Your First Design

Creating Your First Design

Follow this walkthrough to create your first product design in the Dripper Studio.

Step 1: Choose a Product

Open the Studio and browse the product catalog. Pick a category (e.g., T-Shirts, Hoodies, Hats) and select a specific product. You'll see available colors and sizes.

Step 2: Understand the Canvas

The Studio editor shows your product with one or more print placements (front, back, sleeve, etc.). Switch between placements using the tabs at the bottom. The dotted boundary shows the printable area — keep your design inside it for best results.

Step 3: Add Layers

Click the + button to add a layer. Dripper offers several layer types:

• AI Image — Generate custom artwork from a text prompt. Choose an AI model and art style, then describe what you want.
• Upload Image — Upload your own image file (PNG, JPG, or WEBP).
• Text — Add custom text with fonts, colors, gradients, effects, curved paths, and spacing controls.
• Shape — Add geometric shapes (circles, rectangles, polygons, stars) with custom fill, gradients, borders, and textures.
• Color Layer — Fill the entire print area with a solid color. Applies across all placements at once.
• Pattern Layer — Fill the print area with a repeating pattern (stripes, dots, plaid, and more).
• Re-Use a Design — Copy a design from another placement, including all layers and settings.

Step 4: Edit Your Design

Each layer type has its own editing tools. For image layers, you get a full editing suite:

• Filters — 16+ presets: B&W, Vintage, Clarendon, Film Grain, and more.
• Adjust — Brightness, contrast, vibrance, saturation, sharpness, hue, blur, opacity.
• AI Edit — Modify your image using an AI prompt (e.g., "make it more colorful", "add a galaxy background").
• Effects — Noise, pixelate, vignette, dither, emboss, invert, grayscale, remove color.
• Frames & Borders — Add decorative frames or stroke borders.
• Patterns & Textures — Overlay patterns or textures onto your image.
• Crop & Flip — Reframe your image or mirror it horizontally/vertically.
• Background — Adjust or remove the image background.

For text layers, you can customize fonts, fill colors (including image fills), apply effects, curve text along paths, and control letter/line spacing.

Step 5: Manage Layers & Placements

Use these tools to organize your design:

• Clone — Duplicate a layer within the same placement.
• Clone Mirror — Duplicate and flip horizontally or vertically.
• Clone to All — Apply the current design to all visible placements at once.
• Layer ordering — Arrange layers front-to-back.
• Cross-Project Import — Bring in designs from your other projects.

Step 6: Preview & Render

Open the Render Center to see your design on a realistic product mockup. Multiple render modes are available:

• 2D Standard Renders — Quick flat mockup captures.
• 3D Standard Renders — Rotate and view the product in 3D (when available). Batch render multiple colors and camera angles.
• AI Photorealistic Renders — Generate photorealistic lifestyle mockups with AI models, customizable avatars, and camera angles.
• Factory Renders — Multi-view renders showing all placements for production reference.

Step 7: Save & Export

Your project auto-saves as you work. You can also:

• Save renders to your Library for reuse.
• Create a Concept Board — a visual layout of all placements, exportable as PNG or PDF.
• Proceed to create a Listing to sell your design (see Publishing Your First Listing).