Using the Swift Galleries Designer

Prefer Reading? Read On, Friend…

Ready for the fun stuff? Great, let’s dive in to using the Swift Galleries Gallery Wall Designer!

Before we can start making our first masterpiece, we need to add a Client into Swift Galleries. So let’s do that first…

Adding a Client

1. From the main dashboard, click on “Clients”, then “New Client”.
2. Give the client a name in the Client Details field, then click “Save Client”.
3. Click the “Images” tab (it’s riiiiiiight on top of that spot where you just named your client).
4. Click on the “Add Images” box or drag and drop your photos onto the box to upload client images.

An important note about client images: Upload full resolution images to Swift Galleries. Yes, it’ll take longer but also, yes, it’s worth it. This will allow us to hand you fully cropped and ready images after a sale so you can just make your final edits to the file we hand you and place your order. So yeah… full res images, please and thank you.

Now… where were we? Ah, yes… we’ve just uploaded some images. Awesome. When that’s done, go ahead and click into that “Design” tab (it’s right next to the “Images” one we just clicked on). And just like that, you’re now in the Swift Galleries Designer!

Navigating The Swift Galleries Designer

The Designer is broken up into two main parts, the left-hand pane (we call it the “Action Panel”, because it makes us feel cool) and the Room View, which is that big part on the right where you’ll do all your designing.

The Action Panel

The Action Panel has 4 core parts:

• Photos Tab
• Rooms Tab
• Suggestions Tab
• Templates Tab

Let’s start with the Templates Tab, since that’s what you’re dropped into when you first land in the Designer.

The Templates Tab

In this tab, you’ll find all of the templates you have available in your account. These scroll, so if you don’t see everything, be sure to scroll down.

You can filter the number of templates you see in the tab by clicking the “Show Filters” button toward the top of the tab.

The Template Filters will let you filter by:

• Overall Gallery Size
• Number of Products
• Type of Products

As you change the filters, you’ll see the number of matching templates update toward the bottom of the panel. When you’ve finished with your filters, just click the “Apply Filters” button at the bottom of the panel.

To add a template to the wall just:

1. Click on it.
2. That’s it. It’s on the wall now. You’re awesome.

The Photos Tab

This is where your client photos will show up inside the Designer. Clicking on a photo will give you the option to either:

• Add that photo to the wall, or
• Zoom in to the full resolution image.

The photos tab will also become active anytime you double-click on an empty product on the wall so you can choose the image you’d like to place within that product.

The Suggestions Tab

This is where any galleries you’ve designed and saved as a suggestion (see common workflows section below) will be saved. This is the first spot you’ll be dropped into during a sales meeting, with your saved suggestions as the first thing the client sees.

Clicking on a saved suggestion in the suggestions tab will give you the option to:

• Apply that suggestion to the Room View area (the room AND the layout AND the images are saved with the suggestion, so this will change anything you currently have active in the Room View area of the Designer), or
• Delete the Suggestion

The Rooms Tab

Click into the “Rooms” tab and you’ll see – Rooms! Surprise!

Swift Galleries comes with 50 pre-calibrated stock room photos for you to use anytime your client has not provided a room photo. Feel free to also use these for marketing, ads, client guides, blog posts… whatever. Just don’t sell ’em. But I digress…

To change the room in the Room View, just click on one of the rooms and click the “Apply” button.

Uploading and Calibrating Client Room Photos

Uploading a Client Room Photo

The most powerful part of the Swift Galleries Designer is the ability to show your clients what their photos will look like on their own walls, at exactly the right size. So let’s walk through how that’s done right now.

1. Click the “Upload a Room Photo” button toward the top of the Rooms Tab.
2. You’re presented with two options for uploading a room photo.
   1. The Photo Is Not On Your Current Device – Use this option if you’re not currently using the Designer on the device where you have access to the room image you’d like to upload. The most common instance of this is when a client texts you a photo of their room and that photo is on your phone, not on your computer where you’re working in Swift Galleries. When you choose this option, Swift Galleries will automatically send an email to the address we have on file for you with a link to upload your room photo. Just access that email from your phone (or whatever device the image is on), click the link and follow the instructions to upload the image. This will upload the image from your phone and drop it right into Swift Galleries, ready for you to start using.
   2. I Have The Photo Here – Use this option if the room photo you want to upload is on the device you’re currently accessing Swift Galleries from. This will allow you to navigate to the image on your hard drive and upload it directly into Swift Galleries.

Once you’ve uploaded your photo, you’ll be brought back to the main designer with your newly uploaded room image at the top of the Rooms panel. Now it’s time to calibrate that image so we’re sure the images you’re showing your clients are exactly the right size.

Calibrating Your Uploaded Room Photos

After you’ve uploaded your room photo and you’re back in the Designer, it’s time to get that bad boy calibrated!

1. Click on the newly uploaded room photo and choose “Calibrate”.
2. Determine your “calibration object”. This is really just a fancy term for “the thing that’s on the same plane as where you want your wall art to go that you know the exact size of”. The simplest approach is to ask your client to tape a standard size piece of paper to the wall where they want their artwork and take a picture of that. Other common things you could use would be doorways, windows, existing artwork… as long as it’s on the same plane as where you want the artwork and you know exactly what size it is, you’ll be able to use it.
3. Use the Zoom In button in the bottom center of the screen to zoom as close into your calibration object as you can while still being able to see the entire object. Once you’ve zoomed in,
4. Click the “Draw” button, it’s just to the right of the Zoom button.
5. Now all you have to do is draw a line from one end of your calibration object to the other, being as precise as possible.
6. When you’re finished drawing your line, enter the length of that line in the field at the bottom left of the screen and click “Save Calibration”.
7. You’re a wizard, Harry! Any templates you now put on that wall will be shown at exactly the right size so your clients know exactly what they’re getting, before they ever even have to pay for it!

The Bottom Bar Stuff

I’ll be honest… I don’t have a fancy name for this area of the screen. It’s the stuff that lives at the bottom of the Action Panel. Most of the time, the active buttons will be:

• Add Product – this is how you’ll add a product to the wall
• Undo and Redo – you’ve got this one all by yourself.
• Zoom – this will allow you to zoom in on the entire active gallery
• Add to Suggestions – this adds the active gallery to the saved Suggestions tab
• Share – this allows you to share the active gallery to Facebook or Pinterest or to download it to your computer to use on your website, blog, social media or client guides
• Help – This is the little green question mark thing. This will pop up a modal that offers a tour of the current screen you’re on or a link to our knowledgebase to learn more about the screen you’re on.

That said, some of these buttons will change depending on the action you’re currently taking. For example:

Clicking on a Product On the Wall

Now you’ll see all of the Product Actions in the Bottom Bar Stuff. This includes:

• Change Product – This allows you to change the currently selected product to a different product or to change any details about the currently selected product (think changing the wrap option on a canvas from a wrapped image edge to a black or white edge)
• Send to Back/Send to Front -These buttons help when you’re trying to build more complex galleries that have overlapping products. Try it by overlapping a couple of products then clicking these Send to… buttons.
• Choose Photo – This brings up the Photos tab so you can choose a photo to put in this product.
• Rotate Product – This will rotate the currently selected product by 90 degrees.
• Copy Product – This will create an exact duplicate of the currently selected product.
• Crop Photo – If the product has an image already in it, this will allow you to modify the cropping of that image.
• Resize Product – This allows you to choose a different size from the options you have for the selected product.
• Delete Product – You know what this does…
• Home/Back to Home – These will cancel out of the product actions and bring you back to the main designer.

When Multiple Products Are Selected

Sometimes you’ll want to manipulate more than one product at a time. When you do this, your Bottom Bar Stuff will change. Here’s what you’ll see:

• Align Products – This will allow you to choose to which edge you’d like to align the selected products
• Send to Back/Send to Front – This is the same behavior as above
• Rotate Products – This will rotate all selected products as one selection (rather than rotating each product individually).
• Mirror Products – This will change the selected products on the wall to show them as a mirror image of the original selection. (This is great for stairway galleries if you need it to go the opposite direction).
• Delete Products – You’ve got this.

When a Framed Print is Selected

You’ll get the same Product Action buttons, but we also add a few options that are specific to framed products:

• Frame Width
• Mat Width
• Frame Color
• Mat Color

Increasing Your Efficiency

Keyboard Shortcuts

There are a handful of shortcuts to make designing gallery walls faster for you.

• a – Add a Product to the wall
• d – Duplicate the selected product(s)
• o – Rotate the selected product(s)
• r – Resize the selected product
• e – Edit a selected product type
• m – Mirror the selected products or an entire gallery
• [delete] – Deletes the currently selected product(s)
• [tab] – Move selection from one product to another on the wall
• [arrow keys] – Nudge the selected product(s) on the wall
• [Shift] + Up, Down, Left, Right arrow keys – With multiple products selected, this will align those products to the edge that corresponds to the direction key you press. Example: to align the top edges of multiple products, you’ll select the products you wish to align, then press [Shift] + the UP arrow key on your keyboard.
• [Command] + A (Mac) [Control] + A (Windows) – Selects all products on the wall

Double-Click Actions

• Double-click on an empty product on the wall to choose a photo (replicates the “Choose Photo” button action)
• Double-click on a product with an image in it to re-crop that photo (replicates the “Crop Photo” button action)
• When in the Crop Screen, double-click on the image to commit the current crop and return to the Designer

Common Workflows

This is some of the most common stuff you’ll do in the Swift Galleries Designer, so I thought I’d drop it in here to make it easier for you to get up-and-running. I’ll be referring to keyboard shortcuts and double-click actions so you’re using the Designer as efficiently as possible.

 

Adding a Photo to a Product on the Wall

1. Double-click on the product you wish you fill with an image, this will bring up the Photos tab
2. Click on the photo you want for that product and choose “Apply”
3. This drops you into the Crop Screen. Crop your photo as desired and double-click anywhere on the photo to commit the crop and return to the Designer.

Saving a Gallery Design as a Suggestion

When you’ve created a gallery you’d like to show as a suggestion to your client, simply

• Click the “Add to Suggestions” button at the bottom left of the screen.
• That’s it. You’re an expert at adding suggestions already!

Here’s what gets saved with that suggestion:

• The current room photo
• The current gallery design
• The current gallery placement within the room
• The current photos within that gallery
• All product details and settings (i.e. – canvas wrap options, frame and mat size and colors, etc.)

Basically, you’ll get an exact replica of what you’ve currently designed.

 

Applying a Suggestion to the Room View

To pull a suggestion up in the Designer:

1. Click on the Suggestions tab
2. Click the desired Suggestion
3. Choose “Apply”
4. You’ve done it!

Note: If you make changes to this suggestion, those changes will not be saved to the current suggestion. You will need to save it as a new suggestion and delete the existing one (if you want to).

 

Creating a Gallery Design Using The Same Product Types

If you want to create a simple gallery wall design that uses all of the same products, this is the fastest way to do it:

1. Add your desired product type to the wall and choose the size you want.
2. With that product still selected, hit the “D” key on your keyboard to duplicate the product
3. Drag the new product into position, using the alignment shortcuts as needed (see the keyboard shortcuts above)
4. Continue duplicating products until you have your desired gallery design. Note: You can duplicate more than one product at a time by selected multiple products and tapping the “D” key on your keyboard.

To Select Multiple Products At One Time

To select all products on the wall, just use the keyboard shortcut Command + A (Mac), Control + A (Windows)

To select some, but not all products, simply click somewhere on the wall and drag a selection across the products you wish to select.

 

To Share or Download a Gallery Design

With the gallery design you’d like to share active on the wall:

1. Click the Share icon at the bottom left-hand side of the screen (It’s the weird less-than looking thingy. Don’t ask me, I didn’t decide that…)
2. Choose to share on Facebook or on Pinterest if you’d like you… you know… do one of those things.
3. If you want to download the gallery design to your computer, you can choose the Download option.

A note about copyright: We actively encourage you to share your gallery designs using any of our included wall photos. This includes using those gallery designs for marketing, ads, client guides, social media posts, website images, blog posts… pretty much anything you need to do to promote your business. The only thing you cannot do with designs you’ve created in Swift Galleries is sell the actual downloaded design. This violates our licensing agreement with the provider of our room photos and it’s just bad karma. So don’t do that, please and thank you.

 

Final Thoughts

With only the info in this lesson, you have the knowledge to create galleries that can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know this might seem daunting, but you’ll get used to it very quickly and be designing amazing galleries in no time at all!

In the next lesson we’ll cover the final big piece of Swift Galleries – the Sales Flow. This is where we’ll bring it all together to start making you (a lot of) money with Swift Galleries!