The team at Payless Promotions has been putting their creative designers to work on custom tote bag designs for years. Now, we’re sharing our expert custom tote bags design tips with you so you can create your very own tote bag too.
We’re talking tote bag material, screen printing on a blank canvas, environmental sustainability, tote bag customisation and more. Everything you need to know about designing personalised tote bags is right here.
Keep reading below to find out the tips and guides Payless Promotions stands by when it comes to successful tote bag designs.
10 Tips For Designing A Custom Tote Bag
- Think about the purpose of your custom tote bag.
Before you start designing your custom tote bag, it’s important to understand why you’re creating your tote bag.
Are you looking to enhance brand recognition at your next event, or provide employees with an easy way to cart their belongings to and from work? A personalised tote bag is a great place to start.
Perhaps you are trying to promote environmentally friendly ways of living with eco friendly tote bags? A reusable bag in materials such as cotton canvas or jute is a great idea to align your brand with positive values including caring for the environment.
- Consider your target audience.
With your target audience in mind, consider what type of tote bag they would appreciate having.
For example, if your target audience is working tradesmen and women, they might appreciate insulated custom cooler bags for bringing a packed lunch to the job site.
If your target audience is beach lovers or you live in a coastal area, you might consider a beach-style Bali branded tote bag.
- Match your tote bag with your business branding.
If you’re already in the market of business branding and promotional marketing, we recommend sticking to the theme of your current business branding method. We say this because you may already have excellent brand retention and customer awareness.
Changing your business branding means you have to start from scratch, and people may not recognise your new design immediately.
Unless, of course, you’re looking to change up your marketing strategy and do something completely different! In that case, reach out to our designers who can help with a complete revamp of your brand logo.
- Choose your custom tote bag structure and style.
With your business branding and target audience front of mind, it’s time to choose your ideal tote bag style! Whether you go big or small, Payless Promotions has plenty of custom tote bags to choose from!
Some of our most popular tote bags include our custom calico bags and our advertising tote bags.
- Select your tote bag material preference.
The tote bag fabric is just as important as the style.
Here is a range of tote bag fabrics we offer at Payless Promotions.
- Cotton is a versatile and comfortable material. Because of its strength and absorbency, it is a great material for clothing, bags, and homewares.
- Canvas is heavy-duty and durable. When blended with other materials, it can become fairly water-proof.
- Jute is a 100% renewable resource and is highly sturdy and long-lasting.
- Plastic and its variants (PET, PVC, polypropylene) are synthetic woven materials. Ours are much more resilient than single-use plastics so they work great for long-term use.
- Polyester is a lightweight type of plastic. It is inexpensive, durable, and easily dyed.
- Pick your material colour palette.
Once you’ve chosen your style and preferred material or tote bag cloth, you must select your background colours! You can choose a range of patterns and colours for a bright tote bag that stands out. Alternatively, you can keep it simple with a blank canvas tote bag so that your logo really catches the eye instead.
- Choose the ink for your message or branding.
After choosing your background colour, think about the ink you can use over the colours for your text. You’ll want to ensure that your message or image stands out over your selected background.
- Add your business logo.
It’s time to add your logo or a stand-alone design! If you have a message you want people to see, or you want people all over Australia to recognise your brand, custom gear is the way to go. We highly recommend getting your logo and/or brand name printed on your tote bag!
- Select the best printing method for your tote bag.
The best printing method will depend on your tote bag style and material.
At Payless Promotions, our preferred methods for printing logos and text on a tote bag are screen printing and digital transfers.
Check out our range of branding methods to see what suits your design best!
- Consider where to place your logo, text or design.
Where you place your logo or text on your tote bag is vital. It’s like a tattoo – once it’s there, it’s there for good!
You can put your logo, text, or design on a tote bag’s sides, front, back, and bottom. We highly recommend placing your design on the front of the tote bag so consumers, potential clients, and customers can see it clearly!
Quick Recap
Tote bags are a great way to reduce our environmental impact by limiting single-use plastic. Reusable, durable, and long-lasting materials that are a more sustainable option for our planet are a great message to send to your audience!
If you want to create your own custom branded tote bags, follow our ten expert designer tips above, and you won’t go wrong.
