Getting Started With Spoonflower
There is nothing more exciting as a designer to see your work on something tangible. If you are a designer and looking to start putting your work on products, Spoonflower is a great place to start.
Spoonflower is a print on demand site where you can upload your designs and have them printed on fabric, wallpaper, and home goods. You can also use this site to market your designs to others. This is a great way to create passive income. If you are already creating designs, why not start making money too?
Now, if you are thinking “I’m not good enough to put work on Spoonflower”, you are wrong! You have to start somewhere and starting with some basic sketches or doodles is totally okay. I honestly cringe when I go back and look at some of my older work but that is okay, it means I’ve grown as an artist. The more you design the better you will get. One of my best seller designs is one of my earliest designs I did with some simple watercolor flowers.
Here is what you need to get started . . .
Sign up for an account.
To get started opening a Spoonflower account you will need the name of your company and an image. The name of your company could simply be your name, it doesn’t have to be fancy if you don’t have one yet. You also need an image, this can be your face or your brand logo.
Once you have this information ready, go to Spoonflower.com and click “join”. You will complete your information and then you are ready to upload designs!
2. Upload your artwork
Next, what you need is artwork to submit. This could be a design that is already in a repeat or it can simply be a single image. If you create your artwork digitally, then this is really easy as you just upload a digital image of your design. Your designs can be any of these formats (tif, jpg, png, gif) and should be at least 150 DPI.
If your work is not digital, you will need to photograph or scan your work.
Make sure to mark that your work is not copyrighted (do not use clip art or images online that you do not have permission to use).
Then click “upload your files”, this may take a few minutes to upload.
3. Adjust your artwork
After your work is uploaded you can make adjustments. You can play around with the type of repeat and the scale of your design. Once you have a look that you like, make sure to hit the save changes button.
You will also want to scroll down to enter your design information. You can add a title, a description, and tags. Tags are helpful once your design is for sale as this is how people will find your work. I usually describe the colors, motifs in the design, and themes that my design falls under.
4. Proofing your design
In order to make your design for sale, you must proof it on fabric so that you can check to make sure it looks good. You can do this by selecting “test swatch” under “choose an amount” on your design screen. You can also select what type of fabric you would like to test the design on. I usually just go for Petal Signature Cotton but keep in mind your design might look different on different types of fabrics. Then just add it to your cart.
TIP: order the Spoonflower Sample Pack of swatches so you know what the different fabrics are like. This is particularly helpful if you are a maker and plan to use your own fabrics for projects.
5. Publishing your design
Once you receive your test swatch in the mail look to see how it turned out. How are the colors? How does the scale work? Think about how the design might be used such as on home goods, apparel, or accessories. Then go into your design studio and click on that design to make adjustments. If you haven’t added tags yet, make sure to add those in. Then click the box to make your design public and the box on the product you would like to sell it as. You have the choice of fabric or wallpaper. You might want to think about scale when considering the product you want to sell on. Usually, wallpaper tends to have a larger scale.
Tips and Resources
Utilize your dashboard to get an overview of what’s going on in your account. Here you can see your designs, your spoondollars (your commissions) and your notifications.
Quick tabs that are useful:
Click “Spoondollars” to see how you are doing on sales and info on payouts.
Design library is where you can view all your designs quickly and make small updates to listings.
Collections - you can create a collection and then add designs in if you have designs that work together.
Notifications - this is where you can see purchases and messages from customers.
Tips
Spoonflower offers regular design challenges that you can enter designs for. I highly recommend this for two reasons. The first is that it is a great way for people to see your work and gain new customers. The second is that it can help you to grow as an artist. Competing in challenges often encourages me to look into new styles or themes that I wouldn’t normally explore.
Look for trend reports! Spoonflower puts out great newsletters and has additional resources on their blog. I always look for their information about trends so that I can update listings with trending words or I can challenge myself to create work that falls into those trends. You can also find tips and resources on their blog. I often check for fun sewing tutorials as I like to post things on social that I make with my own designs. I also like to share when Spoonflower is having sales on my social media platforms to encourage shoppers to purchase designs.
Spoonflower Pro
Spoonflower does offer a pro membership which I am part of and do recommend if you plan on using Spoonflower often. The benefits include discounts and quicker shipping on materials. I would look into it if you are putting a good amount of designs online as it helps with getting your test swatches.
My biggest advice I would give is to just start! The more you practice and share your work the better you will get. Why not make some money along the way!