A print sits lower on a body than a hanger

Same shirt, same lettering, twice. On the left it hangs from a wooden hanger. On the right it's worn, seen from the chin down.

The print hasn't moved. Its position in the picture has.

Why does the same print look different in the two photos?

Because a hanger and a body are two different rectangles.

On the hanger, the shirt is a flat panel and the eye centres the design on the whole of it — top of the collar to hem, evenly. Worn, the shoulders and chest take up the top portion of that same panel, so the print sits lower in the frame than it did hanging, even though it's printed in exactly the same place on the cloth.

Is that gap above the print a problem?

No — it's the part doing the work.

A design that fills most of a flat mockup edge to edge reads as a rectangle glued onto a person when it's worn, because there's nowhere for the eye to land before it hits the artwork. The bare fabric above the print, on the collarbone and upper chest, is what gives the eye somewhere to start — it's the difference between a print that sits on a shirt and one that sits on a poster.

Does the cut change how big that gap is?

Yes — a dropped shoulder seam extends it.

Where the seam sits out along the upper arm rather than on the shoulder point, wearing the garment pushes more of its visible top into "shoulder" and less into "chest". That's exactly the part a flat photograph can't show, because nothing is holding the shoulders open on a hanger.

A narrower-shouldered cut moves less between flat and worn — there's simply less shoulder in the frame either way. The direction is the same on every garment; only the amount changes. A flat photo always reads the print as more central than the worn body will.

So how should placement actually be judged?

By picturing the body it will sit on, not the table it's photographed on.

That's a habit rather than a measurement — hold the flat image up and mentally move the collar and shoulders to where a person's would be, and the print appears to slide down the frame on its own. Once you've done that once, a flat mockup stops being misleading, because you're reading it as a worn shirt rather than as the artwork itself.

Does that change how I should compose the design?

It changes what you check for, more than what you draw.

The composition principles for a chest print still apply — weight slightly above centre, room to breathe at the edges. What this adds is the check afterwards: look at the design as if worn, not as if laid flat, before deciding whether the balance is right.

How do I order?

Describe the design at JustOG — the garment, the ground colour, and where the weight of the composition sits. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

A shirt on a hanger is a flat rectangle. A shirt on a person has shoulders in the way.