Why I Decided to Open a Spoonflower Shop

Featuring Artist Kate Zaremba

Artist Interviews

Edited: May 18, 2022

Kate Zaremba holds up a strip of wallpaper with her design Mirror Mirror on it, while wearing a romper in the same pattern, in front of a wall covered in wallpaper in the same design. The design has a pink background and alternating columns of two heads with the same back as if conjoined in blue and then black. A ladder is to the right edge of the photo.A white woman with brown hair stands in front of bold patterned wallpaper with blue, pink and white silhouettes that appear like stripes in a repeat. She is wearing a jumper in the same pattern.

Featured design Mirror Mirror by katezarembatextiles. Photo: Kate Warren.

As creatives, we often get to wear many hats as well as try new things and opportunities, making entrepreneurship an ever-evolving venture. Since 2013, Kate Zaremba, the artist behind the Kate Zaremba Company, has been a pattern designer successfully selling her work online, and recently decided to try a new thing and open a Spoonflower shop!

In this post, you’ll hear why the time was right for Kate to sell some of her designs on Spoonflower, what sparks her creativity and how she thinks pattern designing is creating a puzzle from scratch each and every day.

A model wears a romper with a white background featuring a design with both whole avocados as well as avocados cut in half showing their bright green pulp and brown pit. The model’s arms are both held out and each hand holds a whole avocado. The model is looking at the avocado on the left. Avocados constructed from paper, both whole and cut in half, are fixed to the walls behind the model to both the left and right. Caption: Model: Amy Vong. Photo: Kate Warren.

Featured design: It’s Raining Avocados by katezarembatextiles. Model: Amy Vong. Photo: Kate Warren.

What made you decide to open a Spoonflower shop?

I’ve been printing fabrics with Spoonflower for years and years. It was time to open a shop for my textiles to truly THRIVE. I can’t wait to see how other makers and designers get creative with my patterns.

How has your journey with Spoonflower impacted your business over the years?

I found Spoonflower back in 2010 when I was first starting out designing textiles. It was the only company of its kind at the time, offering a service really only accessible to textile industry professionals and making it possible for ANYONE to easily upload their own artwork and print on fabric without crazy minimums. I was OVER THE MOON. Being able to see my drawings come to life as apparel and home decor was the most amazing experience and inspired so many more ideas for new projects and designs.

A model stands facing to the left looking straight ahead off camera and wears a design with a white background featuring bright geometric shapes in green, turquoise, orange and dark red. A white wall is behind the model. A calf-high fake grass prop is to the photo’s left edge.

Featured design: Muse Multicolor by katezarembatextiles. Model: Irfana Jetha Noorani. Photo by Kate Warren.

A baby sits on multi-colored floral fabric featuring a design of small blooms in black, white, red and pink on a light blue background. The right leg, hand and foot of the baby is extending into the bottom right edge of the photo along with a small portion of the left foot. A yellow sleeve is visible on the arm shown. Two folded pieces of fabric appear on the floral fabric, an orange-red fabric on the bottom, to the left, with a design of almond shapes both vertical and horizontal with peach center and a black fabric on the top, to the right, featuring repeating flower shapes comprised of small white lines.

Featured designs: Jeff GoldBlooms, Pinstripe Floral Noir and The Eyes Have It by katezarembatextiles

Tell us a little about your design process. Do you like to start out with hand drawn collage, drawing, painting or do you work entirely digitally?

I always start by hand. I haven’t made the switch over to the tablet world, so my process is still very analog in that respect, which I like! I want my work to have my hand in it. I might draw, paint or use cut-up paper to create shapes in the first stages. I then scan the artwork into the computer and play with things digitally using Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe® Illustrator®.

Two models grab hands as they hang from trapeze swings, one model is facing left and another model is facing right. A white wall is behind them. On the wall are a number of black geometric shapes, black bats, pineapples and small round shapes with black intersecting lines.

Models: Jessie Luo and Mick Perrigo. Photo by Kate Warren.

How do you hope/envision makers will use your fabric?

I really cannot wait to see what others make with my patterns. When I launched my business, my hope was that my drawings would become backdrops for people’s spaces, offering a little bit of joy and artful inspiration to their everyday life. For my patterns to be available in an array of textiles is really exciting to me.

What’s your design aesthetic and what inspires your work?

The patterns in my shop or sort of a “Greatest Hits” collection in a way! Some of the designs date back to when I first started out. I don’t know if I have one single design aesthetic? I think overall you will see that my work is lively, colorful and sort of playfully sophisticated.

The things that inspire me are vast. Art history, nature, architecture—even just a color combination I set my eyes on can send me on a mission to create a pattern based around it. Pattern design is like creating a puzzle from scratch. It’s the process of taking all the shapes and colors I’ve made, then turning them into a puzzle that has had me hooked for so many years.

Want to get to know more creatives?

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About the Interviewee

Kate Zaremba

See Kate's Spoonflower shop

Kate Zaremba is an artist and illustrator specializing in wallpaper, textiles and ceramics. As a kid, she grew up on theatre sets and sound stages as a child actress performing in theater and television. This provided imaginary worlds for her to play, learn and discover, inspiring a career in the visual arts.

katezarembacompany.com

About the Author

Theresa Rizzuto

Shop Theresa's favorite Spoonflower designs

When she’s not immersed in all-things content in her role at Spoonflower, Theresa currently spends evenings pursuing her Master’s degree at UNC Chapel Hill. She also makes time to watch and paint birds, sew her own clothes, garden, and eat pasta as often as possible in her home city of Durham, NC.

Ava sews the neckband of a shirt to the body of the shirt with the wrong side of the fabric up. The right side of the shirt fabric is shown where the fabric has curled up, it has a black background and blue, pink, yellow and purple holographic wavy lines all over it.

These interviews are so interesting – I love finding out more about the artist’s behind the designs⭐️ Kate your bold and graphic work is fabulous. Your website has given me lots of ideas for development of my own. Thank you! Kate xo

Kate Frances | June 24, 2022 at 8:11 am

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