Farm Partner Spotlight: Spoonflower

By: Andrew Partridge, Raleigh City Farm Marketing & Communications Volunteer & Editor

Growth is at the center of the Raleigh City Farm mission, and the support we receive from our sponsored partners and community members makes that continued growth possible. The many relationships we’ve cultivated throughout North Carolina and across the country continue to humble and surprise us, and with our recent 10th Anniversary Bearthday Celebration, we felt this was a perfect opportunity to reflect on the community embrace we’ve received over the past decade and give our sincerest gratitude for our many friends and partners. 

As one way of saying thanks, we are proud to feature our partnership with Spoonflower and their generous host sponsorship of the Bearthday Bites at Home Celebration. Spoonflower, a Durham-based online marketplace, connects makers and artists with customers around the world by providing custom, on-demand and eco-friendly print solutions for textiles, wallpaper and home decor. 

The term “maker” in this sense refers simply to anyone who makes - whether that’s making clothing, artwork, food, music or any other form of creative expression - and is often associated with public crafting areas known as “makerspaces”. These broad terms help encompass the breadth of how many different ways people can choose to create, as well as capture the growing scope of Spoonflower’s customized offerings and unique community spaces. 

Raleigh City Farm sat down with Spoonflower’s Maker Community Manager, Alexa Terry Wilde, to discuss the evolution of the company, how the pandemic affected their business, and what their future may hold. Alexa explained that her role in the company can often be fluid from week to week, but that ultimately she serves as an advocate of Spoonflower’s maker communities and the value of building a successful platform for community engagement. 

Founded as a vision of creating specialty fabrics for individuals and small businesses, Spoonflower met global success after its founding in 2008, and has since evolved into far more than a marketplace. Spoonflower developed a dedicated community of artists and makers that's grown significantly over time, currently in the thousands, and with a marketplace featuring over one million designs. With the ability to create individualized products catering to smaller niche communities, Spoonflower’s marketplace has become a unique and powerful asset in the larger maker community. 

Interest in crafting projects was especially high during the lockdown periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, as surges of new community members formed around the idea of working on small projects that Spoonflower could deliver to their door. Alexa says the company believes these new members will no doubt expand the loyal community of Spoonflower now that they know this unique service is available and helped fuel their newfound interests. 

Drawing from her unique viewpoint as Maker Community Manager, Alexa acknowledged the significant value of engaging with the Spoonflower audience and the role that engagement plays in their success. She says the company believes the passion and loyalty of their community members is a major factor of their continued success and plays an instrumental role in shaping the company’s vision. 

To encourage these interactive relationships even more, Spoonflower offers a variety of DIY tutorials, design challenges, a Maker Ambassador Program, artist spotlights and activities to help participants pursue new interests and share ideas with other members of the community. These spaces create a platform for the Spoonflower community to voice its true needs, as well as putting the company in the center of the larger makerspace industry. 

Spoonflower's international success undoubtedly helped define their role within the maker industry, but the company remains dedicated to supporting their local community partners. Alexa says Spoonflower wants to continue investing in its relationships with local partners, including Raleigh City Farm, as a way of connecting to their neighbors and the place they call home. Forming these healthy connections also helps Spoonflower employees feel the impact of their company mission in their own backyard, and can inspire new ways of bringing those improvements to the other communities they reach. 

Spoonflower has grown significantly as a company and recently celebrated the opening of its new headquarters factory in Durham, NC. Alexa shared that the new space will continue to uphold their mission of using eco-friendly products in their production processes, enabling a new scale of production that can continue to meet the demand of their growing audiences. With an expanding catalog of materials and planned improvements to the digital user experience across its different services, Spoonflower has ambitious goals to continue supporting its consumers and maker communities.

Sharing a unified focus of empowering individuals through healthy and creative interests, Spoonflower and Raleigh City Farm will both continue to strive to make positive impacts to their local communities. More partnership events include upcoming summer camp workshops at The Salvation Army, which will incorporate Spoonflower textiles into Raleigh City Farm’s annual “Farm to Camp” program. 

To learn more about the events and activities hosted by Spoonflower, you can sign up for the Spoonflower Creative Community newsletter, or follow Spoonflower on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok).