Whether it's used primarily as a uniform, crowd identifier, or workout jersey, your business's T-shirt is its most cost-effective advertising tool. Anyone wearing your shirt is a walking, talking billboard for your products and services. Unfortunately, so is anyone wearing your competitor's shirt. Make sure your T-shirt's design is clearer, catchier and more memorable than everyone else's with these simple design tips.

1. Is It Readable?

Most business experts recommend including a line or two of punchy text on your T-shirts, but there's no point in putting anything on your shirt at all if it's not immediately readable. Avoid common pitfalls like insufficiently differentiating your background and text colors, writing in attractive but difficult-to-read cursive, and including blocks of small text that can't be read from a distance. As a rule, people shouldn't have to squint to read your T-shirt from a few feet away.

2. It It Easy to Understand?

Once you've established that your shirt's text is clearly legible, apply a similar test to the rest of its design. Although it may be tempting to include lots of color and flair, it's easy to get too cute. The best T-shirt graphics occupy a middle ground: they're crisp without being simplistic and witty without being grandiose. Your shirt should resemble a billboard, not a full-page prescription-drug magazine ad.

3. Is It Smart?

Your business may have achieved success by catering to the lowest common denominator, but your T-shirt doesn't have to pander to be popular. Since they may require explanation, some of the most memorable T-shirt designs actually contain "smart" cultural references that aren't immediately obvious to everyone on the street. The key is repetition and reinforcement: Everyone who asks you what exactly your shirt means and gives you a chance to explain it will walk away from the conversation with a positive memory and a better understanding of what you do. As long as your design passes the legibility and simplicity tests, don't be afraid to go highbrow with it.

4. Is It Appropriate?

Unless you operate a niche business and don't mind keeping it that way, keep your older, more traditional customers in mind as you design your business's next shirt. Although it's possible to be a little racy if you're clever about it, it's a good idea to draw the line at outright profanity or anything but the most oblique scatological references. This is simply good business: When you design a T-shirt that can't be worn in school, at the company picnic, or even at your block party, you circumscribe your base of potential customers and leave revenue on the table.

5. Does It Respect Copyright?

You might have the best T-shirt idea since the invention of the cotton undershirt, but you're out of luck if someone else thought of it first. Don't use other companies' corporate logos or even approximate representations thereof, and don't simply co-opt an idea by switching around a few words in a sentence. Needless to say, the consequences for being caught at this game are unpleasant at best.

These five tips are a great start on the road to creating a great design for your business's next T-shirt. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but building a successful T-shirt requires science and art in equal measure.

Kyla Haney is a freelance writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She writes for www.tshirtprinting.org. Check out their website today!