With over one million designs in the Spoonflower Design Library, we offer a few different tools to aid you in finding the perfect design. Learn more about our Advanced Text search, Search by Image tool, and other search features in this article.
Starting a Search
The search bar can be found along the top of most pages of our site.
As you enter search terms into this field, a drop down automatically appears to help you zero in on the products you want. Choose from:
- Fabric
- Wallpaper
- Bedding
- Dining
- Living & Decor
- Collections (for curated themes by Spoonflower artists)
Advanced Text Search
Advanced text search is all about describing exactly what you’re looking for. When you type into the search bar, be specific about the design you want to find. The more descriptive words you use, the more likely you are to get better results. Things you could consider including are:
- The specific color of the design elements: Try searching “pastel pink roses” instead of just “roses”.
- The background color. Get even more specific with desired color by searching “black polka dots on a green background” instead of just “black polka dots”.
- Style: You can search something like “preppy palm trees” instead of just “palm trees”. Adding in a description of the style helps narrow down results to fit your project's aesthetic.
- Artistic Technique: Incorporate a preferred artistic technique into your phrase. For example, “watercolor vegetables” will yield different results from “block print vegetables”
Filtering Search Results
After your initial search, you will likely still see hundreds (or even thousands) of designs. Adjusting the Sort By feature and other specific filters will help you narrow down to more relevant products.
Product
Select from fabric, wallpaper, dining, living & decor, and bedding to see your search results shown on the specific product of your choice.
Sort
Along the right side of the page above the results, there is a drop down for organizing the results.
- Best Match is our default filter and shows the most relevant designs to your search terms first.
- Best Selling shows the most popular designs from the past 6 months first.
- Newest are just that, the newest designs on Spoonflower!
- Most Favorited will show designs with the largest number of favorites first.
Other Filter Options
Our filters are intuitive. For example, filtering by "Nature" will include tags and terms within the category of nature. If you search by "gray", returns will include "grey". As you add filters, they will list across the top of the search page, but can always be removed by clicking the "x" next to the filter.
- Show Only Award Winners- allows you to narrow your results down to only designs that have won a previous Design Challenge.
- Topic - allows you to search for designs within any of seven design topics, and additional sub-topics. You can only filter by one topic, or sub-topic at a time.
- Style - allows you to search for designs within any of nine design styles, and additional sub-styles. You can only filter by one style, or sub-style at a time.
- Colors - allows you to see designs with specific colors within your search parameters IMPORTANT: Our system does not scan designs for colors automatically; color filters must be tagged by the artist. You may select multiple color filters.
- Adult Content - allows you to decide to see all designs - allowed - or to exclude potentially mature designs - blocked.
Adult Content
Spoonflower is used by a wide variety of people from all around the world, and while we do not censor or limit the work of others, some designs may not suit the tastes of all people. Therefore, you may want to block adult content to only see designs that have been moderated.
NOTE: The Spoonflower Design Library is always changing and new designs are uploaded daily. While we endeavor to filter adult designs weekly, sometimes some patterns get ahead of us. Please accept our apologies if this happens. We are working to always improve our systems.
Please review our Terms of Service for more about moderation and design management.
Searching by Color or Style
If entering search terms isn't how you visualize and seek out designs, use the Color drop down from the fabric tab along the top of the Spoonflower site. As you hover over Fabric and then By Color a series of options will appear that allow you to refine to specific results. Similarly, hovering over Inspiration or Wallpaper will give you the option to search By Style.
Favorites and Collections
As you find designs that you like it can be easy to click around and lose some of your favorites. This is why we recommend favoriting designs by clicking the heart icon, or by saving them into any of your personal collections. You must have an account and be signed in to make this happen. Learn more about these helpful site tools in the articles Collections Overview and Favoriting Designs.
Search by Image
See a design you like on the internet or out in public? Take a photo to find similar patterns with our Image Search tool. You can access this tool here or by clicking the Image Search button on the right hand side of the site’s search bar.
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First, click Try it now to open the tool and see the upload menu. From there, you can either click upload to locate the file on your computer or drag and drop a file. On mobile, you’ll also see the option to access your device’s camera.
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On page 2 of the tool, you’ll want to crop the image to remove any unwanted elements. Drag the box around as needed and/or adjust the size of the box by clicking and dragging the corners. Click Save Crop when you are done. For the example shown below, we have a photo of fabric draped over a couch. We want to locate that floral print, so we’ve cropped out the couch and wall. What remains is only the design itself, which will help the tool find the best results.
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You can then choose which product type you’d like your results to preview on – wallpaper, fabric, or a home decor item. Click the Search button once you’ve made your selection.
- Give it a few seconds and the results will appear! The tool will generate up to 50 similar results. Click on the thumbnail of the design that you’d like to purchase to see the product page or click the heart in the upper right hand corner to favorite it to save for later. You can also click More like this under any design you like to see even more designs that are similar to that one!
Image Search Tips
- Be sure to check your file format – For the Image Search tool, we accept .gif, .heic, .heif, .jpg, .jpeg and .png that are under 25mb.
- This tool is most compatible with Chrome, Safari 15.4, Edge, or Firefox. Check for any pending device or browser updates to be sure you are using the latest version.
- Using a mobile device? The browser that you use to upload an image will need camera access. Go to your app settings and select Allow Camera for the browser you're using.
- Not getting the results you were hoping for? Try again with a different cropped area of the design. Or, if you can upload a bigger or clearer image, that can also help.
See Also: Visualizing Size and Scale of Designs
See Also: Design Customization