One… Two…Three…four…and five pain relief patches! What happened to you dear? Did you put yourself into trouble? Or perhaps you had fallen to your bed while you were sleeping that's why you have that? Am I correct? Oh well, no… Then what?

Oh my… If that's the case, I will be scratching my head countless times too! Imagine you already tilted your head…rotate your eyes at all degrees just to get the possible best angles, you think but it seems that's still not enough. Along with your body, you almost flip and stretch yourself on your craft table like Tom Holland of the Spider-Man movie… However, the most excellent way you ever try just to spot the perfect placement of your customized design for your shirt printing is still elusive!

So what now? Are you just going to stare at this problem? Or will you wait for the pain relief patches to stick around your neck and arms to increase in numbers? Nahhhh! This can't wait for long… We must do something about this and develop an excellent scheme to patch up this neck-numbing concern!

Never be Displaced Again: Stick your Design at the Right Place at the Right Angle!

If up until now, you've got no plans yet… Okie-dokieeee! Everybody, be calm and be relaxed! If you have no way yet to get to the bottom of this and you're still searching to patch this problem up, now is the excellent timing! Guess what? We, your good friend and a buddy for any of your DIY projects, are not just your typical partner-in-craft! For we're born always to be CRAFTER SCOUT, we're always prepared to help you with any DIY challenge!

Come here, buddy, and let me invite you inside my craft room! Watch how we formulate the best formula to make your design seamlessly aligned using a VARIETY OF TECHNIQUES of PLACING DESIGNS and TOOLS for T-SHIRT PLACEMENT GUIDES! Don't worry; while you're waiting to be pain relief patches accessible, we'll be in charge of driving the boat, and we'll make sure after this, you'll never experience any muscle pain again!

T-shirt Rulers: One of your Guides to the Right Spot of Design Placement

Aside from trying to place our designs niftily, displacement of our customized imprints on our base material's surface isn't only a crucial part but an inevitable reality that every crafter must face and will always be facing! No more panicking, no more worrying, and no more hassles! Although we're trying our best to be extra careful, be superfluously meticulous, and get slow in letting our machine's platen touch our designs, there'll still be a time we can't understand and find why our imprints seem to be misaligned.

When sticking your design in the right spot of your shirt, be it on the Heat Transfer Printing, Sublimation, or Screen Printing techniques, T-shirt Rulers will always be one of the tools for the crafters to watch out and this will going to save your imprints and materials in getting lost in their way!

What is a T-shirt Ruler?

T-shirt Rulers being used in the printing and customization field are unique and distinct from other types of rulers we know. Hence, the purpose, how we'll read it, and where it'll be used are still the same ------ MEASURING.

This specialized measuring device that can be made out of plastic, thick paper board-type of material is a tool we can commonly rely on for precise measuring of distance and an accurate guide for placement of imprints to the center surface or preferable area of our base material's surface.

What does a T-shirt Ruler look like?

A T-shirt Ruler has a semi-shirt shape with much emphasis on having the figure of a collar on its top part and shoulder shapes for its left and right side that houses specific uses. The collar shape part of the ruler contains the vertical center mark, and this serves as a guide in noting the middle area of a shirt. Below it, a horizontal ruler is found, which serves as a guide in placing designs on the left or right part of the shirt. On the other side, the shoulder shape, which may also contain vertical line marks on the left and right side, serves as a guide for balancing the placement of imprints to the left and right chest part of a shirt upon design application. On these sides, too, vertical rulers can be found, which accurately help in design placement on a top of a shirt imprint.

For an overall appearance of a measuring-tool an effect, it also contains special hash marks with numbers on the upper side that may represent the inches or centimeters depending on the style of the T-shirt Ruler.

Can we use T-shirt Rulers in all T-shirt varieties?

If the details you've gathered still have some place for additional information to fill in, T-shirt Rulers are a game changer! This measuring tool for T-shirt customization can give you accuracy in terms of design placement for any type and size of a shirt. It can have more than four versions that are precisely fit for placing imprints on an adult, youth, toddler, and infant or even in the over-sizes type of shirts.

How a T-shirt Ruler works, and how do we use it?

When you use a T-shirt Ruler in placing your imprints made of HTV or other types of vinyl materials on a shirt's surface, you don't need to speculate or estimate if you're getting them right on the spot! This tool isn't only user-friendly, but it is very cooperative to whatever material type you'll use; you can expect it to work so well. So how does a T-shirt Ruler works? Well, let me tell you how breezy it is!

When you have your chosen T-shirt with your preferred size of it, lay the shirt flatly on your craft table or directly on your heat press machine's pressing area. However, if your device is pre-heated, be extra careful not to touch any heated part of it accidentally. At the same time, your upper platen is wide open.

Next, you may start lining up the edge of the T-shirt ruler just below the bottom seam of the shirt's collar or neck part. Locate the center of your base material using the vertical center mark of the ruler and check the proportionality of your design placement if it's all balance using vertical markings for the left and chest part of the ruler or with the horizontal ruler. Take note too. Before pressing or attaching your design, make sure it's correctly sized proportionally to the size of your base material. After, you may place some markings using a sewing mark pencil (optional) as you used the guides so you may accurately position your imprint made out of HTV. Once you think all are fine, set aside the t-shirt ruler, and you may attach your design to the shirt using your heat press machine.

Why Use a T-shirt Ruler?

See this? Just in time, we got a new tool and a new friend for our crafting! A T-shirt Ruler to count on at all times of our customization is a two thumbs up! Now have more reasons why you should be besties with this tool!

1. The placement of your shirt, M-A-T-T-E-R-S. It can be too low when you place without assuring your imprint's exact place on your project's surface (like in the middle). For such reason, when one wears the shirt as a finished product, the imprint placement will be awkward.

2. Proportionality and balance in design placement will follow the shape of our body. Always for the best effect, design placement with a T-shirt Ruler can place it exactly way up higher proportional to the chest part of the shirt. In this way, the imprints will appear just right in place and will not look as if something is not right in our eyes.

3. T-shirt Rulers Save Time. If you are meticulous, it'll take ages to imprint. Still, with T-shirt Rulers, that's so easy to use, so simple to line up with its hash marks, with a little precise measuring, and markings, all can be done in less than a minute before pressing time!

4. T-shirt Rulers are flexible to any application. T-shirt Rulers are versatile for any application! Its durable markings won't peel or fade away as you use it on shirt projects for heat transfer, screen printing, vinyl printing, and others.

Can we make a Do-It-Yourself T-shirts Rulers on our own?

A bonus information alert! Yes, we can DIY a T-shirt Ruler using our Cricut Cutting Machines! We can always buy one but knowing how to make one will save us pennies, and you can allocate it to purchase extra materials for your DIYs!

The Materials for DIY T-shirt Rulers

• Cardstock (110 lbs. with 8.5”x 11”size) or Chopping Mat (11”x 14” in size)
• Cricut Cutting Machine
• Cutting Mat
• Cricut Fine Point Pen

Steps in Making DIY T-shirt Ruler

1. On your computer, search and download a free template of a T-shirt Ruler.
2. Unzip the template and go to your design software to import and upload it on your canvas.
3. On your canvas, your template will appear with two layers (the ruler's shape and the ruler's marking. Since they're pre-measured correctly, you don't need to resize or make some changes.
4. If you prefer to print on your DIY T-shirt Ruler on a cardstock, the marking will be drawn using the Cricut pen. With that, click the drop-down arrow in the operation option and choose "Pen".
5. Keep the ruler's shape set to "basic cut," and to place the ruler marking on top, click "attach" in the Layers Panel so they are not separated when cutting.
6. Load the card stock to the cutting mat going to the machine. Place the Cricut pen into the machine's clamp B as the blade is in clamp C. Before you click "Male it" make sure to set your "On Mat" option to 12" x 12" size. After that, click "Continue" and start cutting!

Guidelines in lining up designs: Rock and Rule Design Placement on Shirts!

What an instant pain! Who wouldn't be out of their mind and get broke? After all of the cutting, weeding, placing, and pressing of your design on your shirt, you expect everything will turn out great; however, just only you thought! Your shirt's imprint final look seems like going in the direction going out of the earth!

Relate? If you don't want another repeat history remark, hurry up and bring out extra sheets of paper with you. Here are more tips and guides to ruling the alignment of your designs!

Centering Designs on T-shirts Making it Handy

The general struggle of design placement will show its easiness or difficulty depending on what dimension the T-shirt has and the design has. Any design in its center or vertical alignment will be more straightforward for an imprint to be pressed at 11 inches by 15-inch dimensions rather than pressing a 2-inch tall by 10-inch wide design.

Methods in Centering T-shirt Designs

1. The Measuring Method – A helpful technique for beginning DIY-ers that only uses the accurate measurement of a measuring tape. As a general guide for using this tool, the upper part of your design must be positioned 3 inches down from the shirt's collar line for adult's and child's shirts, and it must be 2 inches down.

The same guide can also be applied to the following areas or designs:

• Non-crew neck shirts – start gauging its center not more than 1.5 inches below the v-neckline.
• Narrow Text Prints – use the 3-inch rule for the imprint. With the said measurement, the design will be positioned vertically centered across the shirt's chest area.

2. The Folding Technique – is the handiest way to search for the shirt's center accuracy! It can be applied both in finding the center of a shirt's front and back area.

Steps in doing the Folding Technique

• Pre-heat your heat printing tool. An iron or easy press can be used to help you create some visible creases.
• Place your shirt flatly on the pressing area of your heat printing tool.
• Fold in half and vertically the shirt by taking the left shoulder and going to the right shoulder part (shoulder to shoulder) to generate a vertical crease. Secure the sleeves, edges, and shoulder line up to avoid having an off-center line.
• Once all are equally aligned, use the iron or easy press to press on the fold you made to create a vertical crease.
• Repeating the same step, this time, make a horizontal, vertical crease by lifting the bottom part of the shirt, going to its topmost position.
• As you unfold the shirt, you'll see two lines intersecting or crossing each other. Their intersection point will serve as your center point where you'll place your design.
• Do the same folding process again and apply it to your design imprint to match the design lines to the folded lines of your shirt.
• Position your creased design and precisely place it up to the center point of your shirt's surface and secure it with heat tape to avoid moving or misalignment.
• Once done, start heat pressing.

Design Placement at the Back of a T-shirt Making it so Breezy

Even if the back area of a T-shirt isn't perceptible most of the time, it's an ideal space to add extra creative substance to your other designs or one that can mirror and add a signature look for your designs in the front part of your shirt!

Generally, in placing a design on this space of the shirt, the imprint must be centered by placing it 4 inches down from the collar for the adult's shirt and 3 inches down on the child's shirt.

The following guide below can be used for some other areas of the designs at the back of the shirt.

• Small Upper Back Area – this part is near the back collar part of your shirt, and the design that must be placed on this area ranges with a size of 1 inch to 3 inches tall for it not to lose its details.
• Upper Back Area – it's a versatile part, same when positioning design in the front chest area of a shirt. The design placement must be 4 inches below the collar, and the range size of the design must be around 10 inches to 14 inches wide with a height of 1 inch to 6 inches.
• Full Back Area – an area serving as an alternative to the front part of a shirt. To place the design, it must begin at 3 inches to 4 inches from the shirt's collar. This could also accommodate larger imprints with an average size of 10 to 14 inches wide and height of 5 to 6 inches.

Aligning T-shirts Make it so Easy!

If, at this moment, you're one of those who initially treat shirt customization as a hobby but now have a change of mind and want to make it a business…If you're a crafter who's ready to expand your service and so much ready to accept more orders, don't hold back because you're on the RIGHT ALIGNMENT of goals!

Doing this big leap might sound like a big challenge for you as an aspiring future owner of a vast store of personalized shirts; there's nothing you should fear! You already have some of your advantages ----- the ideas on how to do the proper design placement, what tool you will use to align your designs accurately, and even the different techniques… And the last one to complete the full set of your skills; mastering how to align your shirts for your imprints!

The time of your breakthrough is here; grab this set of guides to keep your customization on the right track!

Table of Design Placement in Different T-shirt Sizes

Matching any of the techniques we learned a while ago is useful. But, to make it more effective, this measurement guide will help you align not only your designs but proportionally to the dimension of your substrate.

T-shirt Type	Design Placement	T- Shirt Size	Size of Design
Adults	Top design placement is at 3 inches to 3.5 inches below the shirt’s neckline	Extra- small	8.5 inches
		Small-Large	9 inches to 9.5 inches
		Extra-Large	10 inches
		Double XL	10.5 inches
		Triple XL	11 inches
		XXXX - Large	11.5 inches
Teens or Youth	Top design placement is at 1.5 inches to 2 inches below the shirt’s neckline	Extra – Small	6.5 inches
		Small	7 inches
		Medium	7.5 inches
		Large	8 inches
		Extra-Large	8.5 inches
Toddlers	Top design placement is at 1 inches below the neckline	18 months	4 inches-5 inches
		2 years	4 inches-5 inches
		3 years	5 inches-6 inches
		4 years	5 inches-6 inches
Shirts for Infants	Top design placement is at 1 inch below the shirt’s neckline	0-3 months	3 inches-4 inches
		3-6 months	3 inches-4 inches
		6-9 months	4 inches-5 inches
		12 months	4 inches-6 inches

The Graphic Alignment System T-shirt Customization with HTV

In the world of DIY-ing, innovation is without a limit! When there are never-ending arising of needs of crafters in their crafting due to innovation brought by time, there'll always be intelligent and creative minds who'll invent helpful solutions to these needs. And yes, thanks to them for coming up with a Graphic Alignment System consisting of valuable tools for aligning shirts and designs on shirts!

Why use Graphic Alignment System?

There are only two impactful reasons why you should like this Graphic Alignment System. You cannot say no to this!

With Graphic Alignment System, you can:

• Place exactly multiple designs in one base material.
• Get detailed applications of designs on HTV or Vinyl applications and even other projects like Screen Printing, Laser Heat Transfer Applications, and others!

The Tools for Graphic Alignment System

1. The Logo Grid It – A must-have tool for businesses suitable to imprints of apparel products made from Heat Transfer Materials. A Logo Grid-It is a type of ruler commonly used to spot a logo's accurate position. This can work with a variety of shirt sizes and any size of logos or design imprints.

How to use it?

Simply find the center of the shirt's collar with its top or side ruler. Position the logo or the design in the center of the targeted space in the lower collar. Attach the design and press it with your heat press equipment.

Tee Square It – Another type of tool, also a ruler in nature, comes with a long center bar measuring 20.5 inches long. This helps you align and center your design swiftly and proportionally to the whole shirt dimension (mainly to the arm, center, and neck). A Tee Square IT consists of parts that can be assembled and disassembled depending on your use. It has a collar plate that can be used in measuring design placements near the neckline and the vertical ruler. On top of it lies the movable horizontal ruler bar that slides it up and down to the center rails of the vertical ruler.

Ooppps! Are you still lost, buddy? Confidently you're not! Even if you have encountered all or most types of rulers, whether, in your academic life, this ruler for your crafting life will be helpful for you to walk straightly in reaching your profit and business success!

Other Vinyl Crafting Articles

Please click the links below for more blogs that you may find helpful in your crafting adventures:

HEAT TRANSFER VINYL FOR PERFECT CUSTOM-MADE SHIRTS

SUBLIMATION IN COTTON AND DARK COLORS WITH HTVShare these ideas with your family and friends. Also, share your crafting journey with us on our pages.

Social Media Accounts:

FB:

IG:

TikTok:

For your vinyl crafting needs, please check our website at xvinyl.com. We offer different Adhesive and Heat Transfer Vinyl, perfect for your next project.