Designing your own t-shirt is a fun and creative way to express yourself. The whole process—from coming up with the ideas, to ordering the t-shirt, to receiving it in the mail, to wearing it proudly the next day—is a great way to have fun.

But custom t-shirts can be more than just a way to have fun. They are also a good way to express a strong belief or to raise awareness of issues that you care about. If you have information about your issue, or even just an intriguing phrase or image on your t-shirt, then perhaps people will stop and ask you about the issue. You can send that person away with just a little bit more knowledge about a topic that is important to you.

One example of an important issue that you might want to bring up is autism. Autism is a lifelong neurobiological disorder. It is relatively common: 1 in 150 people have it. There are many levels of severity to the disorder. Autism impairs a person’s ability to communicate with others. It sometimes leads to compulsive behavior, like extreme need for strict routine and repetitive habits. In most cases it makes it harder for the person to relate to those around him or her. Autism is more common in boys than girls, but it doesn’t discriminate racially or socially.

It is important for people to be aware of autism because it more than likely is touching their lives in some way, even if they don’t know it. They may have classmates, coworkers, or relatives who are autistic and maybe struggling to function in the fast-paced world that doesn’t understand or know about their disorder.

If you have a loved one who has been diagnosed with autism, you are in a great position to raise awareness in the general public about the disorder. In many cases, it is easy for people to misunderstand autism and label people that have it as less intelligent or even rude. It would be a lot easier on everyone if teachers, classmates, and friends could understand autism as a disorder that can be dealt with. For example, teachers have to deal with multiple types of personalities every day. If they were educated about autism, teachers could better adjust their teaching and communication techniques to suit their autistic students and even help integrate them into the class as a whole.

So, if autism is an important issue to you, you should speak up about it. You could have a strong phrase about autism on the front of your shirt, maybe with a statistic. This could serve as a teaser, making whoever is walking by a reason to ask you about autism. Then, on the back, you could have some more detailed information, including a website and maybe some more important and surprising facts about autism. Try to make it so that whoever walks by you will not be able to pass you without learning something new about autism. If you can change one person’s view, or make one person more curious, then your t-shirt has done its job.