Terminology

What is a Blueprint? Venue? Platform? etc

Jeff Schnitzer avatar
Written by Jeff Schnitzer
Updated over a week ago

Each POD service uses a slightly different vocabulary and the word salad can get confusing fast. A "product" in one system might refer to a specific type of shirt; in another it might be your design.

With OrbitKit we've tried to use a set of words that do not conflict with any platform's terminology. This may seem a little jarring, but we hope it will avoid ambiguity and confusion. Here is what you need to know:

  • A Design is one piece of your artwork, plus its name, description, and tags.

  • Platform refers to a marketplace or POD service. For example: Etsy, Shopify, Printful, Teespring, Redbubble, Spreadshirt are platforms.

  • A Venue is a specific account at a platform. You may, for example, want to register multiple Etsy accounts with OrbitKit - each is a separate venue.

  • A Blueprint is a set of publishing instructions for a particular venue. For OrbitKit Fulfillment platforms (Etsy, Shopify) OrbitKit provides a UI that lets you configure which products, colors, prices, etc to offer. For OrbitKit Plus platforms (Redbubble, Teespring, etc), you provide a template listing and OrbitKit will infer product assortment, pricing, and configuration behavior (including niche features like hand color for clocks on Redbubble) from the template listing.

  • An Exhibit is a published (or soon-to-be published) design at a venue. When you publish a design with a blueprint, OrbitKit creates an exhibit. Exhibits start out empty and waiting (see the article on Exhibit States) but eventually get published to a venue as a campaign/work/product/etc.

  • An Archetype is a collection of blueprints. This is an optional feature that can make it easier to manage many designs and blueprints. Instead of manually exhibiting designs with blueprints, setting an archetype on a design will cause OrbitKit to automatically create or delete exhibits for you.

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