Spoonflower offers five repeat options for displaying and saving any designs you upload. These can be set for fabric (also applies to home decor) and wallpaper using the product Edit buttons on the design edit page. Once you have chosen a repeat option that you like, be sure to click Save.
The Basics of Repeats
There are five ways that a design tile can be saved on fabric. Review the basics then check out visual examples below.
- Basic repeat just creates tiles of your design straight up and down.
- Half-Drop and Half-Brick repeats staggers the tiles either vertically or horizontally, respectively.
- Center repeat takes itself quite literally and prints one single iteration of an image right in the middle of whatever size and length of fabric is selected.
- Mirror repeat will mirror the design both vertically and horizontally, like the four quadrants of a graph.
The design layout window allows you to toggle back and forth between the layout options in real time, so if you're having a hard time picturing what these look like, don't worry. The best way to learn is to upload an image and just play around! You can always change the settings before placing your order - just be sure to click "Save" once you've decided on the layout you like best.
Basic Repeat
We will tile your design from the lower left corner up and to the right to fill the available space for your order. If you upload an image larger than the area then we will crop it back towards the lower left corner (e.g. the top and/or right sides will be cropped). The design will not be stretched or changed in its dimensions.
Half-Drop Repeat
This is like the basic repeat, except the design is repeated with a half-step vertically as you move to the right.
IMPORTANT: If your half-drop design will be sold as wallpaper, this can cause some challenges. If your design is 24" wide and set to half-drop on wallpaper, be sure to read the Half-Drop section in Wallpaper Terms and FAQ section for more information.
Half-Brick Repeat
This is also a staggered repeat, but the design shifts a half-step horizontally to the right as you move upwards like bricks, hence the name.
Center Repeat
Your design can be centered on fabric only. We will not alter the size or dimensions of the design. NOTE: If the size of the design does not match the size of the product, the space around the edge of the design will be left unprinted.
Side note: Designs saved at a Center repeat will not be available on Wallpaper or Home Decor items.
Mirror Repeat
This layout tool creates designs without obvious seams by mirroring your original design so that it folds out into four sections with every edge pixel identical to its immediate neighbor. While at first glance the example below looks similar to the basic repeat, take a closer look and see how the pink petal on the flower is mirrored in both directions. Try the mirrored repeat option out on photographs and scanned designs that will not repeat smoothly and may otherwise give you an obvious tiling effect.
Design Repeats for Wallpaper
You can set a separate repeat for wallpaper by clicking Edit on the wallpaper product on the design edit page.
There are some limitations for the layout of wallpaper designs. Designs on wallpaper must repeat once or an even number of times across the 24 inch width of the roll so that it will properly install.
This means that certain repeats are blocked at certain scale sizes for wallpaper designs. For example, the half-brick and mirror repeat options are not available when a design is saved to repeat once across the 24" width. Because each roll prints identically, these repeat options are unavailable at this width, but once a design is made smaller - such as two 12" repeats per panel - these repeats become available for the design layout.
My fabric and wallpaper are different sizes!
Customers often write in confused if they get Test Swatches of fabric and wallpaper and the scale of the designs are different. This is because fabric and wallpaper of the same design can be saved with different layouts and there are more limitations when it comes to saving wallpaper layouts in comparison to fabric layouts. Please review Sizing Wallpaper Designs for key design information.
See also: Why can't I make my image bigger on Spoonflower?
See also: Sizing Your Design
See also: The Design Layout Page and Design Previews