12 Hot Trends for 2017

by Courtney Matlick, Stahls’ TV

The start of a new year always leads to new trends in apparel design and print. Fashion trends evolve and change quickly from year to year, and in some cases, even season to season. To stay ahead of the competition and keep your apparel designs fresh, you have to stay on top of latest trends.

Last year brought popular print designs such as the knock-out design and oversized shoulder-to-shoulder prints into the wholesale apparel market. This year, a whole new set of apparel trends is entering into the world of retail, sportswear, spirit wear, and streetwear. Fresh designs sell more T-shirts, so Stahls’ TV has dug up popular design and print trends for 2017 to help you stay ahead of the curve. Here is a quick list of those trends:

Triple-Trendy: Using multiple fonts, reverse-cutting, and no-hole letters are all on-trend these days.
Triple-Trendy: Using multiple fonts, reverse-cutting, and no-hole letters are all on-trend these days.

1. Mixing Font Styles
One of the overarching trends from 2017 is typography, the art and technique of using text to create a design. As part of this trend text designs using different fonts including script, bold, and thin fonts to make a cohesive design are rising in popularity.

2. No-Holes Designs
This trend may not have been created by vinyl cutter owners but it is surely one that users of CAD-CUT® heat transfer vinyl will love. Using bold fonts, the centers of the letters are left whole so there are no holes within the text. With this design style, there is no need to weed out cavities with heat transfer vinyl, saving you time in production!

3. Reverse Out Text Effects
Another design trend making a rise in 2017 is the reverse text design. This design trend is achieved by punching out or reverse weeding the text from a shape such as a rectangle or circle.

4. Minimalist Typography
Keeping with the idea that less is more, thin text fonts and open negative space is trending for designs on thin, lightweight garments to achieve a soft, light feel.

5. Split Text Effects
Splitting text is another popular typography style that allows you to create designs from text artwork. With this design style, the text is split to create a unique design element. This can be achieved by splitting the text with colors, horizontal or diagonal lines to create a split font.

6. Boho-Chic
This fashionable design trend known as “Boho-chic” or Bohemian features a lot of cool images like feather, flowers, arrows, antlers, animals and colorful patterns within the design. These bright, fashionable elements can easily be added into spirit wear, dance, or graphic logo designs.

7. Vintage & Retro Styles
Everything old is new again and retro, vintage styles are making their way back into fashion trends for 2017. Distressed effects added to text and designs will pair well with new, retro garment styles.

8. Glitter Becomes a Staple
While this garment decoration isn’t exactly a new trend, glitter finishes will remain strong in 2017 for spirit wear, children’s apparel, and retail designs. Try mixing CAD-CUT® Glitter Flake™ heat transfer vinyl with other unique finishes, like matte colors of CAD-CUT® Fashion-FILM® or bold metallic shades of foil using CAD-CUT® Adhesive and Heat Transfer Foil.

9. Metallic is on the Rise
Trending ahead of glitter for the first time, metallic and foil prints will pop up on everything in 2017 from sportswear and spirit wear to graphic logo tees. Using CAD-CUT® Adhesive and Heat Transfer Foil, you can get creative easily printing foils on apparel with only your heat press and vinyl cutter. The Stahls’ TV video, Heat Transfer Foil – A Guide to Success, shares 10 unique ways to use foil on apparel.

10. Mixed Media with Matte & Metallic
Expanding the trend of foils and metallic, creating mixed media prints with matte and metallic finishes can create exceptional effects on apparel that stand out from the competition. CAD-COLOR® SuperTEK® Matte Clear printable heat transfer vinyl and CAD-CUT® Premium Plus™ heat transfer material are great choices for matte finishes paired with Adhesive and Heat Transfer Foil.

11. Tonal
Tonal prints got their start in 2016 but will really take off this year in sportswear and streetwear inspired designs. One very popular way to achieve a tonal effect on a shirt is to pair a black heat transfer on a contrasting black garment. Try mixing unique effects like the semi-gloss finish of Thermo-FILM®, or the matte finish of Premium Plus™ to create understated, tone-on-tone prints.

12. Unique Logo Placement & Oversized Designs
Where are you currently printing your logos on apparel? 2017 is the year to take a look outside of the box to print locations such as sleeves, wrap-around, lower front and lower back placements. This post on the Stahls’ TV blog, 10 Unique Print Placements for Your Apparel Business, will help spark your creativity.

To see these 12 trends and more in action, check out this recording of the Stahls’ TV Morning Show:

The Stahls’ TV Morning Show shares apparel trends, heat printing tips, and more ways to grow your apparel business live every Monday at 11am EST. To sign up for future episodes, visit the Stahls’ TV website.

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