Surface pattern designing is all about making your designs based on your perspective. You might notice different kinds of patterns everywhere you look and would realise the last opportunities that await you in the industry.
You could easily find Photoshop lessons in Australia or learn more about surface pattern designing from different institutes. One such institute is The Print School where you get the right training with different course materials.
Surface pattern design shows you different ways to make money. Take a look at three different ways you could make money in the industry.
- Licensing
If you have ever dreamt of having fabric with your unique designs on it, this could be the right thing for you. Surface designers get the opportunity to be licensed by large companies in the industry. Once you become a licensed designer, you would be under the contract with the company and would be required to develop fabric collections seasonally or many times per year based on the contract. You would receive a licence in payment that is calculated based on the wholesale sales of the designs on fabric. This could be an ideal option for artists who love to design collections that are a series of coordinated patterns which mix and match and coordinate well together. Creating saleable and beautiful collections is an art and there is a joy in seeing the designs you made come to life on fabric. You could also find a licence in opportunities in other industries including the stationery industry. License the same design in different industries as long as you carefully structure the contracts to specify each industry separately.
- Print-on-demand sites
Print-on-demand (POD) sites wish that would allow you to upload the artwork, select the products that the designs look beautiful on and sell those products to the general public. You can earn royalty payment as a design based on a percentage of retail sales of your products. POD sites could pay around 10% of retail sales of the products but some sites and product categories might pay more or less than that.
It is very important to understand that you could create your shop on POD sites to enhance the way your products are shown to the public. You could maintain the branding on these platforms so that customers can recognise that it’s you. Mobile 10% of retail sales might not seem to be a good amount, but it could be a big advantage to have such companies ship and manufacture on your behalf. They will also handle exchanges and returns. You have to keep the shop looking fresh with new and seasonal designs. You can drive sales through effective marketing as customers could find your products and make purchases.
- Sell on your website
If you love the idea of earning your products and having direct contact with the customers, selling directly on your website would be the right path. You will have a strong contact and connection with the customers which would be an advantage of this method. You can get all of their contact information to ship them and you could completely control and curate the shopping experience. Think of the beautiful details you could include in the shipping notes like a personalised note, special tissue paper that you have designed, a ribbon of your brand colours and the items they have purchased.
To manage your inventory investment, you could start small and focus on developing a small collection of products that you would like to sell. You might think of tote bags, notebooks, wrapping paper and other popular gifts for target customers other than what they have ordered. To do so, you will have to locate the manufacturers who could make your products in small quantities according to specifications. When you are selling directly to your customers, there are many advantages and the approach would involve managing inventory investments carefully to avoid too many products left over at the end of each season. Managing the customers’ experience and how they would feel when they open your box of products could be truly magical and unique.
There are different methods you could implement to make money from The Print School, Surface pattern design. Some of them that are given below could be utilized if you have completed a course on surface pattern designing or if you have a basic experience in the field. Having good knowledge of Photoshop could help you create designs and replicate the same when needed. You could produce the fabric with the same design again and again as per the requirement. You could also randomise the colours and print the same pattern on the fabric. Check Out https://www.theprintschool.com/