Are you used to designing one pattern at a time? Do you have a few stand-out patterns that are making sales, but the others, not so much? Are you looking for a way to stand out in the Spoonflower Marketplace? If so, then it might be time to start designing in collections. With the help of designer Kristina Hunter —you may recognize her as arthousewife on Spoonflower —find out the benefits of designing in collections to make more sales in your Spoonflower shop!
Create More Options for Your Customers
Perhaps an interior designer is creating a custom, tropical bedroom for their client, and they stumble upon a pattern of yours that fits their chosen theme. It’s possible they’ll want several design ideas to present to their client for the room’s bed linens, curtains, and even wallpaper. Having a collection available for them to look through means less work for them in finding coordinating textiles, which hopefully means more sales for you.
Designer Tip: Collections don’t have to be gigantic! Even small collections, like two or three designs give your customer additional items to choose from.
Prevent Lost Sales
Say someone has fallen in love with a design you’ve created for one of Spoonflower’s Design Challenges. The dinosaurs are exactly what they are looking for to use on a baby bib set they’d like to gift to their friend. When they head to your shop they’re also on the lookout for at least three additional patterns to round out the set. Wouldn’t it be great if you already had something created and available to print and ship? Would you be surprised if they passed on your design for a designer who has other coordinating options available?
Designer’s Tip: Don’t forget to share photos of your end products or mock-ups on your own website and social media channels to help customers see how your designs work together as a collection.
No Design Left Behind
As you’re sitting down to create motifs for your newest pattern, do you often discard one or more of them because they didn’t quite work in your final design, even though you still think they’re great? If you start designing in collections, those motifs won’t just collect dust in your sketch book, you’ll use them in a complementary pattern.
Designer’s Tip: When working in collections, try thinking about the end product(s) of what you’re designing for, rather than the designs themselves. For example, when creating a pattern for the Winter Flora Design Challenge, I chose to design specifically for dining room linens. Knowing what subject matter, scale and direction of motifs looked best on napkins and placemats made it easier to come up various designs that complemented each other.
Stay Organized with Collections
It’s easy to lose track of all that you’ve created over the years. Luckily, Spoonflower has a helpful page for all your design collections, making it easy to group them in a multitude of ways. You can sort them by theme, color palette, room, etc., and you can add each design to more than one collection. Another great feature is that you can group your designs with those from other Spoonflower artists. It’s a simple way to collaborate and share yours and others work together for more visibility!
Use Fill-A-Yard® with Ease
Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard feature is a simple way to get multiple designs on one yard of fabric for projects like quilts, infinity scarves, proofing and more. And if you already design in collections, it takes the guesswork out of matching coordinating designs; they’re already organized and ready to go.
With the introduction of home decor on Spoonflower, creating collections can help your customers easily curate coordinating bedding sets, cozy living room scenes and swoon-worthy tablescapes. Find even more advice for your Spoonflower shop from other designers in the Seller Handbook.
About the Guest Author
Kristina Hunter is an artistic housewife living outside of New York City with her husband, two young boys, two cats, and one dog. When she’s not house-wifing, you will find her in her studio, designing patterns, painting, and sewing. You can find her on Instagram at @arthousewife or at her website, arthousewife.com.
I have a question about making scarves. I ordered a scarf from my design on zazzle and it only printed on one side leaving the other side horrible. So I I make a design here for a scarf will it have a finished look on the other side. I don’t want to see two pieces of fabric together it would be too thick to wrap around neck.
May i have fabric made from a page i colored in an adult coloring book?
Hi Peggy,
Thanks so much for your question! As long as you have the rights to reproduce the design on fabric, you can certainly turn it into fabric. I hope that helps, but if you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask!
Best Regards,
-Meredith F.
Spoonflower
Thanks, Kristina. Seems like mockups are the key to marketing collections. For example, your bed with layered pillows and curtains. I’d love to see Spoonflower make it easy to render such a bedroom — with wallpaper, too! — from a “home decor” collection with slots for each item: sheets, duvet cover, shams, throw pillows, curtains, and wallpaper. For designers like me to generate an IG-friendly square JPEG, and also for buyers who want to build their room.
Kristina, Thank you for this article. I am new to Spoonflower . I want to learn more.