Well, I can’t believe we’ve made it to Part 5 already! What a long haul! I really hope that this series has been helpful to you. Here is a quick recap:
Part One: Thinking About And Beginning Your Design
Part Two: Available Computer Art Programs And What They Do
Part Three: Digging Into Inkscape, A Vector Art Program
Part Four: Continuing Our Fabric Design And Making The Perfect Tile
First I’m going to share some artwork from Mary that she sent in to me to share with you. Isn’t it just gorgeous? I love it! I do hope that Spoonflower eventually enables people to buy fabric designed by others. I would grab these up in a heartbeat! If anyone else would like to share their creations, send them to: info@mammamadedesigns.com.
It’s time to enter the world of COLOR CALIBRATION! YAY!!!!
Let’s talk about a couple of things and try to learn some important things about color. There is a lot to know! I’m just going to brush though some information because we aren’t going to use any of it anyway.
- Every Monitor Is Different
This seems really basic and elementary, but it’s true. What you see on your monitor could differ from every other monitor out there when you are talking about color choice and precision. So what do people do about this and in particular what do graphic design artists do about this?
Some buy some high tech equipment. It’s really amazing the hardware/software they have out there for your computer. It really is a whole new realm to dive into. You could spend a couple thousand on this equipment, although if this was your livelihood, it’s probably a good idea. If you have the time and so desire, you should google “monitor color calibration” and you’ll come up with all sorts of goodies to get your brain working.
Some people buy pantone books to design from as they are working. This is simply a book filled with a million trillion colors and their corresponding numbers so as you are designing you can count on the color in front of you in the book, and not the one on your screen. This can help you establish a “standard” that the industry uses for printing. There are tons of books out there, but I thought this one was kind of cool. It’s called tintbook. You can buy one for $80 and shipping is $10.
HOWEVER….
Color Calibration In Regards To Spoonflower Fabric Printing
Since the point of this series is to work directly with Spoonflower, it doesn’t make sense to go through all the hoops of perfectly calibrating your monitors to a set standard that professional graphic artists use around the world.
“Why not?!”
We are not graphic designers working directly with a bunch of print companies. Our end result is a beautiful piece of fabric printed by one particular company--Spoonflower. So, what we need to do is calibrate our monitors according to Spoonflower’s printing standards, not the books. I have been in contact with Stephen about this issue and he has been most helpful keeping me up to date with where they are at at the moment. Remember that they are still in Beta Testing Mode so they are still figuring out a lot of things on their side. It’s possible they will change the way in which they print the fabrics in the future…we just don’t know right now. So, in order to work with them AT THIS VERY MOMENT IN TIME, I have ordered a color swatch from them. It looks like this:
I anxiously await my precious swatch so that I can finish this very important post (thus Part A/Part B). In the next post we will correctly calibrate my monitor to current Spoonflower printing specs. Very exciting.
If you don’t feel like making up your own color swatch, feel free to copy and download the swatch on this post and order it. We can go through the monitor color calibration together once we get our swatches.
Until then, keep designing!
Love, Rachel