As an artist on Redbubble, your work boldly leaps from the canvas to mugs, posters, t-shirts, and even onto leggings that walk through the world.

A little planning and attention to detail are required to make sure your art translates to each product successfully.

Here are a few formatting guidelines to make your designs pop and ensure they look great on every product.

White Edges

We never want to put limits on your creativity – unlike the famed Oulipo, a group of French poets and mathematicians of the 20th century. But, when you are thinking about designing for products, the space on the edge of the physical item is worth special care.

Each Redbubble product has a file dimension requirement. After you invest some time to align the exact dimensions, think about how the edges of the product interact with the design. Does it look right? Will your buy think the same?

Transparent backgrounds help make your art super adaptable to fit on any product (like a chameleon).

Transparent backgrounds are the easiest way to avoid white edges.

We are going to be very transparent about this formatting advice. Cheesy, we know.

When experimenting with transparencies, remember that the color of the fabric appears through the image. You can use this to your advantage, making your design more dynamic and potentially less busy.

Not sure how to extract a background? Don’t worry, we have you covered!

Design Area

Only you can prevent panda decapitations. Before you call PETA, remember we are talking about design formatting.

You uploaded an adorable panda graphic thinking one size fits all products, but the design area varies template to template. That cute panda that fit perfectly on a t-shirt came to a tragic end on the galaxy phone case.

Why? Because there is a camera hole in the template that took Panda’s head off. An easy fix.

Review the product previews to make sure your design fits perfectly onto each item. We want your panda to live a long, healthy life whether they live on a laptop skin or a tote bag.

Shapes

Do you love shapes as much as Ed Sheeran?

At Redbubble we love to see your designs take jagged, linear, round, repetitive, large, small, or orderly shapes. You can customize any of these shapes to create texture and make them fit nicely onto each product.

Combine shapes and colors to make patterns and test how they export to your favorite Redbubble products.

Try layering shapes into a drawing like Banksy’s “Love Sick” featuring a woman vomiting hearts. Or accentuate the edges of your amethyst crystal design onto an irregularly shaped die-cut sticker.

Hungry for more? Check out these additional tips for designing with products in mind.

Now go forth and create amazingly formatted products.