Weekly Updates & Estimated Challenge Calendar

Here for Holiday File Prep Office Hours? Jump to the chat>>

Calendar	Files	Launches	Tech & Payments	Community
1+	0+	0+	2+	0+
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. 

It’s here! Join the conversation in Minted’s NEW Community Forums! We have been working with community members over the past year to create a new space where all Minted artists can join the conversation. Develop as an artist, meet like-minded creatives, fine-tune your creative and technical craft, and more. Visit the new Community Forums here!

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 9/18] We have officially kicked off our Holiday Winners Countdown! Winners will be announced in our NEW Community Forums. See our announcement schedule in our recent email here.
• [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.

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 9/11] HOLIDAY FILE REQUEST PROGRESS
As we work through 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	All requests have been sent! Please reference your file request(s) for your correct due date(s), as due dates vary across Challenges.
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 were due Thursday, August 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.

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	Launched! Handful of remaining designs to be launched in early September. Additional designs will also be selected for wholesale and launch in partner channels at alternate times.
Pairs & Sets Art Challenge	In Progress. Some pieces have launched, and remaining pieces will launch in mid-September.
Holiday Designs*	In Progress. We started launching designs on Monday 9/14, and will continue to launch through early November.
Birth Announcement Challenge**	In Progress. Launching on a rolling basis between late August and late October.

*[New 9/14] Newly launched Holiday designs will not show up on respective Holiday Category pages right away. Our team should have newly launched designs organized on appropriate Category pages by the end of next week, September 25. Our team will also be doing a thorough QC review after designs have launched – please refrain from reporting technical issues with your design until October 1.

**[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 typically sent every two weeks, at the end of the week, for all files received and reviewed by our team before that date. 

Latest Round of Prize Payments Sent:

September 11

See our commission payment schedule here. 

2020 Holiday Launch:

• [New 9/17] Some designs are incorrectly displaying with Green foil as the foil type for the default colorway. This issue is temporary and due to site cacheing after launch. If your design is affected, you should see it display the correct foil type within a few days after launch.
  Note: We will also be adding Green foil to foil-pressed designs that already exist on site from previous years. You may see this issue impact some existing designs as well over the next week.

Gloss-Press Birth Announcements:

• [New 9/17] Alternate colorways are not displaying on the Product Details Pages for new Gloss-Press Birth Announcement designs. Our team is currently investigating this issue. 

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 in August.

Art:

• [New 8/28] We expect our new format, framed canvas, and new art sizes, 24x30 and 48x70, to be available for all eligible Fine Art and Children’s Art pieces by early next year.

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 8/21] The Palette Newsletter for August has been sent! View it here.

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 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