Let's Work Together! - Pattern Designers

Thank you for your interest in partnering with Robert Kaufman! We love working with new designers and look forward to getting to know you and your designs. It’s a regular part of our process to work with pattern companies like you for the mutual benefit of your pattern business and our fabric retailers in merchandising Robert Kaufman fabrics in stores and online. As you consider partnering with us, we wanted to provide you with an outline of the different ways we work with pattern designers.

Please note that this is not an ambassador program and requires essentially no time, commitment, promotional efforts or exclusivity from you.

Fabric Requests for Pattern Development

One question we get frequently is whether we supply fabric for pattern development, and the answer is that we do! We are always so honored to see our fabrics in your designs, and we can indeed provide you fabric cuts to work with to make your pattern’s cover sample. When doing so, we ask that you work with us during the fabric selection process, in order to best sync up timing of your pattern release and our fabric availability, in an attempt to avoid customer frustration. We also ask that for that one project, all the fabrics included in the quilt top are exclusively Robert Kaufman. Our goal in doing this is to avoid confusion with our customers in the buying process when we’re cross-promoting your pattern and our fabrics. However, this should not stop you in any way from creating other color options with other fabric lines or working with other fabric manufacturers to create those alternate color options or your other patterns.

Existing Patterns

The other way we most often work with pattern companies is to promote their existing patterns while showing off our newest fabric releases. Each quarter, we release hundreds of new fabrics, and when we’re introducing these fabrics to our customers, we showcase them in multiple different projects. Some of the projects are originals designed by our internal merchandising team, while others utilize existing patterns in the market to show how our fabrics would work in your patterns, which our stores can carry and sell alongside the fabrics. This is, of course, where you come in! When we work with pattern companies in this way, the following is an explanation of how we use the patterns and the images created with them.

If you choose to send us your pattern(s) you would still retain full rights to the pattern and design. We will only use it for promotional purposes to create images and determine fabric requirements.  We will not sell or distribute your patterns, except in the one instance outlined below.

How we use your patterns:

We use your beautiful patterns to create projects for promoting our fabrics, usually digitally but occasionally physically.

• Digital Images:

• We use your pattern to draw up your quilt to scale in Adobe Illustrator. We drop our fabrics into your quilt (also to scale) and create a digital mock up. We then use the pattern to determine fabric requirements for the quilt and publish both image and requirements on our website and in our catalog.
• If you would like more creative control of the image, we can potentially send jpegs of the fabric collection for you to create the mock up – these images are not paid for as we are willing to mock up the patterns ourselves.

• Physical Projects

• Most often done for small projects such as pillows, wall hangings, bags, runners etc.  But occasionally will be done for a quilt.
• We will take care of getting the project made.
• Physical projects are photographed and then put into our loan program to allow shops to borrow the project.  This encourages shops to pick up projects they may not otherwise, as they don’t have to make a shop sample for display.

The images of projects may be used in the following ways (including but not limited to):

• In our printed lookbook given to our reps to bring to sales meetings. A digital version is also available on our website.
• On our website for customers to see and purchase the fabric to create kits of the quilt.  
• If a customer is going to kit a quilt, they purchase the fabric from us and the patterns from you or your distributor. Additionally, if we offer a precut kit, an image of the quilt in the mocked up fabrics may be printed and included in the kit.
• On our social media to show projects.
• Given to customers for sales and promotional purposes.
• We do not sell, share, or distribute your patterns unless a customer has asked us to kit a quilt for them, in which case, we purchase the physical patterns wholesale directly from you to include in the kit.

We would love to hear from you! Please fill out this form and we will be in touch.

Please note that patterns must be available for wholesale in printed form in order to apply.

Thanks!

If you have any questions please contact patternpartners@robertkaufman.com