Hey Reader
Okay, so we need to talk about some creative confusion that comes up a lot - like - A LOT.
Someone will ask, “Mandy, should I be dropshipping my designs?”
And then someone else will say, “I thought that’s what Redbubble is?”
And then the chat erupts in confusion.
So let’s clear this up. Drop shipping and print on demand are NOT the same thing. They’re cousins, maybe. But they are not twins.
Here’s the simplest way I can put it:
Print on Demand marketplaces (like Redbubble or Spoonflower) = You upload your designs to THEIR store. They put your art on their products, they handle the printing, shipping, and customer service. The buyer knows they bought from Redbubble. Your name? Barely in the picture.
Drop shipping (using companies like Printful or Printify) = You sell on YOUR website, with YOUR branding. When someone orders, a third-party company prints and ships it behind the scenes. The customer feels like they bought from YOU.
See the difference?
Both make products after someone orders. Neither one requires you to keep inventory in your garage (thank goodness).
But one builds their brand. The other builds yours. 💛
Now, both of these can be relevant to pattern designers, but they work very differently in practice. And honestly? Neither one is something you have to do. But it's really important that you understand the difference between them.
Let me break each one down. But before I do, I want to share three cool patterns that stopped my scroll this week:
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RueCouCou – Mod Dress Repeat
• Graphic Simplicity That Pops: Teal, navy, yellow, coral — a limited palette doing heavy lifting. Strong silhouette plus repetition equals instant readability. Simple isn't lazy, sometimes simple is genius.
• Strong Motif Repeat: It's giving marching band of fabulous dresses. The vertical rhythm is satisfying, but the real win? Recolor it seasonally or shrink it into a mini print. One design, multiple lives.
• Great for Apparel, Gift Wrap & Stationery: Quilting cotton, girls' dresses (delightfully meta), zipper pouches, cosmetic bags, notebook covers for fashion students. Licensing gold.
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Melissa Donne – Folk Tile Patchwork
• Sweet, Storybook Charm: Teapots, florals, birds, tiny houses — this one tells a story. Nostalgic without being dusty, which is genuinely hard to pull off.
• Grid-Based Repeat with Modularity: Every tile is its own mini illustration, meaning each square could become a coordinating print. One design system, full collection. Manufacturers love that kind of thinking-ahead energy.
• Great for Fabric, Puzzles & Children's Products: Quilting cotton, children's bedding, tea towels, a 500-piece puzzle. If your target customer drinks tea and has opinions about stationery, this is their jam.
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House of Haricot – Petite Floral Toss
• Quiet Vintage Softness: Sometimes the most powerful move is restraint. Tiny bouquets on soft cream with subtle texture that adds warmth without shouting about it. Timeless in the best way.
• Classic Toss Repeat: Even spacing, consistent scale, generous breathing room — the reliable best friend of the pattern world. Easy to print, easy to recolor, plays well with everything in a collection.
• Great for Bedding, Apparel & Wallpaper: Pajamas, baby bedding, vintage-style wallpaper, handmade dresses. This one has full "heirloom fabric energy" — the kind of pattern people keep forever and eventually fight their kids over.
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Tip #1: The Business Model That Sounds Sexier Than It Is (At First)
As a surface pattern designer, you absolutely CAN drop ship products featuring YOUR designs. And some very successful designers have done exactly that.
Here's what drop shipping looks like in real life: You take one of your pattern designs — let's say that gorgeous butterfly — and list it on a tote bag in YOUR online shop (Shopify, Etsy, your own website, wherever). A customer finds it, falls in love, and hits "buy."
Behind the scenes, a fulfillment company like Printful or Printify prints your design onto that tote bag and ships it straight to your customer. Your branding. Your packaging. Your customer never knows a third party was involved.
The upside? You get to build YOUR brand. Your store, your vibe, your customer relationships. You control the pricing, the product descriptions, the whole shopping experience. And because you're not paying for products until someone actually orders? No warehouse full of tote bags gathering dust.
Some designers have built really beautiful, recognizable brands this way — their own curated shop full of products featuring their art, and they never touch a single item.
So why isn't everyone doing this?
Because it's more work than uploading to Redbubble and calling it a day.
With drop shipping, you're responsible for:
- Setting up and maintaining your own online store
- Writing product listings and taking (or mocking up) product photos
- Marketing and driving traffic — nobody's browsing Printful the way they browse Redbubble
- Handling customer service and returns
- Managing your cash flow (you collect payment, then pay Printful/Printify for production and shipping)
That last one's important. Your profit is the difference between what you charge and what the fulfillment company charges you. And since items are printed one at a time (not in bulk), your per-unit cost is higher than if you were manufacturing in large quantities. So your margins can be tighter than you'd expect.
"But Mandy, I see designers with their own shops and it looks amazing!"
It IS amazing. And those designers have usually invested real time into building an audience, dialing in their niche, and learning the marketing side of things. It didn't happen overnight.
Bottom line: Drop shipping with your own store is a powerful way to build a brand around your art. But it's not the most passive option. If you're still figuring out your niche or testing what resonates, starting with a POD marketplace (where the traffic already exists) might be smarter. File drop shipping under "exciting next step" and keep reading.
Tip #2: Print on Demand — Your Designs, Without the Headache of Inventory
Alright, so now you know there are two paths. Let's talk about the one that's easiest to start with: POD marketplaces.
Places like Redbubble, Society6, and Spoonflower are basically giant online stores that let you upload your designs and stick them on products. Throw pillows. Phone cases. Wallpaper. Fabric. You name it.
You upload your art. Someone shopping on their website falls in love with your butterfly throw pillow. They buy it. The company prints your design onto that product, right then and there, and ships it directly to the buyer.
You never touch a thing.
The storefront? Theirs. Payment processing? Theirs. Printing, shipping, customer service? All theirs.
You get a royalty or commission on each sale. Upload, wait, get paid. Super hands-off — which is amazing when you're short on time (or, let's be real, when you'd rather spend your hours actually designing).
The tradeoff? You're building inside their house, remember? The customer relationship belongs to them. Your brand doesn't really grow. And your margins are whatever they decide to give you.
But as a way to get your art out into the world with basically zero risk? It's pretty hard to beat.
Does every pattern designer need to be on a POD marketplace?
Nope.
If your goal is licensing your art to companies, a POD marketplace might be a fun side stream — but it's not your main focus. If you're curious about getting your designs onto physical products without a big commitment, it's a fantastic starting point.
It comes down to your business model and your bandwidth. Some designers thrive with shops on multiple marketplaces. Others focus entirely on licensing and skip it altogether.
The only wrong move is thinking you have to do it all.
The Export Settings That Actually Matter for POD
Here’s what nobody tells you when you start uploading to POD platforms: DPI matters less than you think. Pixel dimensions can matter more.
Most platforms recommend 300 DPI, and that’s a fine default. Spoonflower is the one oddball at 150 DPI.
But here’s the real talk, when a POD platform says “upload a high-resolution file,” what they actually care about is how many pixels your file has. A 300 DPI file that’s only 2 inches wide is still a tiny file. It’s the total pixel count that determines whether your design looks crisp on a throw pillow or turns into a blurry mess on a shower curtain.
My rule of thumb: Use a high-resolution canvas size no smaller than 3000x 3000 pixels. Go bigger if you you’re printing on anything big—like blankets or posters—a minimum of 6,000 x 8,000 pixels. Downscaling a large image is easy, but upscaling a small image leads to pixelation and poor-quality prints
And yes — every platform has slightly different size requirements for every product. It’s a LOT to keep track of.
Honestly? Figuring out the right export dimensions for each platform and each product type is one of the most tedious parts of the whole POD process. Wouldn’t it be amazing if something just… handled that for you?
👀
Stay tuned. I have something cooking. More on that very soon.
Here's What We Talked About Today At A Glance:
Print on Demand marketplace = You upload your designs to someone else's store (like Redbubble or Spoonflower). They handle everything — printing, shipping, customer service. You get a royalty. Super hands-off, but you're building their brand.
Drop shipping = You sell your designs on YOUR website, with YOUR branding. A company like Printful or Printify prints and ships behind the scenes. More work, but you're building your brand.
Both make products after someone orders. Neither requires a garage full of inventory. But one puts you inside someone else's house — and the other gives you the keys to your own. 🏠
Know the difference. Choose what fits YOUR business. And give yourself permission to not do everything at once.
I'd love to know — are you already using POD? Thinking about launching your own shop? Or is this totally new territory? Hit reply and tell me where you're at!
