Memorial Shirts: A Unique Way to Honor Your Loved Ones

Thinking of honoring your loved ones with a memorial shirt? This article is a guide that will help you understand what’s needed to purchase a memorial shirt.

Let’s get started.

What Is a Memorial Shirt?

A memorial shirt is a shirt that is designed specifically to honor someone we love who passed away. 

It usually has a personalized design that is commemorating the deceased.

They are often printed with an image of the deceased, together with the dates of birth and deaths of death. Many also include a quote or saying within the design. 

Memorial shirts tend to be affordable while still being highly personalized, which is why it is one of the popular ideas to memorialize our loved ones.

Why Do People Wear a Memorial Shirts?

The primary purpose of a Memorial Shirt is to honor a loved one’s life.

Many memorial shirts are created immediately after a loved one’s death, mostly for a special occasion related to it. 

For example, occasions like the celebration of life on the deceased’s birthday, or on the anniversary of a loved one’s death. 

People then wear the shirt as a remembrance of the deceased.

How Do You Order Memorial Shirts?

To order a memorial shirt, first, you must decide whether you want a customized or non-customized shirt.

Ordering on-customized shirts are easy. Choose a design that you like, and order it.

Customized memorial shirts require you to submit a design first before ordering. Some stores only allow for text/quote customization, while others may allow full customization.

What Do You Put On a Memorial Shirt?

Here are some ideas on what to put on a memorial shirt:

Photo collage of our loved ones

You could include memorable pictures of your loved ones on the shirt. Put 2-3 photos into the design to celebrate their life. If you want to include more photos, make sure you know how to properly arrange the layout of the photos so that they will not look overcrowded!

Quotes or sayings from our loved ones

For example, there’s that message from your beloved late Dad that he often teaches you. “Never give up, whatever life throws at you. Resilient is the key”. 

Because the saying got so associated with your Dad, you could consider including that quote in the design of the shirt! 

Picture of our loved one’s favorite place

It could be a better choice for a more subtle design. Perhaps your beloved late mom loves to go to Lake Powell. You could include a picture of Lake Powell in the design. Maybe add one or two-sentence like “in memory of Sarah Jane” to complete it.

Only those who also know our beloved ones well can tell that the shirt’s design is honoring our loved ones. 

Family-themed memorial shirt

This could be an option to honor our loved ones in the family, with a unified theme, yet also a different message across different shirts for each family member.

For example, each design is including each family member’s unique favorite memories of the deceased.

Memorial shirt with wing motif

This is a frequently used design. Simple yet meaningful for many. Add wings to pictures of the deceased. It symbolizes that our loved one is with the angels now.

Memorial shirt to raise awareness

Memorial shirts can also be a great medium to raise awareness of certain issues. For example, a mother passed away from cancer. 

Given the family agreed to raise awareness of cancer through memorial efforts, the shirt can include a design that delivers that message.

Thanks for lending an ear. Let’s get back to reading,

What Is the Best Material for a Memorial Shirt?

Most of the memorial shirts use print for their design. It’s affordable and for merchants, print is very good for fulfilling the customer’s personalization demand. 

Bad printing quality can result in poor lastability on the memorial shirt’s design. It could peel off, or the color wore out. Good material for the shirt is also important so that the shirt is comfortable. 

For the shirt, the best material is for sure cotton. Cotton is a common material for t-shirt printing online. 

This is because the fabric provides a nice mix of softness, breathability, and comfort for casual wear. 

Cotton in the fabric also has a great ability to absorb colors and paint. Hence, with a printing method that contains water-based ink, complex designs, and high levels of detail, cotton will be the ideal choice because it could deliver the requested design well.

As for the print; screen printing, heat press printing, or vinyl cutting would do well. The design will be durable and color accurate.

Where to Order a Memorial Shirt?

(We do not receive ANY affiliate commission from the stores below. It’s our recommendation based on quick research through Etsy.)

If not at the nearest print shop, purchasing one from Etsy can also be a great choice. Here are 3 of the online stores with the most sales and reviews:

HTACustomApparel

NestaDesign

Allthetees

Other Memorial Shirt Related Resources for You.

Free Memorial Shirt Mockup

We found online resources to help you design your own memorial shirt mockup, quick and easy! 

For some of us, we would like to design the whole shirt by ourselves starting from scratch. 

To help you get going, and have a good mockup as a visualization for a good design-fit end result, here’s a mockup that may help.

The mockup file is in .psd format, so you will need to have Photoshop on your computer to utilize this.

Edit the design and once you’re done, share it with the print store so that they can print it on your memorial T-Shirt.

Other Free Mockup

Here are some other mockups that you can use for free. Not a memorial shirt, but a hoodie and a cap.

In case you’d like some variety. A hoodie can be more usable, and lasting in value compared to T-shirts.

The free photoshop mockup is here

And here’s the free mockup for the cap. Cap is practical and for some people, might be more preferable compared to shirts.

End of Article

Thank you for reading through. If you just recently lost your loved ones, we are sorry for your loss. 

Memorial shirts are an affordable yet also meaningful way to remember your loved ones. It’s perfect for ceremonies, and events.

We hope this article helped you to find your inspiration for the best fitting memorial for your loved one.