Printed Fabric Design File Guide: Repeat Patterns, Placement Prints & File Specs Explained

Ready to Print Your Design on Fabric? Let's Make Sure Your File Is Right

For most designers placing a custom fabric order for the first time, the real stumbling block isn't choosing a fabric or picking colours — it's preparing the artwork file. Misaligned repeats, visible seam lines, and colours that shift in print are all problems you can prevent before you ever hit send. At cocochi's house (KAIYO FABRIC CO., LTD.), our custom digital printing service starts at a 20-yard minimum and has served indie designers, craft makers, and children's apparel brands for years. Here is the practical workflow we've refined so you can get it right on the first try.

Step 1: Understand Grain Line — It Sets Your Print Direction

Every woven fabric has an invisible reference line called the grain line (warp direction). It runs parallel to the selvedge and determines how your print will sit on the cloth. Why does it matter? Cutting and sewing along the grain line produces better-quality results with less distortion — it's the standard for apparel, bedding, and bags.

When laying out your artwork, make sure the top of your design runs parallel to the selvedge. This is especially important if your print includes text, character faces, or clearly directional imagery such as standing animals or trees. Ignore the grain line and an entire production run can come out upside down.

Step 2: Choose the Right Layout Type for Your Design

Repeat (All-Over) Patterns

This is the most common format for printed fabric. Your motif tiles seamlessly across the full cloth width and length. When you prepare your artwork, align all four edges of the repeat unit precisely — even a 1 mm offset will show up as a visible seam line or overlapping colour block once printed.

• Small repeats: The pattern is dense and the join points are numerous, so check every single edge individually.
• Large repeats: Fewer join points and more design freedom — ideal for oversized florals or landscape-style compositions.

Placement Prints

When your design needs elements in exact positions — for example, a large solid-ground panel, a scattered all-over section, and a neat small-motif block all within the same yard — a placement layout is the only option. You specify the exact coordinates of every element on the cloth.

Two hard limits apply to placement prints:

• Width cannot exceed the fabric's finished width (our most common fabrics run 110–150 cm / approximately 43–59 inches — confirm before you start).
• Length cannot exceed 180 cm (roughly 71 inches / 2 yards) — beyond this, the print repeat is disrupted and motifs will be cut off.

If your layout includes adjacent sections with similar background colours — for instance, an off-white large-print panel next to an off-white small-print panel — add thin crop marks at the boundaries in your final file. These make it far easier to cut accurately and prevent costly mistakes.

Selvedge Logo Design

You can leave the selvedge blank or add your brand name or mark — a small but meaningful detail for indie labels building brand recognition. If you design a selvedge logo, keep the text height at least 2 cm to ensure it prints legibly.

Step 3: File Submission Checklist

Go through every point below before you submit. A single spec error can mean lower print quality or a full revision round:

• Resolution: 300 dpi minimum. Higher resolution = sharper, more detailed output.
• Text and shapes: Convert all type and special fonts to outlines so nothing reflows if the font is missing on our end.
• Colour mode: CMYK only (not RGB) for accurate colour reproduction in print.
• File format: AI or TIF preferred. JPG and PDF are acceptable provided the file opens cleanly and the repeat joins correctly.

If colour accuracy is critical — brand colours, logo palettes — reference Pantone Textile colour codes (TCX or TPX) and note them in your file. This significantly reduces the risk of colour drift between your screen and the finished fabric.

A Note on White

Digital fabric printing has no colour limit — except white. In digital inkjet printing, white is not an ink that gets laid down; it is simply the base cloth showing through. If your design relies on large areas of white, choose a white base cloth from the start and let the fabric do the work. That is the only way to achieve a clean, true white.

What to Include When You Submit

• Main repeat or placement artwork file (AI, TIF, or accepted alternative)
• Selvedge logo file (omit if not needed)
• A dimension reference diagram for the main repeat, clearly labelled width × height in cm

One important note: cocochi's house does not offer artwork revision or redraw services. If a file has problems — insufficient resolution, a repeat that won't join, wrong colour mode — we will return it for you to correct and resubmit. This policy exists to protect the integrity of your design and ensure every yard we print matches your creative intent.

Why Choose cocochi's house for Custom Fabric Printing?

cocochi's house is operated by KAIYO FABRIC CO., LTD., backed by a pattern-making team with over 40 years of industry experience. We have produced fabric for major brands including Best Pale (百事特, a leading Taiwanese childrenswear label) and Betty Boop. Our custom digital printing starts at 20 yards, with sampling and small trial runs available so you can validate your design before committing to a full production order. Our fabric range covers original Taiwan-designed printed cotton, Japanese-imported double gauze, and performance textiles — everything you need from concept to finished cloth, in one place.

Want to know more about fabric widths, pricing, or how to start a small-batch order? Get in touch via LINE @cocochishouse and one of our team will get back to you directly.