Introduction
Zazzle has many benefits over the other print-on-demand platforms like Redbubble and Threadless. One such benefit is the ability of the artist and the customer to customize products directly on-site. You can also import SVG files into Zazzle, which offers even more customizability, since you can change the color of an SVG graphic directly. This gives you a quick way to make a collection of products in different colors without having to import new graphics for each one.
One limitation that seems to be built in to Zazzle’s product editing interface is the way the stroke of an SVG is handled. If you directly import an SVG that has a stroke, that stroke will be treated as a filled shape instead, and you lose the ability to change the stroke thickness.
This SVG graphic of a star was created in Adobe Illustrator. It had a stroke of 16px. When I imported it into Zazzle, I can recolor the blue and black areas of the star, but there is no ability to change the thickness of the stroke.
For some designs this won’t be a problem. But if you want your graphics to look good at many different sizes, being able to control the stroke thickness becomes a more necessary feature.
However, lucky for me (and for my fellow Zazzle designers reading this), I have discovered a workaround that lets use edit your SVG’s stroke thickness! And it only takes 1 extra step than a standard image import.
Step 1: Import a PNG or JPG
The first step is to be in the Zazzle editor screen, and import a JPG or PNG into your project. Any file will do, but for the sake of ease, I’ve made a placeholder image for you, that has the instructions for use on it. Right click and save this image to your PC.
Step 2: Click Change Image and Choose SVG
Have the placeholder image selected in the Zazzle editor. Then, on the right side of the Zazzle editor screen, click the Change Image button.
The media manager will appear. Now, select the SVG file that has a stroke. In this case, I’m picking the star again.
See how the right side panel looks different now? The fill and border color are showing null, but that isn’t actually true – it just means you haven’t chosen a new color yet. Click on the Border Color and choose a color (I picked red).
The stroke changed color, and reset to a thickness of 1. Now we can change it to any thickness we want. Let’s type in 10…
Now it has a stroke thickness of 10!
Note that border thickness numbers in Zazzle do not exactly correlate to those in Illustrator or other vector software. Setting my new SVG to have a thickness of 16 in Zazzle turned out thinner than the 16pt star that came directly from illustrator.
Also, similarly to Illustrator, if you scale an SVG shape up or down, the stroke thickness will scale proportionally.
Conclusion
Now you can edit your SVGs in even more ways to give yourself an advantage in your product designs! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.
Peace, love & sunshine,
Jessica Amber
