Merchandise & Product Graphics

Lettering for Merchandise

Design lettering that survives the print run

12 lessons4 modules9h 0m durationbeginner level

Instructor: StretchLearn Faculty

About this course

This beginner course teaches lettering for physical products, not for screens or posters. You will sketch and refine a phrase, ink and vectorise brush lettering in Adobe Illustrator or the free Inkscape, then prepare it for the three biggest merch surfaces: flat apparel, the wrap-around curve of a mug, and the awkward shape of a tote or hat. By the end you can deliver a single piece of lettering as a transparent 300 DPI PNG for direct-to-garment, a layered SVG for vinyl and laser, and a sized mockup that sells the design, all built to the spec sheets used by Printful, Printify, and local screen printers.

Curriculum

Module 1: Sketching Lettering That Belongs on a Product3 lessons

Why Merch Lettering Is Its Own DisciplinePreview45m
Thumbnails, Hierarchy, and the Focal Word🔒45m
Inking a Clean Sketch for Tracing🔒45m

Module 2: Vectorising and Building Clean Type3 lessons

Image Trace and Live Trace, Done Right🔒45m
Cleaning Paths, Anchors, and Overlaps🔒45m
Pairing Hand Lettering With Type🔒45m

Module 3: Laying Out Type for Curved and Awkward Surfaces3 lessons

Print Areas and Placement on Apparel🔒45m
Wrapping Type Around a Mug🔒45m
Totes, Hats, and Other Awkward Shapes🔒45m

Module 4: Mockups, File Prep, and Shipping to the Printer3 lessons

Building Mockups That Sell🔒45m
Colour, Resolution, and Print-Process Prep🔒45m
Exporting Shop-Ready Files and a Delivery Pack🔒45m