Custom fabric ebook

AN INTRO TO

Custom Fabric Design A one, two, three guide to becoming a Spoonflower fabric designer!

A Publication of:

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction

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Chapter 1: Uploading Images to Spoonflower

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

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Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

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Conclusion

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INTRODUCTION Welcome! We’re so happy you joined us.

We’ll take you through the basic three processes needed to get you started. Our hope is that after reading this guide, you can navigate Spoonflower’s uploading and ordering process with ease, and dive right into our custom fabric design community.

If you’re here, it means you want to learn how to get the most out of Spoonflower—either using your own designs, or ones from our Marketplace. Spoonflower gives you access to tools you’ll need to tweak your design and turn your creations into printed fabric!

Ready to get started?

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CHAPTER

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Uploading Images to Spoonflower

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Chapter 1: Uploading images to Spoonflower

In chapter 1, we’re going to tackle the first thing Spoonflower members encounter when they come to create designs on the site: uploading an image.

If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, “but what if I don’t have my own design!?”—fear not, we’ve got you covered.

Skip ahead to chapter 2, “Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace,” for our top tips on finding the perfect fabric on the first try.

Images can be either designs you’ve created yourself or images you’ve found online, you have permission to use, or that fall into the public domain.

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Chapter 1: Uploading images to Spoonflower

Before uploading, make sure your design file meets the Spoonflower image requirements.

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1. H over your mouse over the CREATE tab and select the type of product you are creating {fabric, wallpaper, or gift wrap}.

2. O n the upload page, click the CHOOSE FILE button, search your computer for the design file, select it, and click OK.

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3. A gree to our Copyright - Terms of Service, and upload your file!

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Chapter 1: Uploading images to Spoonflower

4. O nce your file is uploaded, you can edit the design with these tools on the design page:

PICMONKEY Pickmonkey is a free and easy online tool that is available to edit or create designs smaller than 21" x 18" at 150 DPI (dots per inch). There are free graphics, fonts, and filters for use.

See: How to use PicMonkey to Create Custom Designs.

COLOR CHANGER Color Changer is a Spoonflower tool that allows you to make changes to the colors in designs smaller than 21" x 18" at 150 DPI. See: How to use the Color Changer Tool.

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Chapter 1: Uploading images to Spoonflower

REPEAT OPTIONS When you first upload your image to Spoonflower, you will notice that the image is going to be repeating with our “Basic Repeat”, you can make changes to this repeat and find one that you are happy with.

See: What are the Repeat Options?

Unsure how to create a seamless repeating pattern? Check out these helpful pages about creating seamless repeats in Picmonkey and Photoshop Elements.

DESIGN SIZE You can change up the design’s size by clicking on the “Bigger” and “Smaller” buttons when available, this will depend on the resolution of your design.

You can also change the DPI of your design manually.

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Chapter 1: Uploading images to Spoonflower

6. A fter you have made all the desired changes to your design, click the SAVE THIS LAYOUT button so that the design always defaults to these settings.

You’re done! You’ve just uploaded your first design. Now, we’ll look at how to search Spoonflower for designs in Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace.

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CHAPTER

2

Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

There are hundreds of thousands of amazing designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace, so it’s easy to spend hours scanning through pages of beautiful artwork! If you’re looking for something specific though, narrowing down your options can make it much easier to find exactly what you need.

There are a few things that make searching our site even easier, including: using descriptive phrases, selecting a search category, using filters, and getting creative with your search terms.

We’ll walk through all of them.

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

USING DESCRIPTIVE PHRASES If you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for you may want to start out searching for a single color or design element. For example, here are the results for the word ‘yellow’:

Here are the results for ‘deer’:

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

If you have a very specific design in mind, you’ll want to use as many descriptive terms as you can think of. For example, the search term ‘arrows’ will yield very different results than ‘black and white arrow drawing’. You can see how different the top two rows are from the bottom two.

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

SELECTING A SEARCH CATEGORY FROM THE HOMEPAGE Another great search feature is the search categories menu.

These categories help narrow down your search, allowing you to weed out things you aren’t looking for. To use this feature, click the small down-facing arrow beside the search bar, select the appropriate category, then enter a search term.

The categories include: FABRIC

Designs in the Marketplace that are available on fabric

WALLPAPER

Designs in the Marketplace that are available on wallpaper

GIFT WRAP

Designs in the Marketplace that are available on gift wrap

DESIGNERS

Designers (by screen name or real name)

COLLECTIONS

Collections of designs in a designers shop

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

USING FILTERS Once you enter a search term into the search bar and click “GO� you will be directed to a new page with search filters. In the example to the right you can see all of the search filters that appear after you complete a search.

The search filters include: FABRIC

Allows you to see designs available on fabric, wallpaper, or gift wrap

BROWSE

Search by popular tags, trending designs, best selling designs, top contest designs, and daily favorites

COLORS

Search by color

AVAILABILITY

Search for designs that are for sale or not for sale

FILTERS

Search within designs you have favorited or designers you are connected to (a.k.a. designers you follow)

VIEW

Allows you to see either the design image, a picture of the fabric, or a project made with the fabric

SORT BY

Organizes search results by bestselling, trending, or most recently uploaded designs

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

GETTING CREATIVE WITH YOUR SEARCH TERMS If you try searching for a specific design, but don’t find what you’re looking for, try some other related words to vary your results. For example, when the phrase ‘antique flowers’ didn’t show the kind of flower we were looking for...

...we tried getting a little more creative with our wording and searched for ‘antique red poppies.’

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Chapter 2: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

Some other helpful search tips: To match an exact phrase, use quotes to define what you are looking for, i.e. ‘blue china.’ This is a great way to find an exact design for which you already know the name or title.

If you would prefer to just look at designs that are a match for both ‘blue’ and ‘china’ (not one or the other), you can type it as follows in the search bar: ‘blue and china’ or ‘+blue +china.’

If you are searching for ‘old brick wall,’ the first results returned will be a match for all three words ‘old,’ ‘brick,’ and ‘wall.’ As you scroll down the returned search results, you will begin to see designs that are a match for just two of the words, perhaps ‘brick’ and ‘wall’ and eventually, designs that might be a match for just one of the words.

As with everything on Spoonflower, if you’re having trouble finding something specific or need help searching for an item, you can email us at help@spoonflower.com and we are happy to help!

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CHAPTER

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Making Spoonflower Work for You

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Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

Since Spoonflower’s digital printing process is just a bit different from the way most commercial fabric from a fabric store is printed, your fabric may look a little different when it arrives.

We’ll discuss the ins and outs of terms like ‘printable width’, ‘selvage edges’, and figure out what “stretches on the crosswise grain” means, and how it influences your design.

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Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

One Yard Preview:

WHICH WAY IS UP? One of the most common questions we get here at Spoonflower is which way does the design print on the fabric?

We have a handy-dandy preview on our site that can help answer this question: it updates to show you exactly what a fat quarter will look like if you select ‘fat quarter’. If you enter ‘2 yards’, you’ll see a view of two yards. This is true for every amount under 5 yards (if you enter more yards than 5 into the box, the preview will continue to show you 5 yards, regardless of the amount you enter).

Two Yard Preview:

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Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

At Spoonflower, we print orders on long rolls of fabric. The left and right sides of the design preview you see on our site are parallel to the selvage edges of the fabric, which are the finished edges that run the whole length of that roll. That left-to-right dimension is the width of the fabric.

If you order more fabric, the width of your design will never change.

Only the length, which increases vertically in the preview.

We align all designs to the bottom left corner. If your design is too big to fit in just 1 yard, don’t worry! You can order 2 yards to receive the complete image.

Just remember: what the preview shows is what you’ll get, so if it’s cut off in that preview, you may need to order more fabric.

One Yard

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Two Yards

Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

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GETTING WISE ABOUT WIDTH You can find the widths for each of our fabric bases (and wallpaper and gift wrap!) on our Product info page. But when you receive your Spoonflower order, you may find that there are a few inches of blank, unprinted fabric on each side of their design.

Don’t worry! The width we show on our site is the printable width, or the amount of fabric printed with your design you’ll receive.

Printable Width Total Fabric Width

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Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

For example, our Kona cotton has a width of 42 inches. You can create your design or order a design from the marketplace that fills all 42 of those inches— no need to account for a selvage or print space around your design.

The rolls of Kona cotton that Spoonflower receives from the mill are all slightly wider than 42 inches, however, so you’ll receive 42 printed inches and a few inches of blank space.

The same is true for fat quarters and swatches; you’ll find a small amount of blank space around each printed order. You’ll also see a string of numbers in the upper right-hand corner. These help us keep track of your order and make sure it makes it to its final destination safely!

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Chapter 3: Making Spoonflower Work for You

STRETCH IT OUT! If your project requires a fabric with a bit of stretch, we have four great knit fabrics that are perfect for anything that needs a little flexibility. But if you want to make sure your giraffe design stretches taller, not wider, you’ll need to make sure your design runs in a certain direction.

Stretch Direction for Performance Knit, Performance Piqué, and Cotton Knit

Most of our knits stretch along the cross-wise grain. That means if you hold the selvage edges in your hands (the left and right sides you see on our preview), you’ll get the most stretch.

Our Modern Jersey is a 4-way stretch, and stretches in both directions, so you can’t go wrong!

Stretch Direction for Modern Jersey

You’re done!

You now have all the tools necessary to find or create your very own fabric. We look forward to seeing what you’ll create!

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TIME TO CREATE! Ready to try your hand at creating beautiful, custom fabric? We were hoping you’d say that.

Use the code below to get a free swatch of your custom design, or any marketplace design, on any fabric.

TRYIT16 GET STARTED!

A Publication of: