Weekly Updates & Estimated Challenge Calendar

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Calendar	Files	Launches	Tech & Payments	Community
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upcoming challenge timelines	file request deadlines and file prep updates	recent product & assortment launches	tech updates & upcoming payments	upcoming events, deadlines, & news

 Thanks for stopping by to read the projected Current Estimated Challenge Calendar for the next two months! Please note that this schedule is subject to change. We update this page every Friday. 

NOTE: Submissions to our Holiday Challenges are hidden after voting ends, which means they will be temporarily hidden from your artist dashboard. Submissions will be visible again once winners have been announced. If you receive an early file request, we will provide an image of your requested submission for your reference.

Challenge Calendar 

Challenges are made up of (i) a Submission Period, during which artists submit designs, (ii) a Critique Period, a minimum of 24-hours of dedicated time for giving and incorporating peer feedback, (iii) a Voting Period during which Minted artists and customers cast their votes on submissions, followed by Minted's voting analysis & editorial review — analysis and review tends to take longer for Art and Partner Challenges, and (iv) Winners Announcements and File Requests. Below are current Challenge states.  

Notes on the calendar:

• [New 8/13] We are thrilled to announce the top-rated winners of our You Complete Me Valentine's Day Quickfire Greeting Card Challenge! These fresh, unique designs with creative messages will help us spread the love.
  • As a reminder, we'll be announcing top winners first, all of whom will gain distribution on Minted, followed by additional rounds of winners and retailer picks.
    
  • Congratulations to the top-rated winners! See the list, plus more details, in our recent email.
• [New 8/11] Voting is closing early for our Greeting Card Challenge. As always, we ensured all designs reached a certain threshold of votes before closing.
• [New 7/10] Holiday file requests are sent prior to winners announcements and submissions to these challenges are hidden until winners are announced. Learn more about what to expect for Holiday during the next few months in our recent email. Please note that this email was sent to all artists who submitted to a Holiday challenge and does not guarantee a pick. 
• [New 7/10] Our Save the Date Challenge could launch as early as early August, but this is subject to change as we are still finalizing the details.

Add Challenges to Your Calendar >>    Submit to Challenges >>    Vote on Submissions >

Files

Top-rated winners and Editors' Picks receive a request for final Adobe Illustrator files (fine art is accepted in other formats). Requests are typically sent within a week after each winners announcement, with the exception of Holiday challenges where requests are sent before winners are announced. This gives our Production team time to prepare the holiday assortment to launch before our big reveal in the fall. Below are final file submission deadlines. 

[Updated 8/13] HOLIDAY FILE REQUEST PROGRESS
As we work thorough our Holiday File Request process, we will post updates on progress of each Challenge below. For our full estimated file request schedule, see the recent email sent to all artists that submitted to a Holiday Challenge. 

OTHER CHALLENGES

Holiday Challenges	Some requests have been sent. Please see Progress Bars above for most recent progress. Some files were due Thursday, August 6, some files were due Wednesday, August 12, and some files are due Tuesday, September 1. Please reference your file request(s) for your correct due date(s).
What's On My Bag? Quickfire Fabric Challenge*	If you already submitted as part of an early file request, you will not receive a file request as we will only launch in one colorway. Requests for all remaining winners have been sent. Files are due Thursday, August 13.
Birth Announcement Challenge	Requests for all winners have been sent. Files have various due dates, please reference your file request for your specific due date.
Birthday, Anniversary, and Everyday Greeting Card Challenges	All requests have been sent. Files were due Monday, July 13.
Twice as Nice Pairs & Sets Art Challenge	All requests have been sent. Files were due Thursday, July 30.
Photography Challenge	Some additional early file requests have been sent.  Please note that the requested designs are not guaranteed to be winners. Some pieces not requested may still be selected as winners.**

*All file requests for the Bags Challenge have been sent (either through early file requests and after winners were announced). We have not yet sent any requests for the Backpack Challenge. 

**[Updated 7/23] We’ve sent a subset of early file requests for our Photography challenge. As mentioned in our Challenge PDF, we are asking some artists to send us their highest resolution files before winners are announced in hopes that many challenge winners will be able to scale to the new larger sizes that we will launch later this year. Pieces requested for early review are not guaranteed to be winners and some pieces that are not requested for early review may still ultimately be selected as winners.

***[New 7/13] We’ve staggered due dates for birth announcement file requests in light of the upcoming holiday file requests, so please carefully check the various due dates outlined in your file request. Given the seasonality of sales and customer purchases, we will prioritize the holiday launch. Since customers purchase birth announcements all year round, we don’t believe the delayed launch will have a material impact on sales for these designs. We still plan to have dedicated marketing ongoing throughout the year following the new assortment’s launch. The majority of birth announcements will launch on a rolling basis between late August and late October. Please see your file request for details.

Launches

Below we've listed recent or upcoming launches of designs from Challenges. Keep in mind that late or incompletely submitted files, the need to acquire licenses for non-Minted fonts, investigation of clip art usage, and technical difficulties can cause delays in the launch of specific designs.

Spotlight on Art Quickfire Art Challenge	Launched! Note: We have started to market the new collection and will continue to promote it throughout the summer.
Birthday, Anniversary, and Everyday Greeting Card Challenges	Minted.com designs to launch in mid-August Some designs will be selected for wholesale and launch in partner channels at alternate times.
Pairs & Sets Art Challenge	In Progress. Expected to launch assortment in early September.

[New 7/13] Given the seasonality of sales and customer purchases, we will prioritize the holiday launch over launching birth announcements. Since customers purchase birth announcements all year round, we don’t believe the delayed launch will have a material impact on sales for these designs. We still plan to have dedicated marketing ongoing throughout the year following the new assortment’s launch. The majority of birth announcements will launch on a rolling basis between late August and late October. Please see your file request for details. 

Tech Updates & Payments Schedule

All payments are processed through Payoneer. Commission Payments are paid monthly — with the exception of some sales made through partners, which are paid quarterly. Prize payments are sent every two weeks, at the end of the week, for all files received before that date. 

Latest Round of Prize Payments Sent:

July 30

See our commission payment schedule here.

Moms, Dads, and Grads Greeting Card Challenge [8/5]: Due to a technical issue, the Moms, Dads, and Grads Greeting Card Challenge is currently not showing up in the flyouts on Minted's Participate page. We hope to fix this as soon as possible.

Scene 7 Updates:

Our team is reviewing any design bugs reported through the tool and working through issues according to our standard internal design bugs process. Keep in mind that, due to capacity, we may be unable to accommodate design change requests that are not technical issues. 

• [Update 8/7] We have resolved a known issue with server developer watermarks displaying on some designs.
• [Updated 7/16] We have temporarily turned off the Custom Foil Text option in the customizer for our entire assortment, including for designs currently available for sale onsite, while we work on fixing the issues with the new renderer. Our goal is to reinstate Custom Foil Text as an option by early-mid August.

Art:

• [Updated 6/1] We are in the process of enabling 2 new art sizes: 24x30 and 48x70. Moving forward, all non-custom art will launch with the 24x30 size for all formats (Framed, Unframed, and Canvas).

  • We are still in the process of enabling our new 48x70 size, so you will see the new sizes during the art self-launch process but we will deactivate those sizes from your self-launch pieces until we are able to successfully fulfill this new size.

Self-Launch:

• Stationery
  

  • "Unknown Error" - Make sure your design is using fonts from our Minted Font List. If you are not using any non-Minted fonts, but are still experiencing issues, please email [e-mail]

  • [New 3/12] Some artists are experiencing issues with backer logo colors showing up incorrectly as purple. We do not have an estimate on when this will be resolved but will keep this page updated as we make progress.

• Art

  • Launching and fixing any bugs related to winning pieces is priority over launching self launch work. Please email [e-mail] to let us know if your piece has not processed after seven days so that we can help move it forward. There are technical issues impacting pieces that can take longer to resolve and we will keep you updated if your piece is affected. 

View the Commission Payment Schedule >>

Community

We encourage you to get to know your like-minded peers in the community by joining the Minted Community Facebook group, attending conference calls, and joining in Mintie activities. Below are upcoming ways to get involved

• [New 8/13] Join a Video Critique Meetup for our Quickfire Photo Calendar challenge on Monday, August 17 at 1 pm PT. Register in advance via this Zoom link.
• [New 7/29] We've extended the deadline for the Artist Voices Survey to Friday, July 31 at 10 am PT.
• [New 7/23] The Palette Newsletter for July has been sent! View it here.
• [New 7/23] Based on recent attendance, we are ending our recurring social meetups but encourage you to continue to connect with other artists through our virtual critique meetups (we’ll announce dates when challenges launch) and the Minted Community Facebook Group. Thank you to everyone who joined us over the past few months of virtual Mintie Meetups, and let us know if you have any feedback about what you'd like future virtual connections to look like!

Add events to your Calendar >>     Join the Facebook Group >>    Host a Meetup >>

Holiday File Prep Office Hours

We host special office hours for specific topics here — for example, a chat specifically to answer holiday challenge questions. You can submit, even anonymously, ongoing feedback to Minted on our policies and processes for the broader team to our feedback form.

Join us here every Tuesday at 9 am PT (starting July 21) for Weekly Holiday File Prep Office Hours via Chat (for artists who received a holiday file request):

Thanks to those who joined office hours! For those of you who couldn’t make it, we’ll host another session this coming Tuesday. In the meantime, these articles may be of help during your file prep journey: 

• Our Holiday File Prep Guide
• Guide to Foil & Gloss
• Working with Alternate Greetings