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We have a premium spreadshirt store. Most of our designs are for black shirts. So far we can't find a way to change the background (to black) for our designs so that we can display our store by design as opposed to by shirts. A lot of the designs are completely white so when you look at the graphic nothing shows up. So far we have been adding only one product per design to the store so that we don't have pages of one design on different products. We have contacted spreadshirt and have found no help whatsoever. I find it hard to believe that a POD company known for it's selection of black shirts doesn't have a way to display white graphics without adding a black background to the file or outlining the designs. I've already seen some response here, from spreadshirt probably, that I can add a black background with the r(black) in the corner so the background doesn't print. This seems to work for vector but for digital the background shows up on the site and looks terrible. Regardless, this seems like an unecessary step when an option to display the graphic with a black background should exist (cafepress has this option!). Has anyone found a way to do this? I am about to start looking into other POD stores because of this.
Hi there - I work at Spreadshirt - and I am trying to understand the issue to help find a solution. Where is it that the graphics are displaying with a white background?
Could you paste the link here so we can take a look.
Also - and I am not sure if this would be helpful to your situation but I wanted to share some links for getting more info about setting up your shop.
Here is the 2nd page in our shop organized by the graphics. Everything on this page is a white design for black shirts. So far we have been having the store open displaying the shirts, not the designs, but this is not how we want it set up. We want the store to open with the graphics displaying so customers can click the design and see what products are available with this design. I don't want to adjust the designs with backgrounds to be removed later or outlines around my designs just so we can display the graphics. When you upload a design on cafepress, they give you an option as far as what background you want the graphic on, so obviously if you have a white, or light, design meant for a black shirt you choose a black background. Spreadshirt does't have this option annd we have been given no help so far as to why.
We are working on a solution for white and lightcolored digital designs, so you could choose to display the design thumbnails with a background, then the design could be seen on the design page, etc. I would not recommend adding a background to the design itself as it is best to use transparent png files for printing.
One suggestion, since you have your own website, you could create an intermediate page on your site. Once you click on the Tshirts link from your site, you could direct to another page on your site displaying the design images (with backgrounds), then when the customer clicks on the design from your site, you could code the link to direct specifically to products featuring that design. Your header image could then link back to the design page on your site, so the customer could then get back to that design page for other design pics.
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Thanks for your response Temple. So relieved to hear you are working on a black background for the designs. All other solutions seem like a lot of unnecessary work for us. I just checked printfection and they offer several different background options for graphics. We will wait to see if this is remedied soon so we can stay with spreadshirt. Thank you.
Most likely the option would be to enable a grayish colored background for the design thumbnails, but yes, look for the option to be available early next year!
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Thanks Temple. Maybe you guys need a better web designer, a couple people I have mentioned the problem to who have looked at my store to see if they could do something on our end say it's as simple as adding a line to the code in the designer to add a black box option. Early next year? Okay, we'll have to decide if we're staying or finding another POD. Thanks!
Sure no problem. Since the holiday season is our busiest time, we do not release new features to the system during this time, so the next feature release would come in the beginning of next year, January/February time frame.
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Spreadshirt.com
Have a Spreadshirt related question? Then email me at forums[at]spreadshirt.com
Nice. Glad to see this feature is going to be developed. I don't use the gallery in my shop, but it is a bit troubling that all white designs cannot be seen.
Spreadshirt Graphic Display Problem 
