Hottest T-Shirt Design Trends for 2023

New year, new design trends! To keep your creativity alive and boost your sales it’s essential to keep an eye on upcoming styles. Here are our top 11 design trends to help you thrive in 2023.

1. The future will be 3D

This is one trend that has found its feet with new developments in tech and graphic software. The blend of futurism and retro-trash is having a moment, making it the perfect time to brush up on your machine-assisted skills. There are a ton of tools to help you generate 3D elements, such as Sculpteo or Adobe Illustrator. There are no rules in this space, play with text and color to craft your own unique look.

2. Ride the retro wave

Playful takes on 60s synth-inspired designs are seeing a similar revival in 2023. Get inspired by the best wavy fonts or check out this quick tutorial on how to create wavy text.

3. Make a statement

Go back to the birth of the printed T-shirt as a DIY expression of rebellion and protest. Strong statement design is not only about expressing your opinion but about taking a stand and supporting causes that need our help. Want to #stopcopcity? Boil your message down to the bare bones and be as clear and direct as possible.

4. Voxel art

A voxel is a 3D cube, basically the 2D version of a 3D pixel – instantly recognizable from games like Minecraft. We already know 3D designs and simple geometric shapes are hot this year – and voxel art is a combination of both. Get familiar with the basics of voxels and let your imagination run wild!

5. The final brushstroke

Brushstroke designs are tried and true, and are set to keep on giving in 2023. Smart designers are always bringing new twists to this style, so keep your eyes peeled for brushstroke designs and experiment in new ways to give your work that fresh feel.

6. Return of the goth

Address the emo kid inside all of us and bring an element of the macabre to your market – skulls, ravens, hexes, and of course the color black. Loose an arrow into the tortured hearts of your gothic patrons and reach out to others who aren’t committed goths but love to dabble in gloomy aesthetics.

7. It’s mushroom season!

Expand your mind with the trippy patterns, tie-dye DIY, visual psychedelia, and the colorful creative chaos of acid-induced psychedelic art. Why do we love it? The full-spectrum rainbow saturation of intermingled complementary colors creates a mind-bending sense of movement. Check out the color schemes and get on our vibration, dude.

8. I want it that way

Baggy denim, scrunchies, plaid and frosted tips. The 90s are back, and aren’t going bye bye bye. From the vibrant colors and gradients of the underground ravers to the long silhouettes and oversized fits of hip-hop, lean into the GOAT decade. Play with abstract geometric shapes, collage styling, big bold text, and over-the-top graphics. Make it last forever, the 90s never end.

9. Back to nature (more importantly, ironic wolf shirts)  

While many designers use animals, florals, plants, mountains, and other nature-based motifs in their designs, we are picking realistic wildlife as a sleeper contender for the trend of 2023. Expect to see an upswing in the coming months of lovingly crafted realistic wildlife designs. Pick your favorite animals and this just might be your most popular design of the year. If it’s an ironic wolf shirt, we just might buy one.

10. Escape from reality

Surrealism is the flight of the imagination and the embodiment of liberation from logic and meaning. Encourage your creativity and set yourself free: unleash the expression of the unconscious mind. Use vibrant colors, combine unrelated themes, play with perspective, dive into fantasy, but most importantly, be creative!

11. Pixel art

We are big fans of 8-bit, and its exciting revival in the vaporwave movement. It’s an art style that is vibrant, melancholy, surreal, distorted, and fun. Explore futuristic dreamscapes with cotton candy skies, to background of smooth tunes twisted and chopped up with 80s synths. It’s modern and retro, nostalgic and discomforting. Use heavy outlines and isometric shapes as a base, or give them some depth with extruded letters, dots, grids and shadows.

There you have it – our picks for design trends 2023. Sparked an idea but need some help with the technicalities of color? We’ve got you covered with our rundown of color theory and schemes. Put your design chops to the test!

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