Using Society6

How to set up Society6 with OrbitKit

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

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Blueprint setup instructions

This is pretty straightforward - Society6 is one of the easiest POD platforms to use. We don't have a video (yet).

When setting up your blueprint, the area defined by your image as you place it at Society6 is the area we'll use when publishing your exhibits. This can get a bit tricky if your blueprint image has transparent padding around the image.

For example, the following image is standard merch size (4500x5400) and by default Society6 scales it to 22%, which fits the height of the printable area, but overflows the width. You'll need to scale it down a couple percent so that the blueprint image fits in the available space.

Now, here's the same image, with the same dimensions, at the same scale factor, but this time the image doesn't have the solid border around it:

In this case, this image is still overflowing the width, but Society6 doesn't have any visual indication of that being the case.

For this reason, we suggest that your blueprint listing at Society6 not have any transparent padding around it. You can upload a solid black rectangle for example, scale it to the printable area you'd like for your exhibits, and keep it unpublished so your customers won't see it in your store. The blueprint listing does not need to be published for it to be useable as a blueprint in OrbitKit (but it can be if you prefer).

Synchronization

OrbitKit will re-synchronize everything from the Blueprint, including products, colors, and art positioning.

Gotchas

  • Most of Society6's products (pretty much all except shirts) have white backgrounds. See the Society6 Backgrounds article for a workaround.

  • To print on some products, Society6 requires really high-resolution resolution images - 6500+ pixels wide. This is bigger than the merch standard (4500x5400) everyone is familiar with. If your artwork does not meet the requirements, those products may be automatically disabled, even if the blueprint enables them.

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