Is Taking Part In Spoonflower Challenges Worth It?
Are you considering participating in Spoonflower challenges, but unsure if it’s worth spending your time on them? It’s a complex topic, and it highly depends on your stage in your pattern design career. If you need to find the answer to this challenging question, this article is for you.
Is Spoonflower exploiting the artists taking part in their Design Challenges? Is it a way to get more beautiful, trending designs to their platform and promising very little in return to the artists? Let’s take a closer look. I’ll try to take an honest and unfiltered look at the Spoonflower Challenges from both the artists and the platform's point of view.
What is Spoonflower?
Spoonflower is a POD (Print On Demand) platform for textiles and wallpapers. That means that the products are manufactured only after the customer buys them and only in the amount that’s needed. Great solutions for artists, customers and the environment too!
Many say that Spoonflower is oversaturated and that it is no longer easy to succeed in selling your designs there. Hundreds of artists are adding their designs every day. Nowadays, it’s even easier to start selling your design on Spoonflower since they introduced the digital proofing method. Before that, you had to order a sample of your fabric to check the repeat and colours before you could make it available to sell. It was a time-consuming and pricy process (yes, the designer had to pay for the sample and shipment). That for sure was a serious obstacle for many emerging designers, and I understand why Spoonflower executives have decided to make it easier. However, it has its drawbacks. When there was an upfront investment required, artist would pick only their best designs to prove and sell. Nowadays, it costs them nothing (only a few minutes of their time to upload, digitally proof and set the description) to put the design for sale. It leads to many “not-so-great” designs being available on the platform. Sometimes they are not even repeating properly because the artist didn’t bother to properly check it during the digital proofing stage! In my opinion, this switch from traditional to digital proofing has led not only to a huge increase in uploaded designs but also to a decrease in their average quality.
Spoonflower design challenges
I’ve read many articles and watched numerous videos about how to start selling on Spoonflower. One of the popular advice is to participate in Spoonflower challenges. Every two weeks, there is a new prompt for artists to create a design in a specific subject, style or colour palette. Later, the Spoonflower community can vote for the best designs. The best 100 are featured on the challenge site, and the best 10 get a prize in Spoonflower credits.
My experience with Spoonflower Challenges
So far, I have taken part in over 20 Spoonflower Challenges and at the beginning, I was submitting my designs to EVERY Challenge for a few months. Each time I thought to myself, ‘This time my design is great. This time I’ll get to the first 100 for sure!’ But it happened only once, at the very beginning (the second challenge I took part in). It gave a false belief that winning is just a matter of time. It was NOT.
A Screenshot of my best Spoonflower Challenge so far.
None of my submissions has ever been even close to the best ten designs. I can’t even tell if all the traffic and likes that I got during the voting translate to more sales or not. I have too few sales in general to be able to draw any conclusions.
Is this article written by a loser artist who needs to vent their frustration after realising they are not good enough to win a simple challenge? Maybe. I leave it up to you to judge.
Last month, I was preparing for my first trade show, going through my portfolio and refreshing my website. I realised that most of my Spoonflower designs created specifically for the challenges are not worth putting into my online portfolio. Why? Either because they are just single patterns and I prefer to have collections, or because I don’t want to create in this particular style or subject anymore.
Here are the most successful designs I submitted for the Challenges:
Was the time spent on creating the designs wasted? I don’t think so. At that time, I was not sure what my signature style would be. I had to experiment, try out different techniques and styles. Spoonflower Challenges were perfect for that. They gave me ideas, subjects for the patterns and deadlines as well as a bit of feedback. At this point, however, my needs are different and I realised that taking part in Spooflower challenges is not so beneficial for me anymore. It seems that your approach to Spoonflower Challenges should depend on your experience and point in your career. More on this you’ll find in the summary of this article.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of Spoonflower challenges
Here is what the Spoonflower website says in the ‘Why to participate section?’
The promise: Following the challenge theme, you are creating a trending design. No need to do your research on what is on trend now.
Reality: You are uploading your design on this trending subject at the same time as hundreds of other artists taking part in the same challenge, which may decrease your chances of being seen.
What the platform gets: Hundreds of designs on the trending subject. They are analysing the search trends on their website as well as general trend forecasts, and whenever they see a gap in their offer, they throw a challenge around the topic and voila! They have hundreds of new designs in the trending niche.
The promise: You’ll have a chance to win monetary prizes and get a lot of exposure
Reality: Since they changed to a digital proofing process, printing and checking your design is no longer required. Prize with ‘automatically approving’ the design is no longer adequate. Only the first 10 designs receive a monetary prize in Spoonflower credits, which can be used to purchase their products. I’m not sure if the won credits can be transferred out of your Spoonflower account (let me know if you know anything about it).
What the platform gets: Hundreds of new designs on the trending topic for less than $500 in Spoonflower credits (sum of all of the prizes). If the winners can use the prizes only on the platform, then the real cost for Spoonflower is even lower (just the production costs)
The promise: Your design will probably get some likes during the voting process.
Reality: The likes should help your design get noticed later. I couldn’t find any info about the Spoonflower algorithm. On many POD sites, likes are not helping the design too much unless they lead to purchase. Again, please let me know if you have any inside on that. A high disproportion between likes and purchases may even be harmful to your design.
What the platform gets: Votes and likes help the algorithm to find the best design in the niche and quickly serve it to searching customers. Most of the voters are other artists or art directors who have a good eye, design knowledge, and industry experience. Soonflower gets a free committee of experts filtering the designs for them.
The promise: When you take part in Challenge, you join the community of Spooflower artists and share your design with shoppers.
Reality: You don’t need to take part in the Challenge to join this community. You can sell your designs on Spoonflower outside of the challenge.
The promise: The Spoonflower challenges will inspire you to try out new techniques and styles while chasing emerging trends. You’ll band to learn a lot during the process.
Reality: Sometimes the subjects are very niche, and the technique may not be too useful in the future. Taking part in every challenge may lead to producing many very diverse, inconsistent, incohesive designs, possibly even with styles or subjects that “don’t feel like you”.
What the platform gets: Many designs in unique styles and niches.
The promise: Taking part in Spoonflower challenges regularly will motivate you to create and help you form a good creative habit.
Reality: It can become hard to motivate yourself to create something outside the challenge, as you’ll miss the instant gratification in the form of votes and likes.
What the platform gets: Persistent designers who are used to regularly posting designs on the Spoonflower platform.
What are the Advantages of the Spoonflower Challenge?
The subject of the challenge is always chosen based on popular searches on the platform and trend forecasts. You are therefore creating a trendy design.
It gives you a deadline to create new designs.
It helps to create a good creative routine.
You can get feedback on your design (how popular it was during voting) and learn which of your styles are more appealing to the larger audience.
The best 100 designs get a lot of exposure on the platform
The best 10 designers get a prize of Spoonflover credits that they can use for purchasing products on the platform
It can spark an inspiration if you have an art block
It may be a great exercise for future freelance commissions.
What are the Disadvantages of the Spoonflower Challenge?
Sounds great, right? But is it really? Here are some of the drawbacks and how to minimise them:
It’s not easy to win the Challenge. Many artists participate in them regularly and never win.
What if the subject is not your thing? You end up spending your precious creative time on something that you are not going to use in your portfolio anyway.
Solution: Don’t force yourself to participate in EVERY Spoonflower Challenge. Pick the ones that are truly aligned with your style and vision.
Is picking a trendy subject enough to get sales? I’m not sure about it. That’s true, the subject of the Challenge is based on trends, and many people will for sure search for this kind of pattern in the near future. On the other hand, your designs will compete with hundreds of designs that have just been submitted to the challenge (typically between 1-2K new designs on the subject).
Solution: spend more time on the description and finding other good, trending tags for your design. Consider making colour options for your design.
It leads to constant mood and motivation swings. Once you upload the design, you truly believe that THIS TIME it will win. Then the voting comes, and you get only a few likes (you don’t know the vote count until the results are revealed, but likes are some estimation). And your mood drops. You start to doubt your skills and choices. But don’t worry! There is another challenge already announced and waiting for you to start working on it! And your hopes get high again!
Solution: Try NOT to check your like count after submitting your design to the Challenge or compare it with other designs. It’s hard, I know! Believe me, this way your hopes will stay high, and you’ll be creatively motivated for longer.
Side note: I always get more likes than votes during voting. I wonder why? I suspect that all pr almost all of the likes come from the voters, as after the voting is closed, the average amount of likes drops drastically. Why do people like but not vote? I can’t understand this! If the design is so good that you add it to your favourites, why, oh why doesn’t it also deserve a vote?
It’s addictive. The promises of glory and exposure for the winners are good motivation to create, for sure. On the other hand, however, hope for winning can be addictive. Didn’t it work out this time? Next time will be THE time that you win for sure! I often found myself working on the design for the Spoonflower Challenge rather than finishing a collection that would be perfect for my portfolio. It should be a good time investment to reach for this low-hanging fruit that the Challenge seemed to be. But it’s not.
Solution: Participate in Spoonflower Challenges ONLY when you don’t have more important designs to make.
Side note: I’ve just visited the Spoonflower website while researching facts for this article, seen the subjects of the next two challenges, and now I feel this irresistible urge to take part in them. Ehhh… I guess I’ll never get wiser!
Most of the people voting in the Spoonflower Challenges are other creators. Their votes are valuable feedback for sure, but they do not always align with the public taste and what the market needs. Basing your design choices on what is usually successful in the challenges may not be a wise move (and it will probably lead you to eventually create patterns with cute kittens).
Solution: Don’t base your design choices on what is doing well on the Challenge unless your only reason to create this pattern is to win it (which we discussed already is very unlikely). It’s better to check what is really selling on the platform in a certain subject. To do it, search the phrase and then sort the results by “Best Selling” on the left side of the screen
Your design is exposed to “stealing”. Let’s address this common fear of creatives. Your design may become an “inspiration” for other artists. If they are more experienced with the platform, their design can quickly get more popular than yours.
Solution: I don’t have any. I guess it’s a risk that is always present when you post your art online. Embrace it, ignore it. Just don’t let it stop you from posting and selling your designs.
How to approach Spoonflower challenges and what to expect from it?
At the start of your career
When you are still in the beginning of your artistic journey, you don’t have your signature style or creative routine established yet, then Spoonflower Challenges have much to offer. You can find inspiration, a deadline and some kind of feedback there. You can even treat them as a “fake” freelance commission. Just imagine that the description is in a very vague brief from the client, and try to guess what they would like the most. Just don’t expect to win the challenge. It’s nice to have, but it’s very unlikely. If other benefits from participating (inspiration, trying something new, having a deadline and getting likes) are not enough to convince you to sit and create, just don’t. Perspective on winning is not a good long-term motivator.
If you already know your signature style
Take part in the challenge only if the subject aligns with your style. If you can answer “oh, yes!” to at least two of the following questions:
Will the design fit my portfolio?
Is it something that I want to create more of in the future? Would I be happy to create a similar thing for one of my clients?
Is the technique something that I always wanted to try but didn’t have time?
Do I feel stuck with my style, and I’m eager to try something new to incorporate it later in my process?
If you are an established designer
At this point, you probably know better than me what you should do :)
My approach to Spoonflower Challenges
I’m falling into the second group. I have my creative practice in place, and I know which styles and subjects would fit my portfolio. From now on, I’m going to participate in Spoonflower challenges only when it fits my style, schedule and when it truly inspires me to create. The next Challenge is “Retro Nouveau”, and it checks the above for me. I won’t spend more time typing and start drawing than!
