Welcome to the Spark guide on how to get your designs approved and viewed by the public at sparknow.com. All designs you upload at Spark, are approved by a panel of designers who will look at the below reasons for approving as well as whether the design is original, and sellable at Spark.
We recommend you take into consideration the points below as well as take a look at the approved designs at Spark to have a better picture of what is required.
Be Resolute with Resolution
Remember that your design is going to be printed on various products. We cannot emphasize the importance of sufficient resolution. Avoid pixilating your designs the way you avoid starting a fun club for yourself on facebook. Otherwise, it’s a no no.
Backgrounds on T-Shirts
All Spark tshirts, except Graphic tees, are printed using Direct-to-Garment technology, an expensive method which prints the ink directly onto the fabric. Expensive yes, but worth it, and we’re proud to say that we spare no expense to make sure that the end product is perfect. Look at any Spark tshirt and you’ll understand why. But enough tooting our own horn and let’s get back to our priceless advice: No backgrounds will be accepted on designs for tshirts, except if it was for a Graphic tshirt. Make sure you save the design in png format and shoot it to us!
Crop until you Drop
Sending an un-cropped, or an inadequately cropped design means your design won’t make it to our site. Make sure design is clean from all the sides.
Let’s Not Get Personal, Please
That girl who broke your heart or the dude you can’t stop lyricizing about, his birth date, email address, twitter panhandle… should we go on? That stuff is for your diary, but it won’t sell. Monetizing your design is worth a little discretion. Just saying. So, please don’t upload any designs with highly personal information or details.
Throwing the First Copyrights Punch
Your design has to be yours, created by you, associated with you, owned by you, verified to be yours. We might even run our patented Spark DNA Design Paternity Test to make sure it’s yours, otherwise, it will be rejected. No third party providers, no “public domain” – all that mumbo jumbo of usage rights legal jargon is just too much for us. So let’s not complicate things. However, if your design is rejected because of usage rights and you happen to hold the rights to it, don’t fret. Drop us a line and we’ll rectify that.
On Your Design Mark! Set! Go!
We love designs. We thrive on designs. We have built an entire business based on designs. But lo and behold! If we suspect trademark infringement, we will immediately reject the design you sent us. Copyrights are a fine line no one is allowed to cross.
Add Color. Avoid Semi Transparency.
We cannot emphasize this enough. You don’t want a poorly printed digital design, nor do we. A lot goes into producing the perfect end product, so go ahead. Add color where you spot a transparent or semi-transparent area in your design.
Say Cheese!
And don’t stop there. It doesn’t matter how beautiful the photo is, if it has not been edited or doesn’t have your unique artistic touch, it will be rejected. So, spend time on that beautiful photo you captured and make it a piece of art.
Sharp vs Blurry
Blurred designs will not make the cut and will be automatically rejected. If the design is blurry before it is printed on the product, imagine what a lackluster soup of a mess it will be once it is printed! No sirree!
Typos are the Demise of Good Designs
Typos happen. We’re all guilty of them and blame them on autocorrect or auto-mis-correct. So please, take some time and review the spelling of any words included in your design. If you happen to send the design to us and it gets rejected, just go ahead and fix it and edit it. We’re quite nice that way. Really.
The Problem of Contrast
No one understands the importance of contrasting colors in designs like artists, to the point that we feel reluctant to point that out. But it happens, sometimes. Do yourself a favor and avoid low contrasting designs.
Abide by Community Guidelines
Treat your design as a classroom where you have to be polite and kind. Avoid hate speech, profanity, pornography, violence. Otherwise, you will be kicked out and sent to the principal’s office, right? Same thing with your design. If it has any of the above, it will not see the light of day on our site. We care about our community and so should you.
How is that for rhyming? Fine. We suck at rhyming the same way design series suck at selling. They might look good in your mind, but anything that is repetitive is boring, redundant, and won't sell (yeah, we said that already). So don't waste your time changing some elements in the design, like the year (Established/Vintage since YEAR) or the job or title or status (Best Teacher/Mom/Dad/YapYapYap), etc. Use your time in creating original material.
Those Changing Legal Regulations are Giving a Splitting Headache
And you too, we’re sure. But we’re bound by them, otherwise, we’ll be in serious trouble. So, we go wherever the tide of legal regulations takes us. If they change and the changes require removing or deleting certain designs, we have no choice but to do so. Forgive us if we say we cannot tell you that Spark will feature your design forever since forever itself is bound by the law of constant change.
Please keep in mind that even if you meet the above requirements, it is not guaranteed it will be approved.
