How do I choose the font and colors for text personalizations?

Short answer: On a draft, set the “Marking font”, the “Color on light articles” and the “Color on deep articles”. These apply to the whole shop. You can then adjust them product by product — but in that order, never the reverse.

Steps

On the “Shops” page, open a draft of the shop.
Set the “Marking font”. It is common to every product in the shop.
Set the “Color on light articles” and the “Color on deep articles”. By default, black on light and white on deep.
Only then, if needed, open a product's configuration to give it a particular color, color by color.
Save, then check the rendering on the draft's site.

The order is not negotiable

Changing a color at shop level wipes every per-product setting already made: they take the new default value. The system warns you — “GLOBAL CHANGE OF THE COLOR OF PERSONALIZATIONS” — before applying.

So always set the shop level first, and the per-product exceptions after. See I changed the global color and my per-product settings disappeared.

Why a per-product exception

The system classes each product color as light or deep, and applies the matching personalization color. The classification is debatable on in-between shades: a light gray is treated as a light product and gets a black text, where a white one would be just as possible (that one is yours to decide, by going and changing the color on the product).

That is the case where you open the product's configuration and impose the color you want, for that product color only.

Reusing your logo's colors

Personalizations are not produced with flex rolls, whose color range is limited, but with DTF printing — the same technique as the logos. So the marking color is chosen freely, down to the color code: you are not tied to the default black and white.

Take your logo's colors. Set the two global colors first, then alternate product by product. With a red and green logo, for instance:

on the red products, a green personalization;
on the green products, a red one.

Each product then carries the logo's other color, and the shop reads as a set rather than as a series of products marked at random.

The color has to stay legible on the fabric. A personalization too close to the product's color disappears — exactly the problem of a logo placed on a product of the same shade. See My logo is not visible on the product.

Check on the shop itself

Personalization colors are judged on the rendering, not in the dashboard. Once the draft's site is regenerated, open a product, ask for a personalization and look at the result — for each color of the product. See How do I preview my draft before putting it into service.

Going further

What is a text personalization

You'll know it worked when: On the draft's site, a personalization simulated on a light product and on a deep product shows in the font and color you wanted.