Design Tips & NovaTomato Design Lab
Design tips
NovaTomato Design Lab
Design tips
What are NovaTomato’s acceptable Content Guidelines?
NovaTomato is proud to offer you a high-tech platform, which empowers you to launch your brand online. However, please keep in mind that the content you submit has to be respectful to others and abide by the law of the country you reside in. Any content that is hateful, illegal, and violates intellectual property rights may be reviewed and removed at any time without notice.
Please review our Content Guidelines for more information.
What are resolution and DPI?
Resolution is a measure used to describe the sharpness and clarity of an image, usually expressed in measurements of width x height. The bigger the resolution, the better, as it will give the best printing results.
Resolution is measured in DPI (dots per inch), which means the number of drops of ink per inch that a printer deposits on a piece of paper. Therefore, an image with a higher DPI produces a clearer and more detailed output.
When submitting your print files, it’s better to upload a high-resolution image to ensure print quality. And because we care about the quality of your designs and products, if the image resolution is insufficient, a warning will pop up.
What file formats does NovaTomato accept?
The following file formats are accepted:
- JPG, JPEG, PNG, PDF, PSD, EPS, and AI file formats.
- Maximum file size of 15 MB.
- File with a minimum of 300 DPI resolution are recommended to maintain image quality. If it's lower than 300 DPI the printing quality will be affected.
- Preferably, files should be created in the CMYK color profile so that what you create and see on the screen, will match as closely as possible to what will be printed.
When you upload your design files, a walkthrough will guide you on the file formats. After your files finish uploading, our Design Lab will guide you through the process of adding designs.
Do you have free designs I can use?
Yes. We offer a variety of artwork, including clip arts and pre-defined patterns, which you can select from the Image Library. Furthermore, with our NovaTomato AI – the Smart Pattern Generator, our AI engine can help create unlimited patterns with your theme, color and pattern structure preference.
Who owns the rights to my art?
The original creator owns the rights to the art. NovaTomato has no right to sell the creator’s design, artwork, or customized products without their consent . Please review our Terms and Conditions for more information.
NovaTomato Design Lab
What are NovaTomato’s unique customization features?
NovaTomato provides you with a unique and easier way to enhance your customization experience. We’re dedicated to making sure that you’ll not only enjoy using the following features below, but you’ll also be fully hands-on in customizing your products. Enjoy exploring and creating!
NovaTomato AI
NovaTomato AI is our smart pattern generator, and it might be the most interesting part of our NovaTomato Design Lab. This is because it doesn’t matter what your artistic skill level is; you can create a masterpiece with our pre-defined patterns. Or, easily create your own patterns
Placeholder
When you design your product, you can leave a Placeholder for your Shopify customers to add a personal touch – whether it be their name, initials, or slogan.This feature will be integrated into additional platforms in the future.
We’re constantly working on the functionality optimization in order to improve the user’s designing experience. Please stay tuned with us for upcoming updates.
How do I use the NovaTomato Design Lab?
Easily create your own designed products thanks to our NovaTomato Design Lab’s unique functionalities. Plus, preview the final product, and have the comfort in knowing you’ll get exactly what you see.
Under Merch on the left-hand side menu of your Dashboard , click the “Add New Merch” button. Select a product, and then click “Start Designing” to get straight into the most fun part of our NovaTomato Design Lab - creating!
Text
To add text to your product, click “Add New Text”. Or, to edit text, click on the text box that you’d like to edit directly on your design. You can choose font, color, sizes, rotate the text box, and more.
Placeholder
When you finish your design, you can leave specific areas as a “Placeholder” for your customers to personalize their names, initials, or slogans. This is a unique feature of our NovaTomato Design Lab.
Please note that currently, the Placeholder feature only works on Shopify. This feature will be integrated into additional platforms in the future.
Images
You can choose from a variety of patterns and clip arts in our Image Library.
Upload
You need to log in to your account before uploading your designs onto products. The uploaded image’s background can be removed by ticking the box “Remove background during upload” before uploading your file.
Please note you can only upload up to twenty files within a 24-hour time period. Please ensure the file meets the minimum file specifications and NovaTomato’s Content Guidelines.
NovaTomato AI
With this tool, you’re able to create your own designs, even if you don’t have a single artistic bone in your body.
When designing, please keep in mind the Safety Line and Trim Line. A design can’t be printed beyond the Safety Line.
You can have up to 20 design layers for every product - this includes images (clip art and pattern), uploaded files, and NovaTomato AI patterns. Background, text and placeholders are not included.
After you finish designing, click “Preview”, and you’ll be able to see how your product looks from all angles. What you see is precisely how the final product will look like. If you’re happy with it, then hit that “Save as Merch” or “Add to Cart” button.
How do I create text designs?
To add text to your product, click “Text” from the left side panel and then “Add New Text”. To edit the text, click on the text box you’d like to edit directly on your design. You can choose the font, color, size, rotate the text box, and more.
You can choose any font color you wish. You’re also able to customize the color by inputting an RGB value.
How do I create Placeholder?
You can leave specific areas as a “Placeholder” for your Shopify customers to personalize their names, initials, or slogans. This is a unique feature of our NovaTomato Design Lab.
To create a Placeholder, click on “Placeholder” and then drag it to where you want to put it on your design.
You can pre-define the font, color, size, and more, of your Placeholder. This enables your customer to input their content when placing an order from your online storefront.
Please note the Placeholder currently only works on Shopify. This feature will be integrated into additional platforms in the future.
How do I use the image library?
In the NovaTomato Design Lab, you can create various patterns using the Clip Art and Pattern functionality in the Image Library.
Click “Images” and select either Clip Art or Pattern to place a design on the designing panel. Next, set the size and color of your desired pattern. By clicking “Patternize”, you can create multiple and same-sized images. To edit the design, click the “Patternize” button to display the toolbar. You can now reset the pattern size.
You can also rotate, flip or delete the image as you wish.
How can I remove the background from my images?
In the NovaTomato Design Lab, you can remove the background of any image when you upload them. To do so, you can tick the box “Remove background during upload” before uploading your image. You’ll then get the image without the background color.
How do I use NovaTomato AI to create the artwork?
You can use “NovaTomato AI” to generate unique new designs and patterns according to your preferences.
Click “NovaTomato AI” and then "+Create Pattern".
Choose one or several themes in "Pattern", then one or several types of "Composition", then one or multiple "Background Pattern", and "Background Color", and finalize your design by clicking "Generate Design". Our NovaTomato AI engine will generate unlimited unique patterns for your product design.
You can bookmark your favorite patterns by clicking the heart on the top right-hand corner of the pattern. Find them under the “My Favorite ” section, and easily access and apply the pattern to your product.
