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Set up artwork and printarea for Mug

For mug, most fulfillment providers use the wrap-around method to print on the outside of the mug.

That's why the mug's printarea is usually in a horizontal rectangle shape, and does not divide into front or back.

Depending on the position you want to print on the mug, you will need to place your design in the corresponding position in print-area.

Each provider has a different size for mug printarea. You should find the printarea template of your provider to set your printarea size and artwork position correctly.

Example template of Printful:

Please follow the detailed instruction below to setup your mug's artwork and printarea correctly.

Step 1: Set up Printarea

Go to Product Base → select your Mug → create printareas → enter printarea name & printarea size.

The printarea size needs to match your fulfillment's requirement, because printarea decides the size of the order's design sent to fulfillment. If it does not match, the order design might be cropped or scaled down to fit in.

Each mug's size requires a different printarea size, for example mug 15oz usually has a higher height than mug 11oz. So you need to create different printareas for each mug's size you sell.
If you import a mug from an API-integrated provider, the printarea key and size will be correctly populated so you shouldn't change it.

For some integrated fulfillments, the printarea requires exact "fulfilled key", in order to send orders from teeinblue to fulfillment later.

Step 2: Setup Variants:

A product base requires at least one variant, so you need to add a variant for mug in Variants table.
Depending on the types of mug you want to sell (11oz or 15oz...), add a variant for each type.
Example: variant 1 - color White & size 11oz; variant 2 - color White & size 15oz...

Create variants

Turn on the Custom variant's printarea toggle → select correct printarea for each variant in *Connect custom printarea column.

Connect variant with printarea

Read more instruction: Custom Variant's Printarea.

Step 3: Set up Artwork

Set up an artwork for each mug type. Artwork size needs to equal to the printarea size.

In this example, we will use the Printful's 11oz size - 2700x1050px

Upload your artwork. And place design in correct position.

For example: you want to print the main design (girl and dog) on the left of the mug, and a quote design on the right of the mug. Then you should place 2 designs on the corresponding position.

Setup artwork for each mug size

You can upload the template guidelines from your provider as a temporary background to make sure your artwork fits.

Setup the same artwork for mug 15oz, but with different artwork size - 2700x1140px.

If your artworks for each mug sizes are not too different, you can use one artwork for all sizes. Then later use the "Locate artwork" in Campaign to adjust the artwork to fit each printarea size.

(optional) Set artwork limit size
If your store is selling mostly mug products, you can set the Limit max width (on Artworks page → Advanced Settings → Limit max width) as 1000px, because artwork for mug usually has longer width in width-height ratio than other products.

Step 4: Set up Campaign

Go to Campaigns → create a new campaign → add the Mug product base.

Add an artwork for each printarea. Select the corresponding artwork for 11oz and 15oz.

Use different artworks for each printarea

Each artwork will fit its printarea perfectly because it was created with matched printarea size.

Or use the same artwork for all printareas.

Or use one artwork for all printareas

Then use the Locate artwork feature to resize artwork to fit each printarea.

Locate artwork in printarea

Step 5: Edit mockup

You can edit mockup in Product Base to apply for all campaigns.

First, add the correct printarea to each mockup
For example: add "11oz" printarea to the mockup of mug 11oz

For mockup showing the left side of the mug, scale up and move the printarea to fit the design on the left (and vice versa).

If the design on the right is out of the visible part of the image, it won't appear in mockup image.

Or use the Mask feature to crop printarea

Enable the "Enable Mask" toggle.

Click "Edit mask" → Adjust the green mask to fit the left design. Then only the part within the green area will appear, the right side will be hidden.

Step 6: Launch campaign

Because each printarea is connected to a variant (printarea "11oz" is connected to variant "White / 11oz", printarea "15oz" is connected to variant "White / 15oz"), the personalization form will change according to the selected variant.
When selecting a variant, only the artwork of the connected printarea will show up.

Select variant "15oz" only shows artwork of printarea "15oz"

(optional) Add some more infomation for campaign with "Edit campaign info".

Launch your campaign.

On storefront, only mockups containing the artwork of the selected variant will show up.

Only mockup 15oz shows up when selecting "15oz"

Only mockup 11oz shows up when selecting "11oz"

Updated on: 22/04/2024

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