Home » Print On Demand for Artists – Part Two
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Print On Demand for Artists – Part Two

In the second of my print on demand for artists articles, I will be looking at the services offered by Design by Hümans, Society6 and Woven Monkey. Checking out the uploaders, profit margins and all the products available through each of these sites.

Design By Hümans

Based in California USA, Design by Hümans specialises in clothing printing. Shipping is from their headquarters to a number of worldwide locations.

In order to get an artist account here, you have to fill in an application form. Make sure your portfolio is in order before you start the application process. Your portfolio must be online and have at least 12 completed pieces for your application to be considered.

Uploading

So long as your files are correctly formatted you should have very few problems uploading to this site. The minimal image height must be 5600 pixels, up to 75 MB in size and in PNG format. If you have problems uploading a file at 300 dpi, reduce to 150 dpi and try again, this normally solves any issues.

The uploader here has a unique background colour selector. When uploading a design, the artist selects a range of complementary colours. Most print on demand sites, which do have a background colour selector, will only allow for one colour to be saved per product. With Design by Hümans, the customer gets to choose exactly how they want their product to look when printed up.

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
One of my mugs for sale at Design by Hümans. Look how many colours the customer can choose from.

Artist Profit Margin & Profile Page

Your portfolio or profile page here is allowed to contain up to 500 works. It is slightly customisable in that you can change the colour scheme and upload your own shop banner. There are no collections here, which I personally find a bit annoying. You also cannot change the order of your works here, they are either displayed via popularity or by most recently uploaded.

Profit margin here is frankly a little confusing and done very differently from most print on demand sites. Rather than tell the artist the percentage that they will get for each sale, Design by Hümans uses a flat rate system for profit. As you can see from the graphic I’ve included here, this margin halves after 90 days of joining.

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
Artist profile page at Design by Hümans.

 

Product Range

This site specialises in clothing printing, but also has a few other products available for customers.

 

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
Design by Hümans product range.

 

Ease of Contact

Design by Hümans are quick to respond to any problems or enquiries. You can get in touch by using the customer support or message buttons featured on the help pages. Customer support is provided Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm PST.

Other Information

Prior to going on sale, all designs are reviewed. This normally takes about 20 minutes but can take a bit longer. T-shirts designs submitted without a clear background will be rejected for sale at Design by Hümans.

If you have a design which cannot be adjusted to match this, it’s best not to select t-shirt as a product when uploading.

Payments are done by PayPal with the usual 1-month delay to allow for customer returns.

Society6

Society6 has headquarters located in California, USA. Although I am uncertain as to the exact location of their printing and fulfilment offices, I know they too are located in the US. The joining up process here is simple, it’s a case of filling out forms and uploading a banner image.

Uploading

I’ve had a few problems uploading to this site, but it is by no means the worst uploader in the world. Firstly, there are issues with browser compatibility. I was told by support when I joined that the site is set up to work best in Chrome and Edge. In short, this uploader is glitchy and will often refuse to upload files for no apparent reason. Thank goodness for the ability to save work as a draft, as you will need it here.

There also seems to be an issue with the uploader timing out. The only solution to this that I’ve found is to clear the entire browser cache, restart the browser and try again.

The inclusion of pattern tools and background colour selector would vastly improve this uploader. I also dislike the way the uploader deals with certain products such as metal prints and curtains. If you’re a few pixels out of the recommended product dimensions, the file will not upload.

Artist Profit Margin & Profile Page

It’s not the greatest of news here. There’s a small 10% profit margin across all goods sold at Society6 apart from the art prints range – which includes unframed art prints, framed art prints & canvases. On the art prints only, can the artist adjust their profits.

The profile and shop pages on this site are not very customisable. All you do here is upload a banner image and sort your works into collections. Aside from the collections, you have no choice over the order in which your work is displayed.

There’s been a recent change to the way the profile pages look, which I personally dislike. It now displays only the most popular work on the front page over and over again. This I feel, gives the casual browser of your shop, the impression that you only have one design for sale.

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
Artist’s shop page at Society6.

 

Product Range

There’s a wide range of products for sale on Society6, with their selection of homewares being the most impressive.

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
Society6 full product range.

 

Ease of Contact

The help centre pages here aren’t the greatest. However, most day to day enquiries can probably be answered via the articles on the help pages or by looking through their blog.

Customer service is available 7 days a week from 6 am – 10 pm PST. You can get in touch with Society6 by using the contact us or email buttons on their contact page. They have replied to my enquiries quickly and courteously when I’ve needed help in the past.

Other Information

When uploading your work, be aware that tags with spaces don’t work here. You’ll need to hyphenate words or smoosh them together to make one word. For example, rather than using “video game” you should instead input “video-game” or “videogame”.

The payment system here is my PayPal and one month behind to allow for any customer returns.

Woven Monkey

Woven Monkey are a British company based in Derbyshire, specialising in fabric printing. They ship to a number of international countries, which are listed on the FAQs page of their site. It looks like all printing and shipping for Woven Monkey is done from their head office in Derbyshire.

Uploading

Providing you get your file format correct, this uploader is easy to use. Since most of my patterns are made on a large canvas, I had to resize a lot of my works prior to upload. Take care not to leave any semi-transparent borders on your designs if you resize them in Photoshop. Woven Monkey’s uploader will show these edges in your design and make it look ugly.

There are no background colour tools for the uploader here, but there are pattern tools. Since you don’t need to adjust your design to suit multiple products, the uploading process here is quick.

Artist Profit Margin & Profile Page

Woven Monkey are upfront about artist’s 10% profit margin. There is a scheme in place to help you get 12.5% profit. It should be noted, that this increase only happens after you have earned £120 that month.

Artists do get a fairly decent profile page at Woven Monkey. There’s no way of controlling how your works are displayed on this site nor how your profile page looks.

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
Woven Monkey’s artist profile page.

Product Range

Fabric and only fabric here. Lots of different weights and types of fabric, each one explained in detail on their site.

 art, art uploaders, buy, Christmas, clothing, digital art, gifts, homewares, payments, paypal, print on demand, profit margin, selling art, shipping, shopping, stickers, tech cases, Technology, uploading, society6, woven monkey, design by humans
Woven Monkey’s full range of printable fabrics.

Ease of Contact

The uploader confused me at first so I contacted support early on. Using the contact form provided on the site it was easy for me to get in touch. Within one working day I received an email response back.

Other Information

Each design has to be checked for clarity and quality before going live on the site. It can take a couple of days for your design to appear for sale on Woven Monkey.

Payments are the usual affair for most print on demand, by PayPal only and one month in lieu.

Making Choices

All of the sites I have chosen to look at, offer their printing services and site usage for free. The main difference between them, is profit margin, ease of use and product ranges. In all honesty, I would say that even those sites which offer a small 10% profit margin are worth exploring. These sites often offer unique product ranges, which you will struggle to find elsewhere. Each site has their own sales and offers, which can draw in new customers. Of course, new customers means money and exposure for you as an artist. Knowing your work has made it’s way to a new home, somewhere across the world, is a lovely feeling. Good feels and money in your pocket. Sounds good right?

Choose the site or sites that are right for your work. Consider what sort of products you would like, where your customers will be based and that all important profit margin.

Perhaps you use a different site to sell your work. Or found some work better than others for you with regard to sales or other issues. Please comment and let us know.

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