STORY

Spoonflower is an online digital printing company that combines a design platform with e-commerce while also being a factory in the US and Germany. I was introduced to the company as a freelance designer in 2008, then joined as an operations team member in 2013.

During my time there, I explored various positions within the company as Customer Service Associate and Company Buyer. I really enjoyed, and took advantage of the "Startup Life" and worked on many collaborations with designers, marketing and clients. I used my interpersonal, empathy and industry knowledge to help the company grow, while also having a creative outlet as an Independent Designer, Marketing helper, Brand Ambassador and frequent Blog Collaborator.

You can learn more about my tasks within the Customer Service and Buying in my Resume, this page is to feature my design and web content work.

DESIGN

During my time in Spoonflower I created countless designs for the website, office and marketing collateral.

I also entered, and always made Top 5 Employee Design Challenges. Winning in 2015, my prize was a custom-upholstered chair made with my Winning Design "Mod Flowers".

FUNNY VIDEOS

If I was good at design and content creation, I think I was better at making a fool out of myself and collaborating to create funny, silly, improptu videos.

Often, I'd be asked in the middle of a crazy-busy day to participate in videos, sometimes dancing, sometimes acting, sometimes coming up with rhymes.

If anything, you can at least see I can come up with poems on the fly.

WEB CONTENT

Over the years, I created over a dozen content pages for Spoonflower as a collaborator. From instructional blog posts, to in-person design classes.

Most of my content was instructional, to help clients learn not only how to use the Spoonflower platform, but also teach that design is fun.

Next Project:
Branchless Bank >

PROJECTS FOR SPOONFLOWER

As Spoonflower, an online fabric and paper printing company, started up and grew, I also developed as a designer and a professional. While holding various titles in the company, I was also approached frequently for graphic and illustration work. There's a lot that one does in three years with a startup company, but below are some of my favorite projects.



HOLIDAY GIFTWRAP DESIGN & TUTORIAL

I was approached by the marketing team to create a design class for Spoonflower customers, as a long-term goal, we wanted to teach everyone, independently from age and skills, to learn to design using Spoonflower's website and tools. As we wanted this to be a standing signature course, I planned for a series of holiday themed courses, to cater all levels of design-knowledge, I created some illustrations with Adobe Illustrator so that students could use as a starting point, upload, change colors, add elements, etc. I created an online tutorial and also taught two classes in Spoonflower's Durham location. For the online tutorial, I planed the course in steps, developed screenshots with notes, and created the blog post. Creating this tutorial introduced me to design thinking at a deeper level, I experimented placing myself in the customer's shoes and realizing their journey which in turn helped me develop a simple, stress-free set of instructions that students ranging from 8 to 80 years old could understand and follow.

Read Article









CANDY WRAPPER DESIGN CLASS & TUTORIAL

I was challenged with coming up with a second class, I knew that Valentine's Day was coming up, and we wanted to promote more uses for Spoonflower's giftwrap as sales were a bit slow. As a mom, I knew that $15 plus shipping for a roll of paper needed to be super special, so, my plan was to introduce this paper as something that could be used for custom crafting. This is where the candy wrapper idea came to mind.
What if your kid could come to school with specially wrapped chocolate, versus those Valentine's cards? After some measurements and tests, I came up with the template for a basic bar of chocolate, and found an online free software where students could easily grab and personalize free graphics for personal use. This would prevent the need for me to create too many illustrations, and, dabble with Illustrator with students that perhaps did not have access to this.

Read Article









OFFICE POSTERS & OTHER STUFF

I was typically approached for various graphics projects in the office. Spoonflower hosted many meetings with various companies and special events.

Read Article









DESIGN WITH MS PAINT

While working in the Customer Service department in Spoonflower, I realized more and more that a large amount of customers that would get in touch with us did not have design software or designed for a living. So, the idea of creating a few tutorials using free software and beginner's terms to help people realize their designs and meet their needs quickly.
It had been years since I used MS Paint, but I knew it was something that customers tried to use a lot. In Spoonflower we only had Apple products, so, woking from home for a day from a computer that my teenage daughter eventually stole from me to play The Sims {sigh}, I created this tutorial, which became a great tool for the department to use to help customers complete their projects.

Read Article









DESIGN YOUR OWN DOLLS

This was, up to that date, the single most visited, shared, and engaged {all organically} Spoonflower tutorial. I really enjoyed working with kids, and teaching them design skills, this is where the idea of creating these stuffed dolls came from.
For this project, I used my sewing and pattern-making skills to create the sewing pattern of these dolls, I designed four doll versions, so that kids would have a lot to choose from.
Utilizing Spoonflower's website, kids could change the doll's hair, eye, skin, and clothing colors. Utilizing other free online tools for personal use, they were able to add details to the dolls like glasses, mustaches, tattoos, etc.

Read Article









SPOONFLOWER GREENHOUSE PARTY BACKDROP

I designed The Greenhouse's holiday party photo backdrop. Since this was a holidy party, I wanted to add winter elements, but, because the community that attended was based on crafters, sewists, and similar interested folks, I decided that snowflakes that could double as doilies would be just what would do the trick.









HALLOWEEN TRICK OR TREAT BAGS

This tutorial was created to help Spoonflower promote their new fabric, Satin, at the time. It came out just in time for Halloween season so a custom trick or treat bag tutorial was a good option for this.
For this project I created a sewing pattern of a simple tote bag, and then added details to the artwork to make it look like a monster. The design included a Frankestein bag and a Bat bag.









SPOONFLOWER'S ETSY SHOP: SIGNFLOWER

At one point, Spoonflower wanted to test the waters with sign-making, they opened an etsy shop called "Sign Flower" and asked me to be the graphic designer for it as a side-gig.
For this project I created multiple designs as templates, so that the person handling the shop could easily use and personalize for customers.

Portfolio

Reel

Resume

Contact

About