How to Design for POD Product If we don’t have Designers, this is a big question for a POD businessman. We often say that POD is like a canvas where you can monetize your creativity by exploring different aspects of design and marketing. This makes designing as one of the core pillars of POD, the other one is marketing. Think of the most iconic or most sold T-shirts, what do they have in common?

They had amazing designs that had the potential to attract millions of customers. Every new POD startup must have an individual who can create creative and trendy designs. In order to achieve success in POD, design plays a big role. Whether a product will sell or not mostly depends on the design.

A good design will bring you many sales, on the other hand, a bad design will not earn you any sales regardless of the marketing effort. However, many businesses are unlucky to not have a fixed designer who will create designs for their POD project/business.

Where do those businesses go? What do they do? In this article, we will cover the alternatives of not having a designer for your POD business. There are some alternatives to how we can still run our POD business. However, in the long run, a definite designer is highly recommended.

Freelance Websites & Networks

Below we will compile a comprehensive list of some of the best networks and platforms where we can hire designers for our POD project. There are countless freelance networks on the internet, however, not all of them have qualified or professional designers. The list we have made is compiled of popular, authentic, and professional networks with qualified designers for hire.

1. Upwork

Elance oDesk, which later changed its name to Upwork is one of the best freelance networks in the world. Upwork is enriched with designers with more than 30,000 designers available in its work library. Upwork has a sophisticated search bar that will help you to specify designers anyhow you can.

It is very efficient and helps you find a designer much more quickly. Upwork has its own dedicated workspace in the platform where you can communicate and share feedback with the designers yourself. You can either manually find your designer yourself by going through their profile or you can also give a job post with the necessary information for the designers to find you.

Upwork also allows you to keep tabs on your freelancers by tracking their work progress. It sorts of works as a “work diary” or employee monitoring. You get to know how much time they are giving to your projects.

2. Fiverr

Fiverr is another platform that is used by big and small businesses alike to search for freelance designers. Fiverr has many unique features which makes it one of the most preferred platforms for both who want to hire and want to get hired.

For example, Fiverr has this feature where it highlights the work quality and selling level of the freelancers. Through this, you can easily identify the best freelancers on the platform. Every work they get is carefully recorded on the platform. Therefore, you can easily go through those and see their work.

The way to find designers on Fiverr is similar to Upwork. You either manually go to their profile or give a job post for them to respond to you. Unlike many of its competitors, Fiverr is extremely cheap and most of the time it doesn’t require any money. Some of its services cost only around $5!

3. 99designs

99designs is a dedicated designing platform where you can find freelancers who are only dedicated to designing. The platform offers more than 90 types of design services. Many of them particularly focus on POD.

Therefore, you can expect to find professional designers who are well aware of print on demand services and what designs to create. There are some amazing aspects of the 99design platform. For example, they have a sophisticated screening process for designers. So, you can expect top-quality designers for your business.

There is a cool feature where you can hold contests inside the platform in order to receive submissions from various designers. You can afterward select the designer(s) with the best submission. The hiring process is also simple in 99designs.

In order to find your freelance designer, you first have to submit your project requirements. The required information is then sent to the designers where they submit their work. After the submission is done, you can hire an individual or multiple designers based on their work.

4. Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com is one of the oldest and proficient freelance platforms out there. It was founded back in 2008. Since 2008 to now, Freelancer.com has served its purpose by grooming and offering work for freelancers all around the world. It is a professional platform enriched with freelance graphic designers.

Inside the platform, every freelance worker has their own portfolio. Therefore, its easier to find your ideal candidate by going through their portfolio. One unique feature of Freelancer.com is that the platform itself conducts certification exams to verify and screen each freelancer’s skillset. Freelancer.com has a powerful search bar, so the hiring process is somewhat easier.

The search bar has a filtering option so you can easily filter out freelancers according to your project requirements. Freelancer.com also lets you hold a contest where various freelance designers submit their work. So, you can easily choose your preferable designer.

5. Toptal

Toptal is an extremely competitive freelance network marketplace. Unlike its competitors who allow amateur freelancers, Toptal is very selective. They have a very sophisticated screening process which enables only the professional designers to work here. They have the strictest screening process among its competitors.

Only the top 3% who apply are allowed to work and feature on their network. Toptal has a deposition policy where you have to deposit $500 after selecting a designer. The money is refunded when the job is completed. Aside from this, you have to pay the freelancer on an hourly work rate basis.

The hiring procedure is much easier than any other platform. Most of the work will be done by the Toptal team. You only have to post your project requirements. The team will find a list of designers who are most suitable for your project. Afterward, you can choose any design you prefer.

Tee-Shirt Design Marketplaces

Even if you don’t feel like hiring a designer for your POD business, it is not a problem at all. Dedicated marketplaces exist which sell the designs either as an individual or as bundle packs. These designs are usually editable and vector formats.

Therefore, anyone with little design skills can alter these images to fit their business. These images come in various bundles. For example, there are seasonal packs, e.g., winter. If you purchase the winter bundle pack, you will get access to the winter designs that are in the bundle.

It’s not only seasonal but there are also various packs like the event bundles. Let’s assume your business needs to launch a campaign targeting Christmas and you need designs for your products. You simply visit a marketplace, pick a suitable bundle pack, and click on purchase.

These designs are usually completely editable and pixel perfect vector files that you can adapt to any size. It means you use the same design in both t-shirt and a mug, with little adjustments to the designs.

Some of the known marketplaces where we can purchase T-shirt designs are Buytshirtdesigns.net, Envato Market, 99designs, Tee Samurai, etc. Among these Tee Samurai is a very renowned marketplace dedicated to providing targeted t-shirt designs for pod businesses.

What is Tee Samurai?

Tee Samurai is a website where you can purchase designs for your POD business. Their design library is very enriched with a wide variety of designs available. Every bundle pack is priced differently. The premium designs are a bit costlier than the regular ones.

Furthermore, they give out free new designs pretty much every day. So, even if you are unsure about whether to purchase or not, you can always work with free ones. If you get results, you can always come back and purchase their bundle packs.

Their bundle contains premium designs in vector format, so anyone can easily customize them and use them in their projects. They have three different types of subscription plans – Silver, Gold, and Platinum memberships. The Platinum membership is costlier than the other two but also with much more exclusive features and benefits.

Moreover, Tee Samurai has a custom design feature, where you can hire designers to make your own custom designs. The designer will create designs according to your instructions and as much as customized as you want.

Conclusion

The custom T-shirt printing market is expected to be worth more than $10 billion by 2025, which means that the demand for design will rise very quickly. Having a dedicated designer is very efficient but it’s not always the case. Therefore, businesses end up relying on freelance websites, and design marketplaces for suitable designs. These marketplaces are also run according to the demands of the print on demand businesses.