---
title: 'The Only T-Shirt Design Video You Need in 2026 (Using AI)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=tE_bcte4xnY'
video_id: 'tE_bcte4xnY'
date: 2026-08-06
duration_sec: 1090
---

# The Only T-Shirt Design Video You Need in 2026 (Using AI)

> Source: [The Only T-Shirt Design Video You Need in 2026 (Using AI)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=tE_bcte4xnY)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive guide for print-on-demand sellers on how to create t-shirt designs that actually sell, emphasizing the importance of market research before design. The creator, Mac, demonstrates how to use AI tools, specifically KD, to generate and refine designs efficiently, and shares tips on validating demand and creating mockups.

### Key Points

- **Success Story: $9,000 in Four Months** [00:02] — A design on Etsy made almost $9,000 in four months, not because it was extraordinary, but because it tapped into a pre-existing market with active buyers.
- **Design Principle: Market First, Design Second** [00:16] — It's easier to sell to an established market than to create random designs and find a buyer. The key is to add something new and valuable to a pre-existing market.
- **Introduction to AI in Design** [00:43] — AI is a powerful tool for designing products, saving time by doing in seconds what would take hours manually. Mac admits he waited too long to implement AI.
- **Research Demand First** [01:24] — The most important step is to research demand before designing. Search Etsy for what's already selling in your niche, look at bestsellers and popular badges.
- **Using Etsy Search Suggestions** [02:02] — Typing a keyword like 'book' reveals popular search terms like 'bookish shirt' and 'bookish sweatshirt', indicating demand. Clicking these shows bestsellers to inspire your designs.
- **Note-Taking on Design Elements** [02:27] — Take notes on recurring elements in bestsellers: text styles, doodles, hearts, bows, books, coffee cups, stars. These are what the niche wants.
- **Text-Based Designs Can Sell** [02:41] — Many bestsellers are simple text-based designs, like 'Mentally, I'm at the cottage' which made $9,400 in one month. You don't need complex graphics.
- **Combining Elements from Different Designs** [03:07] — Take elements from multiple bestsellers and combine them into one cohesive design. For example, use a doodle style from one and a saying from another.
- **Creating the Design with AI** [04:01] — After research, use AI tools like KD to create the design. KD is favored for its AI features and print-on-demand focus.
- **Using KD's AI Prompt Board** [05:20] — KD has an AI prompt board where you can input text prompts to generate designs. Be specific and use tools like ChatGPT to craft effective prompts.
- **Access to Multiple AI Models** [06:41] — KD's subscription provides access to various AI models like ChatGPT Image 1.5 and Nano Banana Pro, allowing experimentation.
- **Using Style Options** [07:11] — Style icons help the AI understand your vision by providing inspiration. You can use multiple prompts with different styles to see which works best.
- **AI Gallery and Smartboards** [08:04] — KD's AI Gallery shows creations by other artists for inspiration. Smartboards allow you to edit existing AI images by giving new prompts.
- **Smartboard Editing** [09:33] — Smartboards let you modify AI-generated designs, such as removing text, changing text, or adding elements like hearts and stars.
- **Improving Basic Designs** [11:38] — Even simple designs can be enhanced by asking the AI to make them better, e.g., 'make this design better for a t-shirt graphic design'.
- **Using Templates** [13:16] — KD offers templates for those unsure where to start. You can use AI to modify them into unique designs.
- **Creating Mockups with AI** [14:52] — AI can generate realistic mockups, like placing a design on a white sweatshirt worn by a woman hiking in mountains, enhancing product presentation.
- **Key Selling Points Recap** [16:06] — To sell: research demand, add value to a pre-existing market, ensure the design is legible, and tap into emotions (funny, relatable, interests).
- **AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement** [17:11] — Use AI to save time but not to replace your creativity. It's a tool to enhance your designs.

### Conclusion

The video emphasizes that successful t-shirt design starts with market research, not creativity. By using AI tools like KD, sellers can efficiently create and refine designs that meet existing demand, ultimately saving time and increasing sales potential.

## Transcript

almost $9,000 in just four months of being listed on Etsy. And there's not anything super special about this design. Although it's pretty, it's not random the fact that it's actually selling. This seller tapped into a
design in a target market that people were actively buying in. It's not always about generating the most creative or perfect design. It's more about is there someone looking for this product and how can I add something new and valuable to
a pre-existing market. It's a lot easier to sell to an established market rather than trying to create random designs and find a buyer. And I'm Mac. I've been an Etsy seller for 6 years now. And in today's video, I'm going to show you how
to create designs that will actually sell and validate that. And we're also going to be using AI because AI is such a powerful tool when designing products. And as a printon-demand seller, I'll be honest, I waited way longer than I
should have to implement AI into my designing and mockup creation because it just saves so much time. It can do in seconds what would normally take me hours for designs. And so I find that really cool and helpful, especially if
design background or maybe you've never really made a design for a printon-demand product ever. So, like I said, when we're creating our designs, the most important thing is to research the demand first and then design second,
not the other way around. Huge misconception when selling online. So, what we're going to do is we're going to do a search on Etsy and see what's already selling in that niche. See what's trending. See which things are
popular. And honestly, if you're not really sure where to start, type in the search bar something that you are interested in and see what comes up. For example, on Etsy, let's say that I'm interested in books. I could type in the
word book on Etsy and right away search terms that are suggested pop up. This is for a reason because people are searching for bookish shirt, book gilden sweatshirt, bookish mockup, so on and so forth. So, if I just click bookish
shirt, I already see a lot of designs that have these bestseller and popular now badges. And that is data for me to realize that I should create designs that are similar to the ones that are already best-selling and popular. Now,
now I'm not going to copy one of these designs, but I'm going to take note of different things that I'm seeing. So, I'm seeing that there's Sorry, I'm booked. Just one more chapter. Bookish booking is my jam. And I'm just taking
notes of all the things that are necessarily showing up on these products. And one thing to note on this, too, is like a lot of these are not even that complicated of designs. They're like just text on a shirt, right? And so
that's so interesting because it shows that you don't need to have these crazy complex designs. You can do textbased designs and still make a lot of money a month. This one says, "Mentally, I'm at the cottage." And it's made $9,400 in
one month. So, this just shows you that that has a demand, whether it's a trend or so on and so forth. And that's how you would go ahead and do these searches. I recommend grabbing a few different designs that you're seeing
that are bestsellers and taking elements from different designs and then combining them into one cohesive design. So, an example of how that would look is let's see this saying here says closed my book to be here and then this one
says just one more chapter. We could do a similar design style to all these doodles that are surrounding the design and then change out the saying on the inside to be I closed my book to be here, you know? So, it's just ways of
taking elements from different designs and noticing things like that. Like I'm seeing a lot of hearts, bows, books, and a lot of coffee cups and open books, stars, and those are all things that I'm going to bring into a design because I'm
seeing it over and over again on this first search page of Etsy, and I can tell that that's what's selling. That's what this niche wants. So after you've done your research, you have a few examples of foot selling, maybe you have
we're going to go ahead and actually create our design using everything we just took. Color palettes, text, um different types of fonts incorporated, textures, colors, all those things we're going to take into our creating. So I'm
actually going to be using KD. And like I said, I'm going to be doing AI powered design. And that's why I'm showing you through KD. KD has become my favorite design platform. Not only just because of how strong their AI features are, but
because of how much they actually have to offer and the fact that they were creating this platform with print on demand sellers and online sellers in mind. So, a lot of the site just makes sense and is very intuitive as a
doesn't have graphic design background, but I actually know how to make print on a link for KD below so you can follow along. But let me show you how well this AI design works because it's very impressive in multiple different ways.
So on KD, this is what the home screen looks like. I'm going to go up to new project and then I'm going to go over to print on demand and select printify t-shirt. They already have these presets for you which is super helpful and it
will make sure that everything is designed in the correct artboard size. So this artboard is ready to be exported when I start putting designs on it. Now, like I said, we are creating with AI. So, something you'll notice down here at
the bottom on KD, this is an AI prompt board. So, if you click on this, this is essentially where you can add in your AI text to create pretty much anything you can think of, and KD will put it in your artboard. Now, there's actually a few
I'm going to show you a few of them. And as I said, the first one is to just input some text here. So, in order to do that, you need a prompt. and prompts can get a bit confusing when you are first starting out creating AI designs. The
best advice I can give you is to be more specific than not and to utilize things specific than not and to utilize things like chatbt even to ask it to help you to create a prompt to bring your vision to life. I start by talking into chatbt
letting it know what I'm trying to create and then ask it for a prompt to use inside of KD. And this works really well. So, going along with the trends that I was looking at before, as I mentioned, I want to create something
that has this doodlelike designs with some text in the middle. And then I'm going to combine different sayings that I wasn't already seeing in designs like that. So, I'm going to go ahead and take this prompt and paste it directly into
my KD AI here. And what you'll notice at the bottom is there's two different options. There's a style option and where here it says Nano Banana Pro. This is actually access to lots of different AI models. Now, this is what's so cool
about using KD AI is with their subscription, you get all access to all of these AI models within one platform. So, you can try out different ones and create different things based on all these different models. So, very cool.
My favorites are the chat GPT image 1.5 and the Nano Banana and Nano Banana Pro. but pretty cool because you can choose which one you want to use. Also, this style option is incredible because sometimes it's hard for the AI to
completely understand what exactly we're trying to create. So, by picking one of these style icons, which there's so many to choose from depending on your vision, but when you choose one of these, it'll show up in your board and that will be
the inspiration for the actual AI design. I find it interesting to use multiple prompts with different styles and see which one comes closest to what going to go ahead and just hit generate here and wait for the AI to make my
design. This one, I believe, takes around 30 or 40 seconds for the Nano Nano Pro, which is pretty incredible. And we'll just wait and see what it makes for me. While that's generating on our left side on our menu option, there
is quite a few things here. There is one that is called AI Gallery and this is a curation of all different types of AI that was created by other artists that you can use for inspo or to grab the prompts of or in a smartboard which I'll
show you how to make in just a moment. It'll also keep all of your AI creations on the side here if you ever want to input them into your new designs. All right, so this just generated my designs for me. As you can see, using these
prompts, it created these really beautiful elements that I can use. However, I want to be more specific in my design because what I want is going to have text in the middle of it. Essentially, I could use these and, you
know, rearrange them myself and put some text in the middle or I could actually get it closer to what I'm wanting here. And that's the thing about AI is you sometimes have to do it multiple times and it will come out differently each
time. So, it's always something that, you know, can be a little bit tedious in the hang of it and understand the AI, it's very helpful. Also to mention that chat GPT is accessible on your left side
on KD under this chat button. So, pretty cool cuz you can just copy and paste within the platform. All right, so after fixing one word in the prompt, I was able to get a little bit closer to exactly what I'm looking for. So, this
design here is pretty much exactly what I want. And what's really cool is I could basically use this design as it is. Obviously, it needs some color or something, but it's an overall good place to start and was made by AI in
just a few seconds. So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to make this a bit bigger and I'm going to make a new artboard and we're going to create what's called a smartboard. And a smartboard is essentially a fancy way of
creating a new AI image using the one that we just created. So, select your artboard and click add smartboard. And here I can make a bunch of changes to this actual graphic. For example, I can say remove the text and let the AI work
for me. And I can create multiple smartboards and continue this. Change the text to say I'd rather be reading. And it
will just start creating exactly what you ask for. So for this one, I asked it add in the text on my own. And for this one, I asked it to change the text and it should do that as well. Okay, perfect. So, see how it's just overall
creating exactly what I'm asking for. Now, with this one here, I'm going to Now, with this one here, I'm going to try again and say add handwritten try again and say add handwritten coette text on the inside of the design
coette text on the inside of the design that says I'd rather be reading. make it that says I'd rather be reading. make it a cute font and add more hearts and
stars. Okay. And we'll see what happens. You can also change the color with the Smartboards. Honestly, this is KD's coolest feature in my opinion cuz you can really do anything. And as you see here, that's exactly what I asked it to
do. And this is a more cohesive design that I can use. And again, looking back on these art boards, some design just like this that says it's a good day to read has a pretty similar idea to the design, right? And I could keep editing
this and asking it to change it. Here's the one that made it pink. Obviously, it added too many stars, but overall, you get the idea here of how I'm just basically using prompts and bringing something to life. And here's the
example, too. If I wanted to manually add text to this one, I can add in a headline. put this here and then type my own text, right? And then pick my own font and do whatever I want to it. But you get the idea of that. Now, one thing
I also want to show you as well, this is a perfect example of this. This is a really basic design that sure isn't terrible, but like is that really going to sell? Like it doesn't have anything special about it. It looks like clip
art, and we want to make things that people are going to spend their money on. So, as an example, I made a Smartboard of this and I literally asked Smartboard of this and I literally asked it verbatim, make this design better for
a t-shirt graphic design. Add Coette accent stars and make it more cohesive and change the text to have a Coette girly pink font. And I was given this absolutely beautiful design that can be placed on a sweatshirt. So utilizing
maybe even a design that you already have, asking the AI to make it better. This can be a beautiful way of using the AI and making the smartboards. Here's also a very large art board of a bunch of the designs that I made. So let me
of the designs that I made. So let me zoom in here. So this one I started out with this and then asked it to add in some text here which looks very asked the Smartboard to change the color. You can see all my prompts here.
the text. And this is a beautiful cohesive design that's created again in seconds and can be placed on a print on demand product like so. Right? So, see this? And it's made all just using those prompts. Here's a few more examples as
well. I really played around with this to just show you to give you an idea of how your wording can change so much with these AI designs and create so many different things. Also on the left side there are templates. So if you don't
kind of like I don't really know what I want to make, you can find all these different templates that KD has and then use the AI to change them into pretty I've been showing you. So this is a
earlier that was selling really well. And I want to show you some variety here. So not everything is super girly. So what I'm going to do is just change out some of this text manually. So, I'm going to do see the one earlier was
Colorado. And then change this to mountains. Okay. And then just for an example, we'll make a Smartboard again. Right. And I'll use a more simple prompt rather than the large one that I was showing
you earlier. So, I'm going to say make this a vintage Colorado mountain. Make this a vintage Colorado mountain. Make it a cohesive t-shirt. add in blues and
it a cohesive t-shirt. add in blues and actually put realistic and make it look better. Okay, pretty simple prompt there. And let's see what it creates. Okay, so very beautiful. So, see, we
just had it make us a brand new design that we can use on a print on demand better than this template, but it's a great place to start. So, if you're start exactly, you can absolutely utilize these templates and add in
things. And from that first design that I showed, we know that those vintage mountain, you know, stuff has a demand. So, it can be done pretty much anyway like that. And bonus tip, if you've stayed this long, check out how you can
actually make mock-ups within this as well. So, as we keep doing, I'm going to mockup is great because it'll actually put the design on a shirt. But if you want to get more like or any product here, they're all on the side.
Obviously, this has a background. But if you want to get more of a realistic mockup that really showcases your branding, I can ask it specifically for branding, I can ask it specifically for what I want. So, put or create a mockup,
what I want. So, put or create a mockup, this design on a white sweatshirt being this design on a white sweatshirt being worn by a woman hiking in beautiful worn by a woman hiking in beautiful mountains. Zoom in on the sweatshirt and
check that out. I mean, how cool is that? So, you can ask it honestly to create anything. This is so cool. It's such a great way to make your designs, to make your mockups. Obviously, so many different outcomes that you can get
Here's another example as well. This is like a great Etsy mockup for this sweatshirt. But hopefully this was helpful and that you see now all the possibilities utilizing the AI on here. So to recap for our actual selling
points of what's really going to make our design sale goes back to the research adding something new and valuable to the design in a pre-existing market. We want to make sure that the design has a clear idea of who it's
books, right? That's what I was creating legible and that someone can read it really well. So when we're creating and doing the text to make sure it looks good cuz who's going to buy something
read. We also want to make sure that it taps into some emotion. Whether that's the interest, right, that the seller's looking for of things they like or maybe it taps them emotionally different, whether that's funny, something
relatable. There's so many different ways to execute that. But again, we find that through our research. So that is the system. That is essentially how you do your research and how you can use AI to create really beautiful designs or to
creating. I wish that I would have started doing this sooner with my designing techniques. I wish that I would have saw how much time it could save me when I do implement the AI. But to use it as a tool rather than have it
to replace you completely as a designer, I think is very valuable. I will leave today in the description of the video below, including KD, which is the way that I was creating the AI designs. You can try out KD for free and try out
these AI design techniques I was showing you. They do have free credits available on a free plan. You will be limited, but it gives you an idea of how really amazing things you can create with KD. I use the KD Pro plan, which is a paid
credits because I am utilizing this every single day on multiple designs, and I feel it's worth it for me in so many different ways. And I will leave a discount code if you do choose to join KD's paid plan so that you can create a
lot more designs as well. I hope that you found this video helpful or that you inspired to go ahead and give this designing and research technique a try. designing and research technique a try. Thank you so so much for watching.