Before last summer, graphic tees were never really on my radar. I mean, sure, I knew what they were, but I didn't really buy them, and the ones I did own I only ever wore with shorts or jeans. Despite Pinterest, I had no idea how to style them in a creative way. So I just stuck with striped tees because there are infinite formulas for how to wear those.

Now, however, graphic tees are a staple of my wardrobe. I wear them two-to-three times a week because they are just so easy to craft an outfit around, even if it's just a basic jeans/shorts/skirt combo, like the three outfits below:

  

My favorite thing about graphic tees is how they make showing your personality so easy. But the question remains -- how do you pair a graphic t-shirt with other patterns without creating an outfit that's so busy it hurts the eyes?

First of all, a lot of it is in the eye of the beholder. But, a good rule of thumb for me is to keep the pattern of whatever bottoms I'm wearing smaller than the print of my t-shirt. You'll notice in all my examples below that the graphic print on my shirt is always large and draws your eye first. The rest is just secondary details to support the main attraction.

Color choice is super important for this kind of mash-up, too. Look for one color that occurs in both your graphic tee and the pattern of your bottom layer.

Here are some examples of how I pair my graphic tees with patterned bottoms, mostly skirts because they're my favorite. I'm not linking to anything because most of these are old, but keep scrolling for where I find most of my graphic tees.

I hope these outfits gave you some ideas of how to spice up your graphic tee outfit game, or maybe inspired you to add some to your wardrobe. My favorite places to buy graphic tees are Old Navy and Target. I especially like the gender neutral collection at Old Navy; it has so many good pop culture tees. I do most of my Target shopping in person. I also have a few from Amazon, but as we all know shopping there can be tricky so proceed with caution.