Leather Swatches

Product Description

Order a 2.16" square (5.5 x 5.5 cm) pack of leather swatches featuring the 100% real leather materials that we offer. Our leather sample swatches are a fantastic way to really take a close look at the print detailing, the color reproduction and clarity of our expert leather printing techniques. We print the leather name, and its unique ID number onto every single swatch, so that you can easily find it on our website once you have made your choice.

How it works

Upload your design

We automatically apply your design to the product you selected

Make it perfect

Use our smart tools to get it exactly right and select the finishing options

Preview & checkout

Confirm your designs with our 3D previews and checkout with confidence

1-2 Days Production

Sit back and relax. Your product is on its way!

We offer discounts

We offer discounts on all our products, including bulk, quantity and student discounts. Enjoy great deals whether you're a small business, designer, or student.

Volume discount New	Wholesale	Students
Volume discount New Get a custom discount Request quote	Up to 44% Find out more	Up to 0% Find out more

Delivery time & costs

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More details

Leather Sample Swatches for Leather Printing

Real Leather

We are now able to offer leather printing on a variety of leathers, thanks to our new state-of-the-art leather printing technology. This allows us to print onto numerous different leathers with amazing color reproduction and fine detailing up to 2 pt. Each of our leathers has a different thickness, handle or texture, yet each and every one of them looks visually stunning once printed.

We don't expect you to just take our word for it though, which is why we have introduced our leather sample swatches. This is a pack of leather swatches that are 5.5 cm x 5.5 cm squared (that's 2.16" square) printed with the classic Contrado sample design which shows both fine and solid details, a variety of colors that are vibrant, rich dark, bright and striking to give you as much variety as as possible. This is the best way to show you exactly what to expect, and to help you make the right choice.

With our leather swatches, you can also not only see the surface textures and the handle of each material, but you can touch it for yourself. You can make a fully informed decision with our leather sample swatches, before committing to ordering an entire project worth of material.

Easy to find

When you receive your leather swatches, you'll see the name of each leather, which can be used to look up each leather on our website to make for easier ordering. Just enter the name into the search bar on the list of our whole range to see the properties, uses and material information.

As well as our fantastic leather swatches, you can also order swatch packs for our other fabric ranges too. When you go to add the leather sample swatches to your basket, you will also be offered our other swatch packs too.

Classic Swatch Pack: A range of man-made fabrics, from velvet to voile, and lycra to lace. Our range has over 100 fabrics to choose from
Natural Swatch Pack: A range of natural fabrics, from cotton to linen to silk. A great selection of completely natural textiles
Paper Swatch Pack: As well as fabrics, we offer a variety of papers too. From wallpaper to poster paper, check out this great selection

Discount and Offers for Leather Printing

Purchase a Leather Swatch Pack and receive a $10 gift voucher to redeem against your next order of leather prints.
*voucher cannot be used for test prints or samples. Minimum spend: $25. This offer is for new customers only who have not previously ordered with us before. Voucher can only be used once and expires after 30 days.

Please note: The first time customer offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount. This includes the wholesale discount and any other offers.

Print guidelines & finishing

Print Guideline

What's the best resolution to print in?

We print at 200dpi, which is a good combination of quality and file weight. Ideally, your image should be scaled to 100% at 200dpi; this means that no resizing of your file occurs, preventing any interpolation. Our design interface will have a quality marker next to the design that you have uploaded, this will change color using a traffic light system and display a message. The message will let you know if the resolution is too low or if you have a good quality image.
How will my image scale?

When you upload your design our system will automatically scale it to fit your chosen fabric dimensions. In the ‘Product Options’ tab, the displayed dimensions under ‘Print Size’ will show the dimensions of the piece of fabric that you are ordering. For image/design dimensions you need to see the ‘Images & Text Tools’ tab. You can see and edit the dimensions of the image under the quality information next to the thumbnail.
Which color model should I choose? RGB or CMYK?

We advise providing images in the RGB color space. Specifically using the sRGB image profile, to achieve best color results. What does this mean? In your editing software, choose RGB as the working space and assign the image profile as sRGB (full name sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
Maximum dimensions

For most of our fabrics, there is no limit on the length of the fabric that you can order. We have a preview design window set up to 10 yds max to visualize the print, but that's not a print limit. If you'd like to order more, increase the quantity (x2 for 20 yds or x4 for 40 yds for e.g.) and then you can order as much as you'd like, with a built in automatic volume discount too. The maximum print width of each fabric can be found on the individual fabric pages or in our design interface.
Do I need to incorporate white space within my design if I want a border or some cutting space?

Yes, that might help you! Always incorporate any extra space or borders into your purchased fabric size. We trim squarely around fabric samples and fabric prints, leaving approximately 0.2" white space. Cutting neatly on the line has an additional fee.
What is crocking and why might it occur?

Crocking, which is fading along the creases, often after washing or heavy use, occurs when you digitally print on natural fabrics - more so when dark or dense colors are used. It can be minimized by using a cool hand wash instead of machine washing as the tumbling of the machine is the main cause of this. To avoid entirely, we would advise using a poly fabric.
Why do the colors appear lighter on organic fabrics?

Our organic fabrics do not have any coatings that the non-organic fabrics have. This means the ink absorbs into the fibers, reducing the color strength slightly (by approx. -40%). For super strong colors we recommend a non-organic natural fabric.

Do you print on fabric a customer supplies?

Unfortunately not; we like to test meticulously so that we know what gets the best results on our fabrics, and our facilities cater perfectly to them. We do however print sublimation transfer paper to order, and if you have access to a heat press you can press your own fabrics easily.
Should I save my file as a TIFF or JPEG?

For multi-colored or very detailed files we recommend using a tiff format, but they must be flattened. For simple colors and low detail files, a jpeg is fine.
What is the situation with material shrinkage?

Just like many fabric printing processes, there is the potential for shrinkage. Depending on the fabric, please expect and allow between 2-8% shrinkage which you need to plan for in your dimensions. This percentage can vary from print run to print run and between fabrics, so we would advise to order a little more material than you require for your project.
Can I print on both sides of the fabric?

We do not offer to print on both sides of the fabric, as a lot of our fabrics are semi-transparent or have some show through. This wouldn't work with double-sided printing. This is not a service that we offer on any of our fabrics.
Can I order labels in another fabric? Will you cut them like you do with the normal fabric labels?

At the moment no, our labels are all printed on the same satin fabric. We may introduce more in the future, but for now, this is the best choice. The labels are all cut the same way. You can order the fabric of your choice and make the labels yourself, but we do not cut different fabric into label format.
How is your fabric printing eco-friendly?

With environmental consciousness in mind, our fabrics are all printed using completely water-based inks. This means no chemicals or solvents are used. Our heat fixing procedure fixes the colors and prints, avoiding the downsides of steaming, such as excess or contaminated water returning into the waste system. We have one facility where we conduct all the printing, production and fulfillment. Rather than roll the fabrics, or send them in a tube, we fold them before they are sent out to you. This saves over 150 tubes a week, as well as a lot of space on the delivery van. (For delicate fabrics we ensure to package appropriately).
Why are there slight color differences between my orders?

We work at improving our color profiles all the time. Though rare, it may happen that from one print run to another, and there could be slight color differences, this is normal and part of the process when we are constantly improving. It is extremely unlikely that there will be a huge difference (like orange instead of red for example). Please bear in mind such color variations can be intensified from fabric to fabric due to the varying grains and textures of the fabric. This is due to the construction of the materials as well as the print methods that have to be altered slightly for more delicate, natural textiles.

Sizing For Hemming And Shrinkage

We have a full Cut & Sew service here at Contrado, and are able to hem your fabric prints for a small additional charge. We create a small one- or two-fold hem that typically uses 0.2" to 0.75" (5-20mm) of material, depending on the thickness of the fabric. So, for example, if you want a finished piece of fabric that measures 39.37" x 39.37", you will need to order a size of 39.96" x 39.96" to allow for the hem (on top of that please also allow for shrinkage of min 2%). The thicker the fabric, the bigger the hem will be. You can choose to have your prints hemmed with either Black or White thread. On our silk and other light woven fabrics, one hemmed edge will be straight (vertically down the roll) and the other will be slightly rippled. The hemming material allowances are as follows and you need to make your print bigger to accommodate the hem:

Light Fabrics (0.59oz-2.95oz): For silks and other light fabrics, we use 0.24" - 0.32" / 6mm-8mm in the hem (2 fold), so overall width/height will be minus 0.48"-0.56""/ 12-16mm
Medium Fabrics (2.98oz-5.90oz): For medium-weight fabrics that fray, we use 0.5 - 0.75" / 15-20mm in the hem (2 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 1.4" - 1.6" / 35-40mm
Stiff/Heavy/No-fray fabrics: we use 0.5 - 0.75" / 15-20mm in the hem (1 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 1.5" / 35-40mm

All of these measurements are approximate and can vary. Including with shrinkage, it can mean a fairly significant difference to ordered dimensions, so please plan your print accordingly. Depending on how open the weave is, our fabric can shrink anywhere from 2% to 8% with the average being 2.5%.

How Would you Like the Edge?

We have four finishing options for your fabric order:

As it comes. We cut around your image, leaving a simply scissor cut, perhaps uneven white fabric border.
Hem with thread. We can hem your fabric with a choice of black or white thread. Please allow 1-2 days additional production time. See below for information on how hemming affects the size of your print. We offer an overlock hem, as well as a folded hem (one or two fold depending on the fabric) however not all fabrics are suited to both hem types. If you can see both options, it means both are suitable, and you will be able to choose whichever you prefer.
Cut on the line. We will cut neatly on the edge of your design. This means that if you have a border around your design we will cut around that border, if your design takes the whole space of the fabric, then we will neatly cut around the edge of that image. Please be aware, when we cut along the line, we have to cut against the grain of the fabric. This is the standard procedure for fabric cutting. This means that with some fabrics, for example, Georgette and Mulmul, which have a slight wave in them, some fraying will occur. This is unavoidable, as the cut follows the grain of the textile.

All of our fabrics are cut manually by hand, with the utmost care and attention. If your fabric has a slightly uneven look on the edges or a touch of fraying, this does not indicate a flaw in the textile. It is not always possible to achieve a perfectly straight cut with certain fabrics, so please do bare this in mind when it comes to your design. If you have any queries or would like to know about our cutting methods in more detail, please get in touch and we will be more than happy to discuss them with you.

Please note: As we make everything by hand, all sizes may vary slightly.

For further information about our fabrics see our FAQs.

FAQ

How are your swatch packs separated?

The classic swatch pack includes the man made materials, the natural has only the naturals, and the paper only the papers. The leather swatches pack contains only the leathers, as we do offer vegan-friendly leatherette options, we wouldn't want to put them in the same packaging as the leather swatches.

Are all of your leathers in the swatch pack?

All of the leathers that we currently offer are included in the swatch pack, as we introduce more and more leathers they will be added into new swatch pack versions. We try to ensure that every material is included in the packs at all times, and the date your pack was printed, along with the version number, will be displayed on the leather sample swatches packaging. If you have any questions about your swatch pack please contact our customer service team via chat, who will be happy to assist you.

Why are the leather packs smaller?

The leather swatches are smaller for a number of reasons. Leather is a much more expensive material, which contributes to this greatly. If we were to create the leather swatches in the same size we'd have to charge more for them. Also there are limitations to the maximum sizes of each leather we use, dependent on the size of the animal. Smaller leather sample swatches are easier to create.

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