"It's time for my customers to do order themselves," thinks Jeff and purchases a simple product design tool for his website. The software works well for a while, but the pricing does not adequately reflect the capabilities of the equipment and printing process. The admin area of the purchased online editor also lacks some features that would ease up Jeff's job. So the businessman tries another web2print solution off the shelf, yet every time something is missing. The shop owner starts to think he travels in circles to find the answer of streamlining his orders.

Suddenly, among many web2print software providers, Jeff finds a team that listens to his pains and asks some questions no one asked before. Previous companies lacked the attention to Jeff previously, so he tries his best to explain how the ordering works and what features he lacks from used solutions. The company team listens to him well and offers to build a quick MVP (minimal viable product) to see if it matches his expectations. One week later, Jeff is ready to give a new software try by integrating it into his existing shop.

After a few test orders, Jeff is ready to give his feedback. He works together with the company team to tweak his solution further and soon replaces his off the shelf tool with the bespoke one. It looks like Jeff's issues are mostly solved, and the shop owner has focused now on attracting more customers and working with them closely to assist with the design and printing. His sales numbers start to pay off and rise, so Jeff thinks about hiring more staff and modernizing equipment.

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LiveArt offers custom web2print consulting services since 2001. Our first customers were bespoke boat name printers, and there were no ready solutions on the market at that time. Through hard work and dedication, we have brought up many web2print sites that are still online and developed expertise with 15+ years of experience working with many printing industries understanding and addressing their needs.

For any irregularly shaped sign design products, LiveArt offers the simple capability for providing mask and overlay layers in addition to base one. Grommets, bleeds, cut lines, and any other production-related elements could be added to the product templates, allowing end-users to see and position elements accurately from the first time. These elements also reduce a lot going back and forth with customers making adjustments to the production mockup, drastically raising the chance of having everything set up correctly.

Serving as an all-in-one designer, LiveArt is not just about promo products. Depending on the needs, it may become a truly multi-purpose tool for any decoration industry and printing needs. Signs, banners, decals - it is just a matter of setup and configuration, with no need to purchase and implement a specialized designer for each of the tasks. To have a better understanding of how our tool works, welcome play with our online sign design software demo.

Reason 1. Researchers say custom products are the future
According to a research report from Deloitte, over 40% of the customers seek a personalized product. In practice, if you are still not offering the customer a choice for customization you are likely to be outplayed by those competitors who are offering it.

Reason 2. Personalized means more value
It is also known that the customers are likely ready to pay more for the product they have built on their own. Several studies prove that customers are inclined to overpay for the bespoke product, justifying the price raise by having the purchased item their very own. In most cases, you can also upsell additional services like the artist assistance, dedicated support or a priority service.

Reason 3. Secure, repeatable sales
According to LiveArt's observations, the customers are more likely to return if their experience with the design tools was fun, the checkout went smooth, the product was good, and delivery went just fine. They will return and re-order their design. Luckily, online design tools allow saving designs, sharing them to social networks, and re-order anytime later. The bulk order forms are also a nice point of sale places where customers can easily make group orders.

Reason 4. Being closer to the customer
Customers become more emotionally involved and attached to the product they've made their very own. By putting certain efforts into the product development, which they've become part of, the client is more likely to complete the purchase rather than drop off. If they did not like anything, you are more likely to receive the feedback. Even if the order was dropped, your e-commerce can follow-up the user to complete their design or share the feedback about the experience, what went wrong, etc.

Reason 5. Streamline your orders queue
We hear these stories every day - the orders are coming slowly, customers are never sure what they will receive, the design proofs are taking forever. With an online product design tool, you can drastically reduce this time and make orders go faster.

Now that the Mass Customization is no longer a future perfect buzzword, but a well-established reality, offering online product customization is something you can do right away and gain an instant momentum in sales and your brand marketing. The brands cannot be wrong, and it is time to join them for the future of the product personalization.

The graphic and product search list was improved to deliver results faster and in a predictable manner. If you have several thousands of items, it is crucial your users will access these easily without any hassle. Our product designer now features faster loading times for both product and gallery catalog.

All current raster effects were converted to vector text effects - crisp and clear! Previously we relied heavily on raster text effects, provided by a supplementary script for ImageMagick, powerful free software for image processing. Due to a number of installation issues with various platforms and output inconsistencies in different versions, we have converted all text effects to use completely vector output, allowing the best output quality and visual crispness. Additionally, the text effects now feature an icon revealing what the effect looks like, and the default text effect distortion value has been increased to make effect visible when selected.

The following additions were introduced in API.

  1. config.options.showSuitableProductColorize - enable product color panel to show only those colorizable elements' list that pertains to the selected side. Setting this value to true is useful if your product contains many colorable panels across multiple printing locations (front, back, sleeve, pocket, etc).

  2. GET variables configuration changes:

     1. added possibility to set up default product size

     2. added possibility to set up default quantities

     3. added possibility to set up main config URL

To simplify the experience and address major security issues, the following features were deprecated, please make sure you check against our migration guide before upgrading:

  1. Upload image by URL has been removed;

  2. Raster effects were disabled by default, you can still enable them back by using older versions config and configuring ImageMagick properly.

Minor fixes include the following improvements:

   - The snap guides fix was applied which prevented from objects being aligned slightly to the left.

   - Fixed \<svg\> element id loosing in MS Edge browser.

We hope you enjoy the release - stay tuned for more features in the coming releases of both 0.10.X branch and the completely new one 1.0.0 featuring faster text engine!

The mobile mode looks a bit different of course, yet provides the same level of experience.

Let us have a look at the particular features improvements for end-user:

   1. Snap guides. Any object can now be "snapped" to the vertical or horizontal centerline, next to an object, edge of the working area, or at certain angles. This was a long-awaited feature, which now users can enjoy to make their designs even more sharp and neat.

   2. Social networks upload. Add Facebook, Instagram, Google, or Flicks images to your design. This feature is customizable, so you can turn it on only if required.

  3. More resize handles. Additional handles added to stretch or shrink image or add text.

  4. Pantone color palette. Along with the ability to set color wheel or a limited set of colors, we have added a configurable Pantone Palette of colors. More to come!

Developer Features

Developers would be pleased with additional API extensions as well as minor improvements.

  1. .NET Samples Available.

  2. GitHub Trial. The trial package is now available and regularly updated at our github repository - https://github.com/liveart/liveartjs

  3. Translation API. All important labels and messages are now contained in a single file to facilitate localization of LiveArt to various languages.

As always, please welcome to share the features you'd like most to be released soon in our Voting Portal - https://liveart.uservoice.com/ 

This also frequently means you get something of a limited edition, which in itself is another incentive to pull the trigger and spend some $20 for a tee with a unique design.

Campaign-making is also an easy way to start getting money rather fast and with extremely low start costs. What you usually need is simply design your personalized merchandise (it could be a t-shirt, tank, hoodie, mug, or any other customizable promotional product). With the help of the online designer tool, you can create a unique printed product featuring your typeface, styling, and artwork. If needed, it can be even customizable further by users.

Then just describe your goal, announce the support of a crowdfunding cause, set quantity and pricing goals, and off you go! Effective supportive marketing would help you to get to your target audience's attention and motivate them to join the campaign and support the cause. From here, SEO of your microsite or respective sharing among popular social networks would also play well.

Campaign-based sites frequently handle everything on the back-office, including the manufacturing process, packaging, managing the payments, and delivery. Nonetheless, the center of such a solution is the online product designer that creates a unique selling point to your design, idea, and cause.

Using the LiveArt designer tool as a campaign designer makes the whole process smooth, clear, and fun. Several sites, including https://www.teegear.com/ and https://www.rockettees.com/, have already successfully using LiveArt HTML5 designer for their campaigns. Their success is now just a matter of time.

Responsive version
The mobile version of LiveArt HTML5 is currently released as a beta version where anyone can either try it or purchase as a component or part of a complete Magento or WooCommerce solution. We continue working on it to deliver the best experience on any mobile device. Releases are available for standalone version and for the incoming Magento 2 integration.

Moving to a faster core engine
We started with Raphael back in 2013. It’s one of the best libraries, written by former Adobe employees and it served us well to a certain extent. However, lack of flexibility and performance our users require led us to the point where we are migrating to the next generation core, which will be releasing under the 1.X.X branch. The new Core is also supplied in customization projects, where it proved to be more effective and faster than Raphael.

Fluent support of legacy SVG graphics
Having plenty of graphics from your old solution or gallery of EPS you’d like to add? LiveArt’s implementation of native SVG coloring support will allow you to use multicolor images easier than ever. Integration with native or cloud conversion services like CloudConvert allows much more formats for upload and processing.

More configurability, more web2print support!
Technologies and the number of web2print industries change almost daily, so at LiveArt we do all best to keep up with the pace. By gathering up feedback and developing new features we bring printers and their customers closer for better customization and ordering process.

Stay tuned for release notes and share your ideas on Voting Portal!

Special local events.
Any concert, competition, or gathering always involves promotional products, including personalized trophies. Maybe you live just across the road where Oshkosh Fly-In would happen? You can create your apparel than with sponsors' logos and name of the event. Everyone would know such t-shirts would be one of a kind, so they would like to have one!

Company team building.
Such events became very popular, especially among companies where people are sitting inside cubicles 9 to 5 without much communicating. Giving out t-shirts with embroidered company logo, person name, and custom design on the back could drive fun and spirit into large teams.

Corporate gifts.
Getting a salary and Friday pizza is not the only incentive for the company workers. Doing excellent personalized gifts like custom hand-stamped jewelry could include company name and a thank you message for being part of it.

Family reunions.
Designing shirts for everyone who visited a reunion with a family name and personalized design could not only connect people but also leave them with something to remember when they get back home. It’s fun and uniting, so make sure you don’t miss such an event to print them a bunch of t-shirts.

Birthday parties.
If you’re helping with the child’s birthday party, why not making it memorable. You can print a t-shirt for each visiting kid, do a table cover with wishes and photos of a birthday boy or girl, and leave everyone with a souvenir at the end. Finally, you can even print out a cake topping with the heroes of a beloved comic of a child and his wishes.

Stag and Hens parties.
Buying the same tank tops for everyone, decorated in bright and brutal sayings - what could be more fun to celebrate such an occasion. What’s more, each apparel piece can be imprinted with a person's name, so that they are completely personalized! This leads us to the final event you can really get a fortune from.

Weddings!
Another occasion where personalized gift boxes, save the date custom postcards and even apparel (sometimes) are ordered before the show takes place. The table cards usually are decorated with your name, and the gift box always contains a magnet you can put on your fridge as a trophy.

That’s it, gather up your designs and templates, and make it attractive for everyone that comes into your site or store to get unique products printed for their extraordinary event.