Licensing Art to Rug and Mat Manufacturers

Most rug manufacturers use in-house designers or purchase designs outright. However, some do license art for their smaller size accent lines. Many that manufacturer décor flags also license art for doormats, and a few manufacturers license art for all the rugs and mats they produce.

Rugs can be made numerous ways but the ones that are produced for the mass market are either woven on looms or needle-punched on heavy fabric with various kinds of fiber (wool, cotton, silk, nylon, etc.). Rugs that are made with looms are limited in the number of colors that can be incorporated into the design depending on the coarseness of the fibers. The designs on needle-punched rugs are either made with colored fibers or printed by dye sublimation printers. The printing technology allows a larger variety of colors to be used than by using fibers.

Many rugs are handmade on looms and needle-punched in India, China, Persia, Turkey, Tibet, etc. There are also factories that use automated looms and machines to produce rugs such as Axminster Carpets in England, and Mohawk Industries in the United States. View "Axminster Carpet Manufacturing" and "Made in Dalton: Mohawk Industries" videos to see how they make their rugs.

Floor Mats (including door, bath, play, etc.) are usually made with fibers by the needle-punched method, or with vinyl, rubber and other materials. Designs are painted on the mats with a dye sublimation printer. To see how needle-punched mats are manufactured, view "Custom Mats Productions" video.

Check list on what to do before submitting art
1. Check out manufacturers website to see the art on their rugs and mats, submission guidelines, and contact information. If the site is password protected, search the internet for internet retail stores that show their products.

2. Make sure your art fits the manufacturer product line. Not only does the art need to have themes that will sell the manufacturer rugs and mats but the colors and art style needs to also work. For instance, if the manufacturer uses coarse colored fibers for their mats or rugs then the design needs to be very simple without using many colors to shade the images in the design. As an example, check out Jellybean Rugs website. The designs they license are simple and has very little or no shading.

If a dye sublimation printer produces the design on the rug or mat, more colors can be used. But, you probably are still limited to how many depending on the capability of the printer.

3. A horizontal format of the art is most often used for mats and accent rugs. So, make sure the images are in a horizontal format before submitting them to the manufacturer.

4. Not all manufacturer websites list submission guidelines. Contact the person in charge of licensing art for each manufacturer you wish to submit art. Ask how she/he wants art submitted (hard copies, jpg copies attached to an email, etc.). It also would be wise to find out the limitation on the number of colors that can be used and if they require you to submit a Pantone color palette of the colors used in the art. Note: Manufacturers that also produce flags use a printing process that can produce many colors so they do not limit the number of colors or require a Pantone color palette.

5. Make sure that you attach your contact information to each file you send for licensing consideration.

Manufacturers that License Art for Rugs and Mats
Below are links to manufacturers that license art for rugs and mats. Note: In some cases, I am not absolutely sure they license art and may instead buy the art. I did not have time to contact the companies but decided that they probably do license art when I recognized a variety of artists names  who do license their art.

Accent Rugs
• Home Fire Rugs
• Jellybean Rugs by Home Comfort Rugs
• Park Designs
• Peking Handicraft

Mats
• Apache Mills
• Custom Decor, Inc. (also a flag manufacturer)
• Evergreen Enterprises (also a flag manufacturer)
• Magnet Works (also a flag manufacturer)
• Toland Home and Garden (also a flag manufacturer)

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