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What's better than a regular ugly Christmas sweater? How about a Lord of the Rings Ugly Christmas sweater! Well in this video, I'm going to show you how easy it is to make one with Kittl! We have all of the ugly style fonts, wizards, dragons, magic item illustrations, and textures you need to create an amazing ugly Christmas sweater. And it doesn't have to be for Lord of the Rings! It could be any niche or style that you are into! So give this a watch and see what you can come up with! 

Watch how an ugly Christmas sweater inspired by The Lord of the Rings is created in Kittl. Using ugly style fonts, wizards, dragons, magic item illustrations, and textures.

Make A Lord Of The Rings Ugly Christmas Sweater | kittl

LotR Christmas Sweater

What would Amazon's logo look like if they were a Y2K brand? Maybe they're solely selling toys, or video games, and they would need a logo to match it. Well in this video, I'm showing you what that logo would look like, because it was super easy to create using Kittl! We already have Y2K logo templates, assets, fonts, and more, making it easy for you to create logo designs just like this one. 

Watch how the Amazon branding gets re-designed in Y2K style.

Amazon Logo turned Y2K | kittl

Amazon Logo turned Y2K

Making a beautiful vintage Christmas card doesn't have to be difficult (or super expensive) anymore! And you don't have to be a lettering master either. We already have a ton of beautiful lettering fonts that are perfect for the Christmas season, as well as thin flourishes and ornaments to help bring your card together. Plus, using our Unsplash photo integration, you can quickly search for the perfect flat lay photo to use for your Christmas card. So give this tutorial a watch and see what you can come up with! 

Lettering Christmas card template in Kittl

Learn how to create stunning Lettering Card designs for the Holiday Season, using vintage flourishes, ornaments and flatlay photos.

Make A Lettering Christmas Card | kittl

Make A Lettering Christmas Card

There's no doubt that using logo templates can save you a ton of time (and money). The only problem comes when you don't know exactly what you are supposed to edit (or even how you are supposed to edit it). Well in Kittl, it's super easy to edit and customize our logo design templates. Plus, in this video tutorial, we're going to show you how to edit some pretty intense templates so that you know exactly what to do, and what tips to think about when you start editing text, changing color, and adding new illustrations. 

Learn how to edit templates in Kittl and get tips what to do before editing text, changing color, and adding new illustrations.

How To Customize Templates | kittl

Customize Templates in Kittl

This trend is raging right now! The easiest way to make Y2K style logos, apparel, and graphics is with Kittl! We already have a ton of Y2K style fonts, Y2K elements and illustrations, and we also already have pre-made templates ready for you to easily customize and make your own. (We also have a bunch of other tutorials on how to make Y2K style streetwear and logo designs). So give this a quick watch, and then see what you can create!

Learn how to create Y2K logos and streetwear with Kittl's Y2K style fonts, elements and illustrations.

Easiest Way to create Y2K Design | kittl

Easiest Way to create Y2K Design

The 1920s art deco style is so beautiful. All of the thin line work, the gold and dark colors like black, charcoal, and navy blue all work so well together. The only problem is trying to achieve this style can be pretty challenging if you're not a drawing master, or a proficient at Adobe Illustrator. We have solved that problem with Kittl! We have tons of Art Deco style thin ornament frames, gold foil style elements, 1920s inspired fonts, and so much more, making it super easy for your to make a Great Gatsby style card or invitation design (or really anything else you might need)! So give it a watch and then see what kind of card you come up with. 

Art Deco invitation card template in Kittl

Learn where to find and how to use ornament frames, gold foil style elements and 1920s inspired fonts to create a Great Gatsby inspired design.

Make Art Deco Card Designs | kittl

Make Art Deco Card Designs

The Toblerone logo has been around since 1909, and we thought it would be cool to share just how easy it is to get that iconic vintage text effect with Kittl. With just a few clicks and a slider or two, you can have vintage text shadow and depth that you can apply to any word, logo, or creative project. So give this tutorial a quick watch, and then see what you can come up with using these vintage text settings.

Learn how to re-create Toblerone's authentic logo design with just a few clicks.

Toblerone Logo Text Effect | kittl

Toblerone Logo Text Effect

It's super easy to make Y2K style streetwear when you have the right tools to do it. Kittl has bold Y2K style fonts, globe and star illustrations and elements, and easy to use text effect settings for you to easily get that puffy Y2K style design you've been trying to make! You don't need Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to use Kittl, and it's not going to take you very long to figure out, especially if you watch this step by step tutorial! For this design, we're going for a mythical creature vibe centered around Medusa, on of the ancient Greek deities. What's great about Kittl, is we already have a category of mythical creatures ready to go! So give it a watch, and then see what kind of streetwear designs you come up with.

How to create Y2K streetwear design using Kittl's illustrations like Medusa and other mystical creatures.

Easily Make Y2K Streetwear Apparel Designs | kittl

Y2K Streetwear Designs

Kiss cut stickers are pretty much always popular, and believe it or not, they are super simple to make! With a neat hack in Kittl, you'll be making kiss cut stickers in no time. We have all of the fonts, illustrations, and effects you need to make stickers that will stand out amongst the rest on your print on demand websites like Redbubble, Society 6, and Teepublic. So give this tutorial a watch and see what you can come up with! 

Learn about what fonts, illustrations, and effects you need to make stickers for your print on demand designs.

Simple Kiss Cut Stickers For Print On Demand | kittl

Kiss Cut Stickers For POD

Getting that iconic collegiate style design can be pretty frustrating if you don't have the fonts necessary, or if you just don't know how to use advanced software. Well thankfully, we have everything you need for college apparel designs right in Kittl, and it's super easy to do. In this step-by-step tutorial, Drew will show you exactly where to find college style fonts, how to create a college badge logo with a mascot, and then show you what it looks like on a classic crew neck sweater. 

Where to find college style fonts, how to create a badge logo with a mascot to create a classic crew neck sweater.

College Style Apparel Designs | kittl

College Style Apparel Designs

Unless you are a master at Procreate or Illustrator, it can be tough to get that fancy rainbow lettering you might see people do. But with Kittl, you can achieve this effect in literal minutes! With this special hack we are going to teach you in this tutorial, you'll be able to make rainbow lettering in no time, which will perfect for your design projects, whether that be logos, merchandise, or something else! So give it a watch and see what you can come up with! 

We are going to teach you how to make rainbow lettering in no time,

How To Make Rainbow Lettering | kittl

How To Make Rainbow Lettering

How do you make an excellent t-shirt design using Kittl, Cricut, and a heat press?

That’s the question we’re going to answer in this tutorial. If you have an awesome t-shirt design waiting in the wings, this tutorial will show you how to prep that design and what you need to do to get it onto a t-shirt.

We’re going to show you how to size the image so that it looks great and what you have to do to print it out. Plus, we cover how to use a heat press to transplant your design onto a t-shirt so you have a one-of-a-kind shirt that stands out from the crowd.

But before we jump in, you need to get your hands on Kittl. You can sign up for free today to start creating some stunning designs using the software’s built-in array of elements and tools. You’ll also need a Cricut cutting machine, the Cricut app, and access to a Cricut heat press.

Have you got everything you need? Then, let’s jump into the tutorial.

We’re going to assume that you already have a design in Kittl. First, you have to get rid of that image’s background. Select the image and head into the “Background Settings.” Select the color orb and click the circle with a cross through it. You’ll find the circle to the left of the horizontal color gradient.

Now that you’ve gotten rid of the background, drag your cursor over your image to select it. You may need to make the image a little bigger to ensure it’s the right size for your shirt. Use your cursor to expand the image until you’re pleased with it.

Next, head to the “Download” icon in the top-right corner of your project. It’s the third icon from the left. Turn “Optimize Quality” on and raise the DPI to 300. Then, click the “PNG” button and download a PNG image file containing your design.

Step 2 – Upload Your Design to Cricut Design Space

Head to https://design.cricut.com/ and open a Design Space in Cricut. If you don’t already have the Cricut app, you’ll need to download it before you can get going. Once you’ve logged into Cricut, click the “New Project” button.

This opens a new project page. Click “Templates” from the navigation menu on the left and select “Classic T-Shirt.” A t-shirt template showing the front and back of the shirt opens up in the Cricut design space.

Now, you need to upload your design. Click “Upload” from the menu on the left and either drag and drop your PNG image file or navigate to it via Cricut. You should see your image file appear under “Upload Image.” Click on “Moderately Complex,” as we assume your image doesn’t have any complicated fine details or blended colors. If it does, you may have to select “Complex.”

Cricut takes you to a screen titled “Select Upload Type.” Choose “Cut Image” because you’re not ready to print yet. Clicking that will take you back to your t-shirt template. Only now, you should see your logo placed on the front of the t-shirt.

You may find that your uploaded image file is a little bit too big for the t-shirt template. That’s an easy fix as you can just grab the image’s handles and reduce its size until it fits on the shirt. Spend a little time tweaking the image to make sure it’s centered and looks large enough for what you want from your shirt.

When everything looks good, click the “Make It” button at the top-right of the screen. Cricut will show you what your design looks like on a 12x12 panel.

Make sure you activate the “Mirror” option. You need to mirror your image if you’re going to place it on a piece of cloth, like a t-shirt or a tote bag. Click the “Continue” button when you’re ready to move to the next step.

After clicking “Continue,” Cricut takes you to a screen where you can set the basic settings for your t-shirt. Choose “Everyday Iron-On” and select “More” from the “Pressure” drop-down.

That’s about it for your settings. Now, load your vinyl into your Cricut machine and let it do its thing. It took about three or four minutes to cut our image completely, though yours may take more or less time depending on the image’s complexity.

Carefully remove your vinyl and take your time with weeding the design. We like to use a little utility knife to weed properly. It took us about 10 minutes to weed our design. Again, depending on your design’s complexity, you may take more or less time.

Pay particular attention to the small parts in between letters. A little slip up there and you end up with a flaw that you’re going to notice every time you wear your new t-shirt.

Step 6 – Use the Cricut Heat Press to Apply Your Design

Now that you have your weeded design, it’s time to press it onto a t-shirt. Cricut comes through again with a heat press that’s specially designed for use with its vinyl. If you don’t have a heat press, you can get one from the Cricut online store.

Prep your shirt on a flat surface and use a roller to pick up any stray lint and any other small fibers that may interfere with your design. Use the roller on your design too, making sure that it’s as clean as possible.

Next, you’ll use the Cricut Heat Press Guide to choose the settings for your machine. Select “Everyday Iron-On” from the “Heat-Transfer Material” drop-down menu and select your “Base Material.” Our shirt was 100% cotton, but check yours to make sure you choose the right material setting.

Scroll down and you should see instructions for what it’s going to take to apply your design to your shirt. These instructions vary depending on the materials you’re using. For our project, we needed to preheat our shirt for five seconds before pressing it for 30 seconds at a temperature of 315 degrees Fahrenheit.

This screen should also give you a set of instructions to follow when using the heat press.

Scroll a little further down and you’ll see more detailed instructions covering how to prepare your heat press and apply your design. These are the instructions you’re going to follow for the rest of the process.

All that’s left is to apply the design. Preheat your shirt for as long as Cricut tells you to, then place your design on top of the heated area. Place your Cricut heat press directly over your design and hold it there for half of the time Cricut says. Then, flip the shirt and hold the press over the reverse side. For us, that meant 15 seconds of heat applied to the design and then another 15 seconds on the reverse.

Step 7 – Complete the T-Shirt Application

The last step is the easiest. Once your shirt cools down, peel the plastic layer away from your design. If you’ve followed the steps correctly, the outer layer should peel off while your design pressed into the t-shirt.

The shirt must be completely cool to the touch before you do this. If it’s still warm, you may end up pulling some of the design off with the plastic layer when peeling. Run one last inspection to ensure there are no design issues and you’re good to go.

Step-by-step tutorial on how to design and prepare for Cricut press.

Cricut Heat Press Tutorial | kittl

DIY Cricut Heat Press T-Shirt Tutorial

Looking to make a personalized coffee mug for your Etsy shop? Look no further! In this video, we'll show you how to make a customizable monogram coffee mug template to sell on sites like Etsy and Zazzle. This mug template can be personalized with someone's name along with a lettered monogram, making it a great gift for any occasion.

how to make a customizable monogram coffee mug template to sell on sites like Etsy and Zazzle.

Customizable Template For Etsy | kittl

Customizable Template For Etsy

If you're wanting to design your own e-books to sell on stores like Kindle, Amazon, and other self-publishing sites, then you will need an eye-catching design to make sure your book gets notice! So in this video tutorial, I'll be showing you how to design a stellar e-book cover design using photography along with some neat design hacks. Check it out! 

How to design a stellar e-book cover design using photography along with some neat design hacks.

Make Ebook Covers With Photography | kittl

E-book Covers With Photography

In this video, I'm going to show you how to easily search for copyright free images using Kittl. There are a lot of great resources out there for finding copyright free images for your projects, but finding the right ones can be difficult. That's why we integrated Unsplash, one of the best photography websites out there, into Kittl, so you never have to leave your browsing window. It's as easy as opening up the photo tab, typing in some terms, and dragging over the perfect image for your project. 

Where to find copyright free images for your next project on Kittl.

Copyright Free Images | kittl

Copyright Free Images in Kittl

Gaming continues to grow in popularity every year, as evident by the growth and expansion of the esports circuit. Those events grow bigger every year, which should tell us that gaming isn’t going away anytime soon. Whether you like to stream online, participate in tournaments, or just like to watch other gamers do their thing, you’ll often see a smart little design element come into play:

A gamer tag is a little logo that players in the public eye use to brand themselves and grab the attention of other players. These tags are so cool that you may be thinking to yourself that you’d like to create one of your own. If you’re starting a Twitch or YouTube channel, or you want to get involved in esports, a good logo helps you stand out from the crowd.

If that sounds like you, Kittl makes it super easy to create a gaming logo. The graphic design software has several world-class illustrations designed for the gaming niche. This tutorial will teach you how to use these designs to create your own logo. But before we get started, make sure you sign up for Kittl so you can follow along. It’s free to sign up and you’ll be able to start getting a grip on the software in no time.

Open Kittl and check out the navigation bar on the left-hand side. Highlight the center icon and you should see several options appear. Select “Elements” and you’ll see various design elements built into Kittl that you can use in your design.

Select “Gaming Mascots” and you’ll pull up a selection of nearly 90 logos that Kittl offers for free. Some of these logos even have banners attached to them ready for you to insert your gamertag or team name.

Select an illustration you like. This tutorial uses the Elven illustration but you have a choice of several. You should see the element get added to your Kittl project directly in the center. Make the illustration a little larger and hit the T button to insert a text box underneath the element.

With your text in place, it’s time to select a font. With your textbox highlighted, check out the “Text Settings” menu on the right-hand side of your screen. Directly under the “Text Settings” header, you should see a little box containing your current font.

Click that box and a selection of typeface options appear. Choose the font you want to use and type “Dark” into the textbox.

Pro Tip: Click the “Other” tab in the Typeface menu and you’ll see some really sharp and futuristic fonts that are perfect for gaming logos.

Now that you have your text, it’s time to add a few effects. With your textbox still selected, click the “A+” icon at the top of the right-hand menu. That takes you to the “Effects” screen. We now want to add some cool shading so click “Block Shadow” in the row under “Shading.”

Change the element’s angle to -33 degrees

Now, tap the color settings to alter your font color so it’s more in line with the design. Copy your “Dark” textbox and paste a new textbox directly under the original. Change the text in this second box to read “Elven” and choose a different font while upping its size. We want the “Elven” to stand out a little more.

Copy and paste one of your textbox, delete the text inside the copied box, and press the dash key on your keyboard to create a hyphen. Move the textbox containing the hyphen under the “EN” at the end of the textbook containing the word “Elven” and resize it so the hyphen underlines the “EN.” The hyphen acts as a frame for a word that we’re about to add.

You may notice you have a few little gaps in your text. For example, using the hyphen technique we mentioned in the Pro Tip creates a gap between your hyphen and the letter “N”. That’s an easy fix as you just need to go back into “Elements” and select a basic shape. Drag the shape over the gap, resize it, and change its color to match your text.

Next, copy one of your textboxes, type in “Gaming,” and reduce it in size. Remove the effects by heading into the “Effects” menu and clicking the “Block Shadow” button. Drag and drop the textbox into your hyphen and you get a cool frame for the word “Gaming.”

Now we want a background for our elf, which we can make with some basic shapes. Head to “Elements” in the left-hand menu and navigate to “Basic Shapes.” Click “Show All” and navigate to the shield shape.

Click the shield and position the element in front of your elf. Change the shield's coloring and add any additional effects that you like. We went with some flame effects, which we thought looked cool with our elf and shield.

Next, we added a few flourishes to our logo. Duplicate your shield and send it to the back of the logo. With the duplicated shield highlighted, head into “Object Settings” and change the shape’s color to a different shade of green than the one used for your main shield. That gives you a cool border. Increase the “Border Weight” until you’re happy with how it looks.

You can widen the borders on any shape in the logo. We did it for our elf by increasing the “Border Weight” around that shape and playing with the colors until we found something that worked. Tweak the sizes of your elements until they look how you want them to and you should end up with something like this:

Change your background color to black and type “Rays” into the “Add Elements” search box. Set the ray element to the background to create a cool halo effect. We also added a few flame elements that go behind the elf’s hands, giving them a nice little effect in the process.

Type “Gradient” into the “Add Elements” search box and click on the circle with a pinprick of light in the center. Place the circle in the center of your logo and head to Object Settings. Change both of the color orbs to yellow. Then, head into the first orb color and pull “Opacity/Alpha” down to 0 to create a transparent gradient effect. Move the orb so it’s behind the elf layer and you get a glowing effect.

Drag your cursor over all the elements you’ve added to your project. Press “Command + G” if you’re a Mac user or “Ctrl + G” for Windows users to group all of the elements.

Head back into “Add Elements” and select the square image at the top of the right-hand column. Place that image over the center of your logo. Head to “Object Settings” and change the first color orb to a darker green than the one used in the elf logo. Head into the second color orb, change it to the same green as the first, and lower the “Opacity/Alpha” to 0%.

Rotate the gradient block so it looks like a diamond and extend it to run diagonally across the project image. You’ll get a nice little diagonal gradient effect.

Last up, we’ll add a little bit of texture and grunge to the logo. Copy your badge, increase its size, and set it to the background. Lower the opacity to 50% and you get a semi-transparent replica of your badge for your background.

Next, select “Background” from your layers and select the bottom icon from the left-hand menu. Choose a texture and turn the opacity down to about 15% to get a nice textured look to finish the logo. And with that last touch, we have our completed gaming logo.

Once you have your completed design, you can edit or customize it at any time in Kittl. Simply open the image up and Kittl’s suite of customization options is available for you to tinker with your finished design however you wish.

Learn how to create a gaming or esports logo for Twitch or YouTube with Kittl in just a few minutes.

Make Gaming and Esports Logos | kittl

Create a Gaming Logo With Kittl | Design Tutorial

Looking for high quality retro mascots can be super frustrating online. Unless you are a master at retro style art, or have lots of money to spend on vector packs, it's likely that you've been searching the web for the best retro character illustrations. Well in Kittl, you can use expertly crafted character illustrations for free! And they are all conveniently placed in the same category in our Kittl category. In this video, learn where to find them and how to customize them to be your own. 

Where to find and how to customize expertly crafted character illustrations.

Retro Mascot Character Illustrations | kittl

Retro Mascot Character Illustrations

Print-on-demand is a sprawling market. Services like Teepublic, Redbubble, TeeSpring, and Society 6 allow creators to share their designs and list them for interested customers to purchase. This represents a great opportunity to get your art out there and make money from it. And if you know which designs are particularly popular and in demand, you’ll be on the right track.

This tutorial will show you how to make one of the more sought-after designs: a custom notebook cover. We’ll cover the design process in the online graphic design platform  Kittl for hardcover and spiral-bound notebooks. While designing a beautiful cover may seem challenging, Kittl will make the process seamless. You can try it out right now – simply sign-up for free, grab Kittl, and follow along.

In your new Kittl project, click on the “Settings” cog icon. Go to “Custom Size” and enter the width and height. For this project, we’re going with the default cover size required for spiral-bound notebooks from Redbubble: 1756 x 2481 pixels.

Of course, you can create artboards of different sizes depending on your chosen print-on-demand service.

2. Take Advantage of Picture Blending Modes

To get our cover started, we’ll insert a background picture. This is done through the left sidebar. Choose “Photos” (second icon from the bottom) to browse pictures. For this cover, we’re going with a photo of clouds, so we typed in “clouds” in the search bar.

Once you’ve chosen a picture, scale it up to fill up the artboard. Now it’s time to choose a blending mode. When the picture is selected, you’ll see an “Object Settings” menu on the right with opacity, alignment, and blending mode options.

Under “Blending Mode,” you’ll see a drop-down menu. Clicking on it will show several blending choices: Normal, Color Burn, Multiply, Overlay, and Soft Light. We’ll choose Overlay.

With this blending mode, you can select a different background color. We went with a light blue to make the clouds fainter. 

You’ll notice that you have two layers now – one with the background and the other with the photo. It would be a good idea to rename them so you don’t lose track of crucial layers moving forward.

Hold the “Alt” key while dragging the picture to scale it to the desired size while leaving the image centered. Alternatively, hold Shift to resize the picture while keeping one corner in the middle of the artboard.

Right now, our graphic is little more than a blown-up photo with an overlay effect. We want to make it more unique and charming with a faded effect. For that, we’ll go to the left sidebar and choose “Textures.”

We selected a marble texture and changed its opacity to 43 using the “Background Settings” menu on the right. The default blending mode “Color Burn” works perfectly here.

When you set the texture the way you want it, click on “Release Texture” to finalize the process. Once you’ve released a texture, you can add more textures. You can insert as many textures as you want and create a unique look for your design.

We then navigated to “Paper Textures” in the left menu, chose a nice retro-looking texture, and set its opacity to 60. Together with the first texture, this created a very interesting effect and made the picture look faded and weathered – of course, in a good way.

It’s time to make the cover livelier with some floral elements. In the left sidebar, go to “Add Elements,” navigate to the “Illustrations” tab, and find the “Vintage Flowers” category.

We’re going to add various flower elements to create a frame in front of the clouds. To group all flowers, select them and hit Ctrl + G in Windows or Cmd + G on Mac. This will put all of the selected elements in a separate layer.

Next, we returned to the “Add Elements” menu and went to the “Abstract” tab. In that menu, we looked for “Etched Clouds” and found an element that would fit the graphic nicely. We took the etched cloud, scaled it, moved it over the flowers, and changed it into a lighter color.

Then, we duplicated the cloud several times and, again, grouped the etched clouds into a single layer.

If you need to flip an element, simply right-click it and select “Flip Horizontal” or “Flip Vertical.” You’ll get an exact mirror image of the selected element.

We want to make our cover even richer, and we can do just that by inserting some additional elements. Of course, we’ll use the “Add Elements” menu for this.

We went for the “Vintage Insects” collection, which is under “Illustrations.” From there, we picked some butterflies and rotated them slightly to create an impression of movement.

Next, we went to the “Shapes” tab and chose a panel from the section of the same name. Panels on notebook covers are very handy since you can write your name or the subject of the notebook on them. We resized and centered the panel and made its colors lighter.

For this project, we didn’t want to leave the panel empty. Instead, we used the text tool from the left sidebar, chose the Averia Serif font, and wrote “Thoughts are free” in an all-headline style. 

We tweaked the text some more, decreasing the font size and increasing the letter spacing to make it the perfect fit for the panel and the overall design. All these options are available under the “Text Settings” menu on the right side.

With all of these elements in place, you now have a finished design for a spiral-bound notebook. But you aren’t limited to that format with Kittl – you can change it even after you’ve completed the cover design.

However, changing to the hardcover format won’t be as simple as typing in new dimensions. You’ll need to follow specific steps to make your design fit in with the cover size.

First, take a rectangle from “Basic Shapes” in the “Add Elements” menu. Stretch the rectangle until it’s over the entire graphic, making sure to align the corners. This step will help you orientate your graphic once you change the format.

Now, go to “Settings” and enter a new custom size. For a hardcover notebook on Redbubble, this will be 3643 x 2481 pixels. Hit “Confirm.” You’ll notice certain elements have shifted on the artboard – that’s why we needed the rectangle.

Before moving forward, make sure all layers are unlocked, which means you can move them around freely. You’ll determine their locked status by the padlock icon next to the layer name in the “Layers” menu.

Select everything and drag the selection until the edge of the rectangle aligns with the right edge of the artboard. Then, deselect all elements and delete the rectangle. You’ll see that the main portion of the graphic is now in the right place. 

All you’ll need to do now is stretch the background cloud image and the texture layers to cover the entire artboard. Fill out the left side of the cover with more flowers and butterflies. Soon, you’ll have the complete hardcover version of your design.

Of course, this doesn’t have to be your end design. You can continue to play around in Kittl and edit and customize the design further.

How to design a custom notebook cover in Kittl, for both a spiral bound and a hardcover size.

Print On Demand Notebook Cover | kittl

Print on Demand Notebook Cover | Design Tutorial

Unless you are a master at Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, it can be pretty frustrating to create a clipping mask or alpha mask. But in this video, I show you how to quickly do both. A clipping mask is the ability to clip an image or object inside of an object that is below it. In this video, I show you exactly how to clip a texture image solely to the logo design below it (without it spilling out all over the artboard). An Alpha mask is where you want the image or object above to be removed from the object below. For example. I show you how to take a cracked pavement image and "remove" all of the cracked streaks from the logo below, giving it a weathered or distressed look). It may sound complicated, but with Kittl it is super easy.

Give it a try with this video's template in Kittl

How to use Kittl's frustration-free clipping mask and alpha mask.

Clipping Masks And Alpha Masks In Kittl | kittl

Clipping And Alpha Masks In Kittl

Detailed illustrations are great for many things, but sometimes you just need a flat outlined design for your logo or icon, without all of the colors and depth. You can easily achieve this look in Kittl, because almost all of our illustrations can be easily turned into outlines with just a few simple clicks! All you have to do is turn off the right colors, and make the outline color exactly how you want it. You can even do this with custom SVG illustrations you upload to Kittl. So give it a watch and see what you think.

How to easily turn almost all of our illustrations into outlines with just a few simple clicks!

Detailed Illustrations to Outlines | kittl

Detailed Illustrations to Outlines

Vintage Sanborn maps have something magical about them. The style and design look exquisite on their own, even more so today when we look at Sanborn graphics with nostalgia. 

Sanborn covers take a long time to make, but they’re so unique and stylish that people naturally want to replicate them. However, if you’ve tried to create a Sanborn design, you know how hard it is to find just the right fonts and elements for the project.

Luckily, Kittl just released an entire set of Sanborn assets. With unique fonts, frames, and recognizable thin flourishes, making a Sanborn poster became much easier. 

This tutorial will take you through each step of making a Sanborn graphic with Kittl. And if you don’t have Kittl yet, don’t hesitate to sign-up for free. You can set up your account in a matter of minutes and start following along.

Once you sign up to Kittl, click “New Project,” and you’ll get a blank canvas to begin your creation. You can select the cog icon to open project settings. From there, select the orientation and size of the graphic. You can also make the document custom size or enable the grid.

The first thing you’ll want to do is add the central text. To get started, hit “T” on your keyboard or go to the left sidebar and select “Text.” You’ll see a rectangle appear in the center of your canvas. Now you can type whatever text you want. 

For this tutorial, we’ve decided to create a Chicago Sanborn poster, so our main text will be “Chicago.”

Right now, the text doesn’t look like much. It’s time to edit it into something much more impressive.

To edit your text, you’ll use the “Text Settings” toolbar that popped up on the right when you started typing. The options here, from top to bottom, are:

Text color with opacity and border weight

Orientation, represented by six icons right below the “Border Weight” slider

Text settings, which include three rows of text formatting options

Transformation section with different effects

The first thing you’ll want to do is change the text font. You can find it under “Text settings” with Roboto as the default. Click the font box to get the drop-down menu and find Headstock. This is one of the unique Sanborn fonts on Kittl, and it will be a great choice for this session.

Select “Angle” from the “Transformation” section to give your text that authentic Sanborn tilt. The text will shift immediately, and you’ll see a line appear beneath it. Drag the endpoints of the line to change the tilt angle.

Info Box: To resize your text, select it, hold the Alt key, and drag one of the corner boxes. This way, you’ll increase or decrease the text while leaving it in the center of your canvas.

Kittl has a brand new collection of Sanborn elements. You’ll find them in the left toolbox under “Elements.” 

In the “Add elements” menu, you’ll see a search box and four categories underneath it: Shapes, Ornaments, Illustrations, and Abstract. Choose “Ornaments,” then scroll down until you get to “Sanborn.”

You can expand the menu by clicking on the right-facing arrow. This will extend the menu across the entire page. If you want to enter the list of Sanborn elements, click “Show All.”

Once you’re viewing the elements, you can add each one you like to your graphic simply by clicking on it. Go ahead and insert several aspects into your project.

You can delete a part of an element by creating a box, placing it over the part you don’t need, and coloring the box in the same color as the background.

Our graphic is starting to look better already, but we’re only halfway to the goal. The next thing we’ll do is add some text effects to give it a more vintage look.

Select your text, go to the right sidebar, and choose the “Effects” tab. It’s the only other tab other than “Text Settings.” You’ll see two categories in the Effects menu: Shading and Decoration. 

Under “Shading,” you can select four types of shadows: Drop, Line, Block, or 3D. Once chosen, you can customize it further by tweaking the offset, angle, blur, and width. You can also choose different colors for the shading effect.

For our example, we used the Block Shadow in black color with an offset of 5 and an angle of -45 degrees. We also changed the text fill color to white in the “Text Settings” tab. 

In the “Decoration” section below, you can find different pattern types to fill the lettering of your text. There are Horizontal, Color Cut, Oblique Lines, and Fading Color Cut options. Once you pick the option you like, you can adjust its color, weight, and distance.

We went with Oblique Lines at 2% weight and 1% distance. We colored the lines black. Finally, we went back to “Text Settings,” added a border weight of about 14, and colored the border white.

If you tweak your text effects similar to ours, you’ll see how the Sanborn style is starting to show up. Now we’re getting somewhere.

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