Holidays are an incredibly powerful time to earn more with your online business. Your customers and social followers are already searching for products with the holiday’s theme in mind. Halloween, which emphasizes consumers getting new apparel unique for the occasion, is no exception. Why not make brand-new art on the products you already offer that can be combined in creative ways to help your customers create their smartest Halloween costume yet? Our Halloween design guide outlines several surprising ways to give your customers costume-ready apparel and accessories in your distinct design aesthetic.
Make a Collection
If you haven’t already, start by creating a collection specifically for Halloween. Gather all your gothic, horror, or generally dark designs and label the collection something relevant and intuitive for the topic (e.g. Haunted Designs, Halloween Styles, Horrifying Designs). This makes shopping for the holiday easy for customers, and gives you a permanent place to put new spooky designs you make throughout the year. Create seasonal designs that apply broadly to October like art based on your favorite horror movies, classic horror figures, and dark literature you love.
“The Classics” design by pentoolarts is a great example of haunting art that’s wearable any day in October. Arranged on a cut and sew shirt, it makes a standout all-over print.
Vonkowen has a spirited collection about his character “Terry the Ghoul” and grouped all those designs into one collection.
Jamison has a “Halloweenies” collection that features perfectly haunted and themed Halloween designs.
Get Smart with Color and Graphic Placement
Think about how to smartly convey a concept with simply color and the placement of the design on the tee. Give your customers clever ways to portray a character, animal, or object with just a t-shirt. Designing with costumes in mind makes it easy for your customers to throw on your shirt and create their look with a few added pieces. How can you make a design that creates a ready-made Frankenstein, witch, vampire, bat, mummy? Try making punny designs that can translate into costumes like cereal killer, copycat, party animal, or French toast.
This design uses an all orange t-shirt with the jack-o-lantern graphic placed in the middle to turn the wearer into the pumpkin.
This forlorn design, which is placed perfectly on the upper left side of the shirt, can easily translate into being “broken hearted.”
This is design is a ready-made cat costume—just add ears and draw whiskers. It’s a simple but effective to pair the black color of the shirt with a classic Halloween staple: a witch’s black cat.
Be Crafty with Cut & Sew
Cut and sew t-shirts are the perfect way to make an all-over print that can translate as something other than what it seems. For example, use a pattern to convey texture or color blocking to create a landscape. These designs translate into more abstract costumes, providing customers the cornerstone of their outfit and encouraging creativity and imagination to fill in the details.
This cut and sew t-shirt can serve as the beginning of an outfit embodying Alaska or a frozen tundra. With white pants and snow, the wearer is a snow-covered landscape. Adding a few creative touches like a fake bird on their head will really make the concept come to life.
This cut and sew design lends itself nicely as the main piece of an ocean costume. With all blue pants, socks, and shoes, and some clever props (e.g. plastic straws, a fishing net, and fake seaweed or fish), this costume makes a splash.
Share How the Look Comes Together in Your Marketing
Help your customers piece together their complete outfit through your Halloween marketing. Post pictures on social of your designs worn as part of the full costume. Use lifestyle images of people wearing your shirts for their product pages, so customers get an idea of how you envision styling the design in a spooky outfit.
Make sure to post on social or share through your email newsletter when your Halloween designs are live and available to help customers create their best costume yet.
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