Inspiration and preliminary sketches for elmira_art’s first-place winning design Zen Jungle from Spoonflower’s 500th Design Challenge “Your Artistic Voice.”
At Spoonflower, we are so impressed by and grateful to every artist that enters our Design Challenges. The submissions highlight the immeasurable creativity of our community and allow anyone to vote for their favorite designs, allowing the related artists to win prizes.
We love that artists use the themes to get their creative gears turning and that it provides a platform for designs to shine. If you’ve been hesitant to join a challenge, we encourage you to read more about the benefits of participating in this previous post.
In this post, we’d like to help you make sure the designs you’ve put time and energy into creating are not in danger of being disqualified. There are four main reasons an entry can be withdrawn from a contest:
1. An entry was uploaded to the Spoonflower Marketplace before the challenge was announced.
2. An entry does not fit the challenge theme.
3. An entry has a copyright issue or uses either text-to-image AI tools or someone else’s intellectual property.
4. It’s not set to the proper repeat type.
Before we get into the rules, let’s go over the basics of how to enter a Design Challenge.
How to Enter a Spoonflower Design Challenge
• Review the challenges that are open for entries.
• Sign into your account or create an account if you don’t already have one.
• Adjust your entry on the design layout page and click ‘Save Changes.’
• Click the ‘Enter a Challenge’ button on the left.
• Select the correct Design Challenge from the dropdown menu under ‘What challenge do you want to enter?’
• Review the voting preview image to make sure your design is displaying properly.
• Confirm your design fits the prompt by clicking ‘Yes’ and adding a thoughtful title and description.
• Happy? Click ‘Submit Entry.’
• Not quite perfect? Click ‘Edit Design Thumbnail’ or ‘Cancel’ and return to your Design Library to adjust and re-save the settings and review the design until you are happy.
• After you submit your entry, your design will automatically be saved as a public design so it can be seen during voting. If you mark your design as private after entering it, your design will be removed from being seen in the challenge.
Pro tip: Each Design Challenge theme page has a brief rundown of the rules in the Details portion, as well as a button to ‘See Challenge Terms & Conditions.’ There’s quite a bit to take in in our full Terms & Conditions, so we’d like to break down the three most frequent ways a design can be disqualified by our moderation team.
Top 4 Ways a Design Challenge Entry Can Be Disqualified
1. An entry was uploaded to the Spoonflower Marketplace before the challenge was announced.
The spirit of the Design Challenge is to give a creative prompt that inspires designers to introduce a new design to the Marketplace that speaks specifically to the theme we have crafted.
For example, in May you worked on a design featuring hippos in baseball caps and you uploaded it to your Spoonflower shop. A few months later, Spoonflower announced their next set of challenges and “Animals in Hats” is a theme.
First off, pat yourself on the back—you were ahead of the trends! While you may be inclined to enter this design into our “Animals in Hats” challenge, this would disqualify your entry because it is not a new design to the Marketplace. However, you can use your hatted hippos as inspiration (maybe even create a collection!), but the design you enter into the challenge must be completely fresh and new.
What if you uploaded a design for the challenge over an existing design? Our platform is only able to detect the previous upload date associated with the design, so to avoid being wrongly disqualified, please always use a brand new design slot for your challenge entries.
Design Challenge Tip: See what challenges are coming up next!
2. An entry does not fit the challenge theme.
We realize that there are many creative ways to interpret the themes, so this one can get a bit tricky! Be sure to use the Design Challenge title and the description to inspire your design and connect it to the theme. Sometimes this is pretty cut and dry—say the challenge theme is “Dogs” and you draw corgis in a variety of poses. Great! Very cute and very on theme. Here are two scenarios where a title and description can make all the difference.
Let’s stick with the same theme of “Dogs.” The challenge moderator is scrolling through entries and comes across what looks like at first glance to be lions and not dogs. The moderator looks to the title to confirm. The title “IMG03232” isn’t super helpful. If the design’s title is the more concrete, “Doggie Dress-Up,” the moderator will then go to the description to find the following: “My golden retriever wearing a lion’s mane for her Halloween costume.” You don’t say! It was a dog in a lion’s costume all along. The moderator may have a hard time figuring out it’s a dog in disguise if it weren’t for the design’s title and description.
DO
DON’T
Now using the same theme, “Dogs,” let’s examine a more abstract entry. Artists can have a more expressive style that is less figurative and they are welcome to enter our challenges as well. If this applies to you, titles and descriptions are essential. Let’s say instead of illustrating a dog in a traditional way, you are inspired by the dog’s leash. Your design may look like multi-colored stripes at first, but if you look very closely, you can see the clips of the leashes are also included. While this is a visual clue, it’s helpful to go one step further and title your design “Dog Leashes” to make the moderator’s job easier with a more concrete clue.
3. An entry is flagged for copyright infringement, appropriates another artists’ or entity’s intellectual property or is generated using AI (Artificial Intelligence).
The Design Challenges are meant to inspire fresh, original ideas, so using anything in your design that isn’t uniquely yours will be disqualified. Here are some design elements to avoid in order to stay in the game.
Clip Art and Public Domain: While you can upload designs to Spoonflower that include clip art elements you purchased and have a license for, as well as imagery in the public domain, these types of designs are not allowed in Design Challenges. We want to see things you created exclusively for these challenges.
Something traced or copied: Making a direct copy of another artist’s work can be a nice assignment, but it should remain in your sketchbook and is not something to be used for your entry. Perhaps you made a few tweaks, but it is not really yours to enter. For example, say you copy a famous drawing of a pig and add wings to it—it still contains copied elements and would be withdrawn from the challenge.
The likeness of a celebrity: A celebrity sighting in your artwork is cause for disqualification. The unauthorized use of the likeness and/or name of a recognizable figure is against the rules of our Design Challenges.
Copyrights, trademarks and logos: Using anything copyrighted or trademarked in your design or title is also not allowed in our challenges for similar reasons. By entering designs with anything protected like this, you stand to benefit professionally and financially from something you did not create. On top of that, using familiar and recognizable imagery can give designs an unfair advantage.
You can be inspired by popular culture, but copying it directly or using it as is will leave you disqualified from the challenges. This might also look familiar as you have to confirm the copyright of your design when you upload it.
Images generated using AI (Artificial Intelligence): AI art is created using machine learning. This is very often done by using a text-to-image tool with a text prompt you can enter, and a machine will create or edit an image using an algorithm. To stay within the spirit of our Design Challenges, which is to create original artwork that is uniquely yours, AI art is strictly prohibited.
It’s also good practice outside of our Design Challenges to make sure everything you create is uniquely yours. It can be tough to find your visual voice and language, but that is what will make you stand out from the crowd. You can filter and remix all the inspiration that you collect every day to find your own artistic path and identity. More information on what types of images can be uploaded to Spoonflower is available in the Help Center article “What Images May I Print with Spoonflower?”
4. An entry will be removed if it is not set to the proper repeat type.
Therefore, please read all briefs and information about each challenge, found on each Design Challenge page, carefully. When you select the type of repeat for your Design Challenge entry, ensure the repeat matches the type of repeat mentioned in the Design Challenge page. If your design is not set to an accepted repeat for a particular challenge you will receive a pop-up notification letting you know when you click ‘Submit Entry.’
We hope these guidelines help clarify why a design can be disqualified from a Spoonflower Design Challenge. The goal of the Design Challenges is to inspire new designs that are unique to Spoonflower, fit the theme, and highlight the many unique creative voices in our community.
Shop elmira_art’s challenge-winning design Zen Jungle on wallpaper and home decor and learn more about her process.
Hi, I previously entered a design in a contest here at Spoonflower, but have since recolored it, can I submit it in a new challenge if neither version was made available for sale in the Marketplace? Thanks. 🙂
Hi Jo-Anna!
Since you have already entered the design into a Design Challenge, I’m afraid not. Designs entered into Design Challenges need to be new unique designs related to (and created new for) each individual challenge, not designs created before the challenge was announced.
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
I actually created a whole collection from this challenge and have 3 designs I would like to enter. Am I only able to enter one?
Hi Elizabeth!
How wonderful that you got inspired and created a whole collection! Unfortunately, however, you can only enter one design per challenge.
But collections have a lot of benefits, in case you’re aren’t aware, some of which you can learn about at this post: https://blog.spoonflower.com/2019/09/25/5-reasons-why-you-should-be-designing-in-collections/.
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
Hey Betsy,
What are the design challenge pattern’s showcasing criteria, exactly? Will my print appear in the final few pages if I submit it four days before the deadline, according to how this showcasing operates?
Hi Madiha!
Happy to help, but can you explain a little bit more about what you’re referring to in regard to “showcasing criteria?”
Thanks!
Betsy
Spoonflower
If a design is entered after the challenge is announced, and a proof has been ordered, received, and reviewed, can the design be submitted for sale prior to the end of the challenge?
Thanks,
Letty
Hi Letty!
I asked our Artist Community Manager, Jessie Katz Greenberg, for some help with your question and here’s the response I received:
The design can be made for sale before the DC is over, as long as it was not uploaded until after the DC was announced. However, artists may want to wait just in case they land in the top 50 and get to skip proofing as part of their challenge prize!
If an artist enters a DC and does not place high enough to skip proofing, they would then go through our normal steps to sell a design. The design will have already been uploaded and made public to enter the DC, but now they’d need to order a proof then make the design for sale.
Hope that helps!
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
Hello! I am new to Spoonflower and it is really fun to look around and vote on the challenges. Can a person submit more than one entry per challenge? I did not see anything in the rules about any limits so wanted to check on this first hand.
Thanks,
Tammy
Thanks for your interest in our design challenges, Tammy! We think they are fun too and they’re a great way to get involved in the Spoonflower community!
Artists can submit one entry into each challenge.
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
What size does a design previewed on a Spoonflower curtain panel need to be? Do you have a page somewhere that lists the design specs for various types of merchendise?
Hi Gerda,
Great question– curtain design challenges will display your design on a 50″ x 84″ (127 x 213 cm) curtain panel. I have added this information to the Retro Floral Curtains challenge description, thanks so much for bringing it up!
In general our product sizes show up as you’re looking at each product/design page, in the same area where you would click to add something to your cart. We have three lengths for our curtains but they’re all 50″ wide! 🙂
Crafty regards,
Anna
Spoonflower
Twice I have received votes for a design challenge entry but when the list that has all the votes gets posted, I don’t see my name or artwork even though I would have the votes to be there. Am I doing something incorrectly?
Hi Jennifer!
I had a peek at the Petal Solids Coordinates: In Bloom and Garden Party Design Challenge results (in the full list of entries and votes) and was able to find you, but perhaps you were talking about other challenges?
If so, let me know which ones so I can have a look at those!
Thanks!
Betsy
Spoonflower
Please disregard previous email. I spotted my name. It was higher than I expected.which is nice!
Thanks for looking. I will scroll more carefully and slowly from now on. I really enjoy these challenges!
Glad you were able to find your vote count, Jennifer, and that it was higher than you expected! (Not that these challenges are all about vote counts, but, hey, a nice surprise is always fun!!) 🙂
Thanks for participating in these challenges, I always love seeing what amazing designs our community comes up with each week!
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
If a design is not in the top 50 can the artist still upload it to sell after the challenge?
Hi Linnea,
Sure can! If the design is not in the top 50, you’ll have to proof it by ordering a swatch or more yourself. After that process is finished you should have the option in your design library to make the design for sale.
Best,
Anna
Spoonflower
Is the tag ‘sfrotate’ needed for the wall hanging challenge? It doesn’t seem to be mentioned.
Hi Kathy, there’s no need to include “sfrotate” as a tag for any upcoming wall hanging challenges. – Theresa
Do the number of likes equal to the number of votes a design gets? Then how come some designs get more likes but don’t turn out as winners?
Hi Sujata!
‘Likes’ and votes are separate things.
You can ‘like’ a design but not vote for it, and you can vote for a design but not ‘like’ it.
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
I voted for one and ‘submitted vote’, then realized that I can’t go back and see more of the choices later. Is there any way to see the choices again and vote for more? Thank you!
Hi Jill,
You may only submit one round of voting for each challenge. You can go back and review which designs you voted for, but until the voting results are live you cannot review the designs again.
–Anna
Spoonflower
Can one enter more than one design for a challenge?
Hi Andrea,
You may only have one design entered per challenge. Although, you can participate in more than one challenge at a time!
Best,
Anna
Spoonflower
Awesome design