Online Designer Tips
Usage Guidelines and Design Criteria
We hope that browsing through this site will be a pleasurable experience. Whether creating a product for one-time purchase or as part of a studio, our user-friendly online designer is designed to be straight forward. You may also browse through the detailed instructions page for added clarity. If you would like to create an entire artist studio with images you can share anywhere online, there are a few things to bear in mind before getting started. We suggest you gather some images with a common theme and place them into an easy to find folder for upload. Just three to five images will suffice to flow into the varied blank templates of our online designer for an instant body of work appeal. If you are an multi-disciplinary artist with works of unrelated themes, consider signing up under a different user ID for additional studio(s). This way, each body of work gets the visual weight it deserves.
Image Specifications
Maximum file via online designer is 1,000 pixels length at this time. For larger image, particularly those needed for large items, use our separate image uploader located in the dashboard portal. Preferred image file size is 300 DPI, ten megapixels or more.
Watercolor, Pastel, and Oil paintings
Either upload an original photograph (for anyone) that we will turn into a painting or a high resolution image of existing artwork (for artists), which can be turned into a decorated, a-la-carte reproduction, produced made-to-order.
1. Our innovative photo-to-fine art techniques used have successfully proven themselves to work well photographs of landscapes or portraits.
2. They are further suitable for art reproductions from scans or photographs of existing paintings, both abstract and figurative.
3. With likenesses of people or animals, faces should take up as much of the space as possible, preferably half the size of an 8″-by-10″ painting. Translated to the larger mixed media paintings, faces should measures no less than 4 inches wide.
Abstract Encaustic Paintings
1. Encaustics are a great way to duplicate existing abstract works into reproducible art with a hand-made feeling. This technique lends a sense of mystery to drawings and etchings, too.
2. The Abstract Encaustic technique works well on the following mediums: sepia photography and monochromatic figurative work, such as intaglio prints or charcoal drawings. The layers of wax in varying thicknesses add an extra design dimension. Encaustics are not recommended for highly realistic figurative work or photographs, where fine details are of the essence of the work’s general appeal.
If you have any questions about processes or other comments, please contact us.
Using the Online Designer
Our powerful online designer provides the ability to reproduce your uploaded art or our image library pictures on a wide range of products. Among other things, you can position, scale and rotate images to create your own unique designs. You can either create one-off products for immediate purchase or create an entire store of your designed items, which you can then share everywhere else. The final output can even be printed as an attractive sales sheet, once in your store, to help extend your brand. Additional featured are outlined below.
1. Create and go
Design your own product with photos of our unique image library photos or upload your own image. Follow the online designer tips outlined below. Once finished, click “Add to Cart,” and proceed to checkout. Check out our tips section with optimal image usage tips, visit our Art Creation Guidelines page here. Upon completion, find your own product within your own shop, which can be further customized inside of your own artist studio dashboard.
Or…
2. Open your own studio
To get started, we suggest you gather and place some images with a common theme into a folder on your hard drive where you can easily find them for later upload. Three to five will work for a start, preferrably at 300 DPI but 150 DPI image resolution. We recommend you select a group of images with a common look and feel or a theme. If you are an multi-disciplinary artist with works of unrelated themes, consider signing up under a different user ID for additional studio(s). This way, each body of work gets the visual weight it deserves.
Note, within your studio settings dashboard, it is best to upload a square image, at optimally 1035 x 1035 pixels. It will be shown in two places: Open Studios and your own shop. The open studio image will be square, while the shop banner reveals the top third of an image.
After selecting “Create” from the main navigation menu, select a template on which you would like to see your image.
Key Features
Once you opened the online designer, pick from an extensive image library or upload your own photos in PNG, JPG or SVG format to customize your product.
Add an Image
One of the ways of adding a design template is by selecting a product from the CREATE menu. 1. Select a sample image from the image library, under “Designs” shown below, upload an image from your computer by clicking on the image icon button. 2. Alternatively, connect to your Facebook or Instagram account via menu shown below and add add photos from your social networks.
3. Adjust placement by dragging image within the transparent area; drag arrow corner handles to size the image; use curved arrow rotate tool handle to rotate the image; use “X” corner icon to delete the image.
Other icons shown below: Print, Save Image, and Reset.
4. Re-size the image to your liking, then click anywhere to make the bounding lines disappear. 5. Optionally, click brush icon to the left of the image-upload button to create a finished marketing image. Use it in any online marketplace, mark up the price at your discretion, then come back to place the order. We will produce and ship.
Add Text
6. Click text icon.
7. Double-click text box. It will automatically open the “Edit Elements” tab. Type in your text.
8. Select color.
9. Optionally, choose the curved text tool by clicking on the green “Curved Text” button.
10. After selecting radius and spacing wording can be adjusted more, by clicking red button marked “x” to get back to the normal text tool. The curve can be re-adjusted by choosing the green button with a check mark once more.
Note: Known Issues
It is recommended to close all other applications while using online designer to help free up available virtual memory. Due to high client-side processing power required, the designer can be slow to load, particularly after clicking “Add to Store.” When that happens, please be patient as clicking a second time will force you to start again. If you should find that the little progress bar has stalled and you are just not getting to the next step (“Visit Store” ), along with the text, “Processing…,” we recommend that you log out and log back in again.
Purchase
6. Once you like what you see, select the green “Add to Store” button to place this product into your own studio page.
7. If this is just a one-time purchase for yourself, just add it to your cart.
Special Instructions
Lamp Whiz Kit, Beach Chair, Pillarz Lamp, Shadow Boxes, and Acoustic Ceiling Light Wraps Variations
Due to the irregular shape of these templates of product items below, we supplied a realistic version into which you can insert the approximate position of the image while using a corresponding flat image to create an exact placement. Either use the photographic template by itself or let us adjust final placement to be sure the images are aligned exactly as planned.
Lamp Whiz Kit
Beach Chair
Pillarz Lamp
Acoustic Ceiling Light Wraps
When designing a stretched canvas, follow these instructions to estimate bleed areas.
Measure approximate distances by way of counting the small grid dots on the blank area and add that distance outside as specified below.
18″ x 24″ Canvas: Add spacing of 1.5 dots to the outside when enlarging image outline into the wrap-around area.
Approximate 1.5 dots outside of the actual template to account for bleed area as follows. If there’s any doubt, let us do it for you.
To print the full image, rather than stretching over all sides, you may optionally use the fill option of the text tool to specify the color on the sides of the canvas. Use the down-arrow of the edit panel to move text to the bottom layer so it’s hidden from final marketing image. Upon receipt of a special instructions email, will be able to locate and retrieve tthe color values upon receipt of the order.
These examples show how far outside of the canvas the bounding box of your image needs to stretch for a full image wrap.
Shadow Boxes
After inserting a main image in the same manner as described with any of the other templates, select a Shadowbox Paraphernalia from the drop down. Inserting an item will displace the previous version as only one insert is possible at this time. Note that some higher end additions may increase the price of the shadow box by a bit.