Kim Kight, the fabulous fabric blogger (flogger?) over at True Up ("All Fabric, All the Time"), gave Spoonflower a lovely and thoughtful shout-out today. She talks about the democratizing power of digital production technology, which represents many of same advances for textile design that it does for industries like book publishing, photography, music, and video. Apart from giving many, many more creative people access to the tools to realize their visions, a sometimes overlooked aspect of digital production is its lower environmental impact. This is especially true in the case of textile production, which in its conventional form is highly wasteful and highly polluting. But the most pleasing bit of the post was being compared to Etsy, a site that may actually be the best Internet business ever.
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i agree! i love the business idea and as a print designer, await your opening!
Although this idea sounds great you have to take in account the hard truths about selling fabric or items made with your fabric. I hate to be the bummer but I have been in the licensing end of fabric and product design and its no easy task to sell your designs.
I myself would love to manufacture my own line but then you have to take into account the cost up front in producing the line, then trying to get it into stores etc. and hope that its successful and sells, not to mention the fact you will have to get sales reps and do trade shows etc. It all adds up which is why I do licensing instead, but unless you are Amy Butler and Kaffe Fasset you will find that fabric does not pay very well.
I know quite a few of the very popular fabric designers your readers like but even they will say there is not much money in it. The upside is you can create unique products from your own fabric that would sell much better such as stuff toys, baby bedding, kids clothes, pillows, things like that. Today the average consumer is looking for more unique and diverse kinds of products which is why Etsy does so well. I myself will be setting up a Etsy shop soon in the hopes of branding out.
I do wish you much luck on this next adventure and who knows maybe I will print my own fabric but in this economy it will have to wait for now.