inkscape) to affordable (CorelDRAW) to industry-standard (Illustrator). Since you will be doing this professionally and will be working with print shops and exchanging artworks with other industry folk, I suggest to stick with the industry standard for full compatibility.

Get Illustrator.

You are bound to do bitmap editing as well. Being a professional environment, I'll say go with Photoshop as well.

THINGS TO NOTE:

- It's cheaper to buy the CS3 Design Standard Suite ($1200) which combines Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Acrobat, than to buy Illustrator and Photoshop separately ($649+$599)

- CS4 Suite is coming soon. If you're still setting up for your company and have a few months before starting, you may want to wait for CS4.

Design beautifully, my friend!