Bootcamp

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Navigating Your Spoonflower Studio

September 28, 2015

Today we say "see ya later" to our weekly Bootcamp posts with one last tip–how to navigate your Spoonflower Studio. When you sign in to your Spoonflower account, or head to Spoonflower.com while still signed into your account you land on your Studio. There's lots of information shared on this page and this post is to help you understand what it all means, and how you can update this page to show only what you want to see!

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Why does the thumbnail look different in my cart?

September 21, 2015

Spoonflower team member Jenny here. Today, I'm going to shed some light on a question we often get from Spoonflower customers about what they see in their shopping cart. It usually sounds like this: “I placed a design in my cart and now the thumbnail/repeat/scale looks different– why?” Well, let's find out! (It's actually nothing to worry about!)

Have you ever uploaded a design to your account, carefully set it to the scale and repeat you preferred, then added it to your cart in the material of your choice, only to see that it looks completely different in your cart? If you were worried you made a mistake, you may have deleted it from your cart out of concern that the settings were not saved and you were not ordering what you intended. Not fun! Well, worry no more! The thumbnail in the cart does not correspond with the design settings for the product you've placed in your cart. Rather, the thumbnail is a separate image, selected by the designer (which may be you) for how they'd like their design to be displayed in the Marketplace and previewed in shopping cart. Let me explain…

Spoonflower Bootcamp: How to Order a Swatch Sampler

September 14, 2015

Navigating all the options offered by the Spoonflower site can be daunting. As a new-to-the-site designer you may become overwhelmed with the opportunities now at your finger tips, but we're here to help! Today we'll help tackle the challenge of testing designs by introducing the swatch sampler.

To get started, you'll need to have a set of designs in a collection in your Spoonflower design library. For help doing so, check out this Bootcamp post.

From your Design Library, on the left-hand side of the page you will see details about swatch samples with a link.

Clicking that link takes you to your Collections.

Select the collection you would like to order as a swatch sampler. I chose my collection titled Fancy.

At the top right of your collection page, you will see a button labeled "Get a Sampler."

Clicking "Get a Sampler" displays the designs that will be included in your sampler and have the option to choose your fabric type. Using the drop-down menu at the top right of the page, simply select the fabric you'd like to use for your swatch sampler.

Once you've decided, click "Order a Fabric Sampler" and you're taken to the usual cart page. Here you will proceed with check out like with any other Spoonflower order!

Need help navigating other aspects of the site or fabric design? Check out other Spoonflower Bootcamp posts here. Have a question that hasn't been answered? Leave us a note in the comments below!

Boot Camp: Decoding Wallpaper Design

August 31, 2015

While fabric patterns can repeat in every direction and come in a variety of sizes, designing for wallpaper requires you to always have the width of the roll in mind. Wallpaper rolls have to match up, so the repeat has to be very precise.

Since Spoonflower wallpaper rolls are 24 inches wide, your design’s width has to divide evenly into 24. For example, designs that are 24, 12, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1. Length doesn’t matter as much because rolls can be printed up to 15 feet long, so you have plenty of room there. What if my design doesn’t divide evenly into the 24-inch width?

Your design will be resized automatically if it’s not evenly divisible into 24. If your design file is pretty big the system might scale up, or scale down your design if you don’t have enough pixels to work with. Double-check the dimensions to the right of the preview to determine how much the scale has changed.

Your wallpaper, fabric and gift wrap settings are independent from each other, but If you needed extra precision, you could upload copies of the same design and only order it on specific products.

Can I make a mural using Spoonflower wallpaper?

Yes, it’s possible to make a mural, but it takes some careful planning, some powerful software and a really big file.

Let’s say you wanted to make a mural that is 6’w x 4’h. Since wallpaper rolls are 24 inches wide, you would need three custom rolls that are four feet long — Spoonflower can print short rolls too, you don’t have to buy a full roll. With your high quality file open in Photoshop, you would need to divide it into 24 x 48 inch sections, and upload each one separately. Then each section would print on individual rolls. This may take some finagling to get it right, and test swatches can help you determine if your mural is lining up properly before committing to the full project.

Do you have any other tips or tricks for designing for wallpaper? Please share in the comments below!

Spoonflower Bootcamp: What is a Hex Code?

August 24, 2015

Computer monitors display millions of different colors. Since a blue color may be called teal by some and turquoise by others, there has to be a way to describe colors without being so subjective. In today's Bootcamp post, we're exploring hex codes – a combination of six numbers or letters that identify a specific color.Hex codes are often used in design software like Adobe Photoshop, and our Color Changer tool uses them too. Spoonflower color maps have their corresponding hex codes listed within each color chip as an easy reference. Color maps can be printed onto any of fabrics and wallpaper, so you’ll know what a specific hex code will look like on that particular substrate.

Here at Spoonflower we print in sRGB and identify colors using hex codes. If your heart is set on a particular color, like a Pantone color, for example, we strongly recommend that you find the closest equivalent hex code and order swatches to confirm the closest match. Test swatches are the best way to confirm how colors will look on the fabric or wallpaper you plan to use.

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Searching the Spoonflower Marketplace

August 17, 2015

There are hundreds of thousands of amazing designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace, so it’s easy to spend hours scanning through pages of beautiful artwork! If you’re looking for something specific though, narrowing down your options can make it much easier to find exactly what you need.

There are a few things that make searching our site even easier including: using descriptive phrases, selecting a search category, using filters, and getting creative with your search terms.

Using Descriptive Phrases

If you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for you may want to start out searching for a single color or design element. For example, here are the results for the word ‘yellow’:

Here are the results for the word ‘deer’:

If you have a very specific design in mind, you’ll want to use as many descriptive search terms as you can think of. For example, the search term ‘arrows’ will yield very different results than ‘black and white arrow drawing’. You can see how different the results are below.

Selecting a Search Category

Another great search feature is the search categories menu. These categories help narrow down your search, allowing you to weed out things you aren’t looking for. To use this feature, click the small arrow beside the search bar, select the appropriate category, then enter a search term.

The categories include:

Fabric–designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace that are available on fabric.
Wallpaper–designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace that are available on wallpaper.
Gift wrap–designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace that are available on gift wrap.
Designers–designers (by screen name or real name).
Collections–collections of designs in a designers shop.

Using Filters

Once you enter a search term into the search bar and click “GO” you will be directed to a new page with search filters. In the example below you can see all of the search filters that appear after you complete a search.

The search filters include:

Fabric–allows you to see designs available on fabric, wallpaper, or gift wrap.
Browse–allows you to browse by popular tags, trending designs, best selling designs, top contest designs, and daily favorites.
Colors–allows you to search by color.
Availability–allows you to search for designs that are for sale or not for sale.
Filters–allows you to search within designs you have favorited or designers you are connected to (a.k.a. designers you follow).
View–allows you to see either the design image, a picture of the fabric, or a project made with the fabric.
Sort by–allows you to sort the search results by bestselling, trending, or most recently uploaded designs.

Getting Creative with Your Search Terms

If you try searching for a specific design, but don’t find what you’re looking for, try some other related words to vary your search results. For example, when the phrase ‘antique flowers’ didn’t show the kind of flower I was looking for, I tried getting a little more creative with my wording and searched for ‘antique red poppies’.

Some other helpful search tips:

To match an exact phrase, use quotes to define what you are looking for, i.e. ‘blue china.’ This is a great way to find an exact design for which you already know the name or title.
If you would prefer to just look at designs that are a match for both 'blue' and 'china' (not one or the other), you can type it as follows in the search bar: 'blue and china' or '+blue +china.'
If you are searching for 'old brick wall,' the first results returned will be a match for all three words 'old,' 'brick,' and 'wall.' As your scroll down the returned search results, you will begin to see designs that are a match for just two of the words, perhaps ‘brick’ and ‘wall’ and eventually, designs that might be a match for just one of the words.

As with everything on Spoonflower, if you’re having trouble finding something specific or need help searching for an item, you can email us at help@spoonflower.com and we are happy to help!

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Updating Your Account Information

August 3, 2015

Did you create your Spoonflower account a few years ago and now would like to update your account settings with a new name, email address or username?

Drop and give me twenty! Twenty seconds of your attention, that is! Follow Spoonflower help team member, Meredith, as she gets your Spoonflower muscles warmed up in today’s edition of Spoonflower Bootcamp: Updating your Spoonflower Account information.

Once logged in to your Spoonflower account, hover over the My Studio tab and select Account in the drop-down menu.

Click the Settings tab to adjust your general account information like name, password, email address, or username. Click the Update button for each change to ensure the changes stick!

Click the Email Settings tab to adjust your email settings including your weekly newsletter subscription and marketplace notifications. Click the Save button to ensure the changes stick!

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Creating a Collection

July 22, 2015

Today's Bootcamp post goes hand-in-hand with our current SpoonChallenge content. While working on your collections, as instructed by Bonnie Christine, you'll want to upload them to Spoonflower and add them to a collection in your Design Library. Here, our help team walks you through the step-by-step process of doing just that!

Why put designs in collections?

Creating collections is a simple process that allows you to keep your designs organized and grouped together based on color palette, theme or even season.

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Checking Your Image Size

July 8, 2015

As a part of our SpoonChallenge: Creating a Fabric Collection, we'll be gearing our Bootcamp posts over the next few weeks towards creating designs and uploading to the Spoonflower site. First up, a few tips on understanding fabric size and the Spoonflower fabric preview.

Making sure your image is just the right size can be a little daunting when using Spoonflower. Between DPI, pixels, inches, lengths, widths and that mysterious number, “150”, there’s a lot to keep track of!

Today’s Bootcamp post will show you how to determine how many pixels are in your image, and how big we can print it at Spoonflower. You can always make your image smaller once you’ve uploaded it, but there’s a quick trick for figuring out the largest size we can print any digital file. Don’t worry! It seems like a lot of math, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to figure out.

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Downloading ASE File

June 29, 2015

Hello again Bootcampers! We’re now into week 4 of our Spoonflower Basics Bootcamp and I’m sure your Spoonflower muscles are growing! Today Spoonflower crew member Meredith is here to show you how to download the Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) file and import it to Photoshop. This file can also imported into Adobe Illustrator as well. This file is a great resource for making your colors as accurate as possible, and is designed to work alongside the Spoonflower Color Map!