If you’ve followed Spoonflower since its start in 2008, you may be familiar with our humble beginnings that included a 400 square foot “factory,” tightly situated in an old sock mill in Mebane, North Carolina. You may also be familiar with stories about fabric swatches being shipped from the floor of our co-founder’s kitchen.
If these past 14 years have taught us anything about building a space for creativity, it’s that we couldn’t have done it without you—the Spoonflower community.
“Our first office and factory was actually 400 square feet in a 1,200 square foot room…literally taped off in a corner. We have come a long way!”
Gart Davis, Spoonflower Co-Founder | Chief Operating Officer
Two fabric cutting tables in one of Spoonflower’s first factory spaces
From creative entrepreneurs turning their passion projects into product lines to the artists transforming inspiration into reality—and every maker in between—we are endlessly inspired by you.
We’ve gotten bigger to serve you better.
Since our days in the sock mill, it’s safe to say we’ve come a long way. The move to our new Durham, North Carolina factory this February sets the tone for 2021 to be our biggest year yet —110,000 square feet bigger, to be exact!
Our new on-demand manufacturing space is equivalent to 1 ¾ football fields! That not only means we can process your orders more efficiently (which gives you more time for making), but it also means the larger space provides our team ample room to test and explore new fabric options. Spoiler alert: you’re going to love the products we’re launching this year.
“Many of you have been part of the Spoonflower family for a very long time. We’ve seen the creative economy really flourish and expand, thanks to all of you. And trust me, the best is yet to come.”
Michael “MJ” Jones, Spoonflower CEO
Ready to get an insider’s look at the new Spoonflower factory?
Be sure to check back as we continue to share updates about our stunning new factory all year. Thank you for including us in your creative journey!
Congrats on the new space! I wish you had shown the ‘intermediate’ space in Durham. I had the pleasure of visiting the office and then crossing the courtyard to the print facility. It was wonderful to see the spaces and it is such an important part of your story too.
Congratulations Spoonflower on the new home! ☆☆☆ 😀
You are a company that deserves the best of success! You changed my life, and I am sure that of many more!
A Big Hug!
Mia Valdez
Designer
Hi Mia! Thank you for your kind words and for being apart of Spoonflower’s creative community!
Best,
Amy
Spoonflower
Thanks to Spoonflower I now have shorts, pants & my dogs bandannas for every National day of the year. Like today 2/10 is National Umbrella Day so me & my 3 girls[dogs] are wearing the Umbrella & Weiner dog fabric.
Congratulations! I’m so excited for you and wish you all the very best in the future. Most days I wear something I designed and had printed by Spoonflower, I’m so happy I found you.
congratulation on expansion! Thank you for supporting my small business and helping me providing happiness to my customers and to me. There is nothing more fascinating that see the whoa expression on someone face. I wish you will be growing and giving all customers the great service you did for all this years.
Let me add my congrats to the mix on your growth and new home. I feel so very grateful to have stumbled across your site several years ago. Never in my wildest dreams would I have figured I’d be able to design and sell fabrics and yet that’s become a reality for me and so many others.
Thank you for giving life to our creativity.
Do you sell fabric wholesale?
Hi there and thanks for your interest in Spoonflower! You can learn more about our wholesale discounts here. I hope that helps, but please let us know if you have any other questions.
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Congratulations! 😀
Did you move into a pre-existing facility, or did you have it built from the ground up for you?
Hi there and thanks for your interest. This was a pre-existing facility that is a perfect fit!
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Hello I have bought several pieces of fabrics from you. I do love them. But sometimes I get the fabric and the print is not as vibrant as the pictures.
I wish that it would be as bright as the samples.
Hi Sue,
I’m so sorry to hear you haven’t always been pleased with how the color turned out. When it comes to our printing process and the different products we print on, there are many variables involved. Unfortunately, this means it is not always possible to get an exact match. For instance, the base fabric selected has a large impact on the appearance of the printed colors. Some colors may appear differently on certain fabrics due to the weave and/or thickness of the threads. When it comes to our natural-fiber fabrics, large areas of black can often read as a dark gray when printed.
You are probably also aware that colors can vary in translation. Colors can vary slightly from monitor to monitor, as well as from printer to printer. And when being digitally printed along with other colors in an image, design elements may sometimes pick up hues from the surrounding colors. We discuss this and other details that might be of interest, in the color management section of our help page here: https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/articles/204444620-How-can-I-make-sure-my-design-is-the-color-I-want-
If you are hoping to recreate a very specific color, we would suggest ordering our extensive color map on the fabric you intend your designs to eventually be printed on. You can select the hex codes from the color map and insert them directly into your design file prior to uploading to our site. You can order one of our color maps here: https://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/509390-spoonflower-color-map-by-spoonflower
I hope that helps, but please let us know if you have any further questions!
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Congratulations, you are quality from beginning to end. Awesome job.
What are the possibilities of touring the new facilities? I would love to see it up close when I’m in town!
Hi there! Thanks for your interest, but as we are prioritizing the safety of our employees, we are unable to host any visitations at our factory at this time.
I would highly recommend following us on Instagram as we have been known to share some behind the scenes factory footage from time to time!
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Alice, a storefront is easy to set up and free; artists proof their own designs. The expenses only come with test-printing, and commission splits. Automation of services is amazing here. (I speak as a designer.)
Upload a jpeg/png file, and a preview is generated to show how it will repeat on fabric. Try it, you can always delete it.
And yes, check out the help center… I just answered what designers tend to look for first. Join us!
wren_leyland
Independent Designer
Congratulations on the new factory. I wish you great success
And thanks for making all my fabric dreams come true
Can you explain to us how Spoonflower “works”?
What is it exactly?
Separate question:
How does an artist get his/her designs printed on fabric?
Hi Alice,
Thanks for your interest! Spoonflower makes it easy to shop, design and sell custom fabric, wallpaper and home decor. All the designs you see for sale in the Spoonflower Marketplace are created by independent designers the world over—and you are welcome to create and upload your own original designs as well! For more information on how Spoonflower works, look here: https://www.spoonflower.com/en/how-it-works.
We have locations in Durham, North Carolina and print everything digitally on large format printers that are not unlike desktop printers, using non-toxic, water-based pigmented inks. Once printed, all our fabrics are run through a high-temperature heat setting process to permanently bond the inks to the fabric.
If you are interested in selling your designs on Spoonflower, a good place to start is our help center. I hope that helps, but please let us know if you have any other questions.
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower