Jewel's Fall 2018 One Room Challenge reveal | Spoonflower Blog
Featured Designs

Struggling to find the right pattern to add a perfect pop of color to your client’s living room? Or searching for a showstopper of a design for the bedding of your client’s dreams? Spoonflower’s Marketplace of designs has a pattern for everyone. Designer and master of color Jewel Marlowe visits the blog to share six tips for finding the perfect design for your next install!

Jewel: Shhhhhh…I’m about to let you fellow interior designers in on a BIG design secret. We all know that sourcing fabric can be a frustrating experience. How many times have we spent hours searching online, in stores or showrooms, only to wish for more? If only we had the power to tweak the scale, color or pattern of our results? Good news! I’ve cracked the code and I’m going to let you in on six simple steps to achieve fabric and wallpaper superhero status.

Spoonflower to the rescue! I have used Spoonflower for over a dozen different projects and love the power I have to rotate fabric, adjust the color or change the scale to fit perfectly on a headboard, bench or wall that I’m covering.  Here are six tips to make Spoonflower work for you and your clients:

1. Start a Collection

It’s easy to create an account and start saving your favorite designs to your collections.  You can even share these collections with your clients. For more specific directions click here.

2. Use Boolean Connectors

You may be wondering what in the heck am I talking about, but boolean connectors are simple conjunctions (and, or, but) that narrow your search.  I’ve had several people tell me that they love the concept of Spoonflower (supporting and cultivating surface design artists), but they get overwhelmed by the limitless possibilities. There is an easy fix for this. Instead of searching “moody floral” or “yellow chinoiserie” try typing in “moody and floral” or “yellow and Chinoiserie“. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much more accurate your search results become. Seems simple, but you will thank me later!

Instead of searching "moody floral" or "yellow chinoiserie" try typing in "moody and floral" or "yellow and Chinoiserie". | Spoonflower Blog
Shop Yellow Chinoiserie Designs

3. Find your Favorites

I have noticed over the last year and a half of using Spoonflower that I feel a special style connection with some of the same designers. In the end, I often search by a surface design artist versus a keyword search. I am usually surprised by their creative ideas and it helps me find designs that I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Following a design on Spoonflower | Spoonflower Blog

4. Tweak It!

Ok! So you have found a pattern that is close, but not perfect…this is where it gets really good. Click on the highlighted name of the designer and visit their Spoonflower shop. Then hit the “Contact” button. Here you can kindly ask if the surface designer is willing to make modifications (scale, direction, color) and ask them for the specifics. My experience has been that surface design artists are almost always willing to make the modifications. 

Contact a designer to make changes to a design in the Marketplace | Spoonflower Blog

5. Take It to the Next Level

In some scenarios, it is nice to work directly with a surface design artist to develop a collection that is COMPLETELY custom. I partnered with Ashley from 2birdstone to develop a maximalist space for the 2018 Spring One Room Challenge. Because I knew Ashely personally, I could offer her high resolution images and the space would be featured in multiple online publications, she was willing to put in the time to work with me.  Remember that these collections take time and effort. If you don’t have much to offer otherwise, financial compensation may be another motivator for finding someone to help you out. 

Jewel's One Room Challenge makeover was a maximalist masterpiece. | Spoonflower Blog
Jewel’s One Room Challenge makeover was a maximalist masterpiece.
Featured Designs

6. BUT FIRST, SAMPLE!

No matter how rushed your timeline, I would definitely recommend sampling your designs before purchase.  It is amazing just how different a pattern looks when printed out on canvas vs velvet. One time I skipped this step and ended up with 11 yards of blue terrazzo velvet that was much more vibrant than I had expected.  With a few tweaks in the design plan I was able to pull it off, but a sample would have saved stress on my end. 

Always start with an 8" sample swatch of your fabric! | Spoonflower Blog
Terrazzo Blues

All right… now you know all of my secrets!  Go amaze your clients with your own custom fabric designs. Happy designing my friends!