Johnson’s Etsy shop, which she prefers not to name to prevent potential copycats, was inspired by a YouTube channel. The account was dedicated to teaching viewers about “print-on-demand” stores, where sellers create designs on blank T-shirt templates — called mock-ups — and send orders to manufacturers, who print and ship them.

It seemed “simple and easy,” Johnson says. Her strategy is straightforward, she adds: Figure out what “people are already looking for [and] put something up for sale in front of them.”

Once per month, Johnson does a research deep dive, searching Etsy’s site for trends worth jumping on. She also looks for inspiration while shopping at Walmart and scrolling social media, she says.

She uses graphic design platform Canva to create each new shirt, superimposing the final result onto a pre-purchased photo of a mock-up and uploading it to her Etsy page. The shirt doesn’t actually exist until someone orders it, sending an automated request to a manufacturer and distributor like Printify, which is integrated into Etsy.

Many of her designs involve popular phrases, either in unique fonts or with slightly altered language for demographics like nurses or teachers. Grandmother-themed shirts, for example, feature catchphrases like “My favorite people call me” followed by Nonnie, Mimi, Gammy or more.

Occasionally, Johnson buys an illustration from a designer that “parodies” or “duly references” popular characters or songs — carefully walking a “gray line” to avoid copyright infringement, she says.

She also sells customizable shirts, where people can plug their own text into existing design templates. Her most popular offering in 2021 was a repeatable design featuring letters that were half-cheetah print, half-neon font, she says.

“I made designs that look exactly the same, that say hundreds of different things,” says Johnson.