Weekly Updates & Estimated Challenge Calendar

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Calendar	Files	Launches	Tech & Payments	Community
1+	1+	1+	0+	1+
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 will update this page every Friday.

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:

• [Updated 3/25] We have removed our Children's Birthday Party Challenge from the calendar above, as we will no longer be opening this Challenge in early April. We may choose to run this Challenge later this year. 

• [Updated 2/28] Upcoming Art Challenges: We wanted to let you know the approximate timing of our art challenges this year in advance, so that you can prepare. Please note that this timing is approximate and we are providing you the earliest possible month to be conservative; it is possible that these challenges will slip one month later due to time constraints of our very small team. We will be able to share additional details on each Challenge and if there will be submission limits closer to or at launch.  We also anticipate launching a Drawings Challenge in June.  

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. 

Foil-Pressed Wedding Invitations	All requests have been sent. Files were due on Thursday, March 5.
Fabric Challenge	All requests have been sent. Please note that not all designs requested will be selected as winners.
Quickfire Art Challenge	All requests have been sent. Files were due on Friday, March 27.

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.

Greeting Card Subscription (Father's Day & Graduation)		In Progress.
Children's and Teen's Art		Pottery Barn Teen Picks: Launched! See the new assortment here.  Pottery Barn Kids Picks: Launched! See the new assortment here.  Minted Editors' Picks: Expected to launch by early April.
Non-Foil-Pressed & Letterpress Wedding Invitations		In Progress. Expected to complete launch in early April. *Update: for Foil-Pressed Invitations, the website will most likely launch before the main suite + day-of items.
Graduation Announcements		In Progress. Expected to complete launch in early April.
Foil-Pressed Wedding		In Progress. Expected to launch in mid-April. We try to prioritize designs in the order that they are submitted.

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:

April 2

The next round of prize payments will be sent the week of April 13. See our commission payment schedule here.

1099s:

• Payoneer has issued 1099 forms to all eligible artists as of January 31. (Note: artists who are registered as C or S-corps will not receive a 1099). Forms were sent to email addresses associated with Payoneer accounts. If unable to locate your form, please be sure to check your spam and junk folders for an email from [e-mail] or [e-mail]. Please contact [e-mail] if you have additional questions related to your tax form.

NEW Tech Releases:

• [New 3/20] We've released a new feature to better protect your designs. Protecting artists' work is incredibly important to us, especially after we made significant improvements to allow for higher resolution images to be submitted last year. We have disabled the ability to "open image in new tab", "save image", "copy image" and "copy image address" when right-clicking on a design image on Minted.com. These right-click options will be disabled in a variety of places on Minted’s website, including the design rating page, the voting widgets, the Challenge hub, and artist profiles.
  

Category Pages:

• [Updated 3/16] We're working on updating https://www.minted.com/save-the-date and running into some technical issues. However, we are frequently directing customers to our new and updated page: https://www.minted.com/new-save-the-date. This issue is also impacting https://www.minted.com/wedding-invitations but we are frequently directing traffic to the new invitations page https://www.minted.com/new-wedding-invitations 

Pottery Barn Kids product page imagery:

• [New 2/7] Pottery Barn Kids includes an image on product pages for Minted pieces that shows art pieces to scale. This image includes the same standard artwork across all product pages. This is an intentional choice to demonstrate product sizes, and will not always reflect the artwork being viewed.

Survey Promo Code:

• [Updated 1/27] Our artist survey code was leaked and has been deactivated. If you already received a survey code and need a replacement, please email [e-mail].

Self-Launch:

The Self-launch Tool is experiencing some issues. We've listed the most common situations below.

• • 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

    • Due to recent system updates, you may experience longer wait times than usual when self-launching art. We are working on updating the self-launch feature and will post here when this is resolved. 

    • The self-launch tool is functioning, but we have been seeing delays and bugs affecting some pieces. Launching and fixing any bugs related to winning pieces is priority over launching self launch work. We will begin to notify and update artists with self launch pieces that we see are affected by a technical issue.  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. 

    • We are continuing to move art prints to our new product page. If you see a previously launched piece moved to the "processing" status on your My Projects page, please check your store as it may be live there.

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.

Mintie Meetup Video Calls	Join here (Meeting ID: 996-592-519) at 9:30am PT daily (except Wednesdays).
Minted Buddy Program Signups	Fill out this form by April 7.
The Palette Newsletter	See the March edition here.
Office Hours	Every Friday at 11am PT, at the bottom of this page.

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

Office Hours

We host weekly Office Hours using the chat feature below. Office Hours are every Friday from 11am - 12pm PT. As always, we welcome your feedback. We created a new Feedback Form for artists, even anonymously, to submit ongoing feedback to Minted on our policies and processes for the broader team. Find the form here. 

Office Hours Recap

Key topics discussed in Office Hours on March 27.

• We will keep our estimated Challenge calendar current with our expectations for our Holiday Challenges.
• Fill out our Buddy Program interest form here by April 7
• You can use the links under the "Community" section of this page to join our daily Zoom Mintie Meetups