UndaMeta FAQs

UndaMeta is a marketplace for African-inspired surface pattern design and fabrics. Our platform connects textile print designers, fabric makers and buyers. We collaborate with independent designers to market and sell their repeat patterns, designed for use on the surface of manufactured fabrics for apparel.

UndaMeta went live on February 20, 2023, thanks to funding from the African Hub for Sustainable Creative Economies (AHSCE) and the University of Nairobi.

As Buyers:

Log onto undameta.com and browse our Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition or UndaMeta Leso Edition to view a variety of African-inspired surface pattern designs sold alongside fabric. Here, buyers purchase a combination of both fabric and their preferred print design. We offer 15 different types of quality fabrics to choose from. Our minimum quantities to order start from three (3) metres and up to a maximum of five hundred (500) metres.

For the UndaMeta Leso Edition, our minimum order quantity (MOQ) is 4,125 metres (m) which is an equivalent of 2,500 industrially printed lesos packed in pairs.

Payments are made online through a comprehensive eCommerce platform. When a buyer purchases UndaMeta fabric from any of these collections, we only ship within Kenya, and shipping is free of charge.

A Buyer can decide to also purchase from our Designer’s Exclusive Edition which offers premium surface pattern designs at a flat fee. To access this edition, a Buyer must fill out a form to request and use a unique code to view the designs. Once purchased, the Buyer will receive an email downloadable folder of the surface pattern design. The Buyer owns worldwide exclusive rights to this textile print and can print from anywhere in the world. Do note that anyone from any part of the world can purchase pattern design from UndaMeta. 

UndaMeta joins hands with textile designers to offer African-inspired surface pattern designs for sale. To join our community, you will access our Vendor dashboard where you will be requested to sign-up, create an account and start uploading your patterns. A preliminary vetting process will be done for first-time Designers before having their work live on the website. Each design is vetted and if UndaMeta deems it acceptable, the design will be showcased on our website. Designers are encouraged to read our Technical Specifications at the end to learn more about the nature of pattern design files and artwork we accept.

For every design and fabric sold on the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, Designers earn a Commission of US Dollars One Dollar and Thirty Eight Cents ($1.38) per metre sold.

If they have exceptional designs, their digital textile print design will be showcased in the Designer’s Exclusive Edition where they earn a 60% Commission worth USD Two Hundred and Forty Dollars ($240.00) for every downloaded design. Once the Buyer purchases a textile print design from this collection, this particular design is taken off the website.

In March 2024, we also introduced the category UndaMeta Leso. Textile designers selling their khanga designs on this section for industrially printed bulk orders will earn a Commission of For every design and fabric sold on the UndaMeta Leso Edition, Designers earn a Commission of US Dollars Zero Point Two Two Four Cents ($0.224) per metre sold. This translates to US Dollars Nine Hundred and Twenty-Four ($ 924.00). In this section, the MOQs are Two Thousand Five Hundred (2,500) leso pieces which amount to Four Thousand One Hundred and Twenty-Five metres (4,125m).

It is one that may not be entirely African but is predominantly African. It incorporates African art, symbols, semiotics, objects, scenery, philosophy, lifestyle, myths, customs, stories, literature, events, and all that pertains to life in Africa. It embraces the translation of what life is for the person who is fundamentally African in their outlook on life. It represents all that is intangible and tangible in African culture such as music, dance, food, fashion, politics, education, weather.

It can be expressed in any art genre, such as Realism, Expressionism, Impressionism, Abstract, Pop, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Romanticism, Fauvism, Cubism, Constructivism, Futurism, De Stijl, and many others not mentioned here. Your textiles can be expressed using a composite of these or any other art styles that appeal to you. In the converse, the treasure trove of textiles you design can be inspired by African art styles such as Tinga Tinga, or Makonde. They can be informed by the art produced by personalities such as Twins Seven Seven, Cheri Samba, Wangechi Mutu, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Joy Adamson and Yinka Shonibare among a diversity of other Africans of every spectrum of human colour.

Your textiles will tell the African story. They will hark back to the past, be domiciled in the present, or move into the future or if you prefer, span all the eras you choose to live in, in order to express your living, breathing textiles. It does not have to be designed by an African to be African, but if an African does produce it, this does not make it African. Swahili does not have to be spoken by an African to be declared an African language, and if an African speaks a language, it is not necessarily an African language.

What is African to you? If you as still baffled, confused, or discombobulated by that which is African, email us for a discussion on what you can submit. All the best in your African design journey…. Join us, as the adventure has just begun.

We sell traditional and contemporary African-inspired textile print designs on fabric from our community of worldwide creatives. We also sell bespoke, exclusive digital surface patterns designed by our in-house design team and crème de la crème design consultants.

The marketplace curates original and African-inspired prints that celebrate our rich cultural heritage. We also cover authentic prints created for fashion designers’ collections, from catwalk reactive trends or private collectors, or original pieces for contemporary art prints. In as much as we elevate African-inspired surface design prints, we accept designs from any nationality.

Mainly of African origin, our designers are a mix. From young and upcoming designers, to celebrity-status designers with various forms of styles. However, if you are unable to find a print design that fits your purpose or next project, you may send us a brief at info@undameta.com

To view our Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, you do not need to register. However, if you do want to view our Designer’s Exclusive Edition collection you will need to register. This will take a couple of minutes, we shall require you to share your full name, designation, company, and email address.

Thereafter you will be sent a unique code for you to access the exclusive license designs. This will give you access to  view, purchase and download your designs. However, to place an order, whether from our Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, UndaMeta Leso or Designer’s Exclusive Edition, we shall require you to register an account on UndaMeta.

UndaMeta has a hybrid pricing model, split into three sections, the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition and UndaMeta Leso, which is readily available online and the other is the Designer’s Exclusive Edition which requires one to have a unique access code.

For Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, Buyers purchase either poly-based, blends and or natural fabric alongside a surface pattern design of their choice.

In this edition, a printed textile print costs between US Dollars Eleven Dollars and Eighty-Six Cents ($11.86) to US Dollars Seventeen Dollars and Eighty Cents  ($17.80) per metre with a minimum order of 3 metres per order. For this option, sales of any one pattern design are limited to 500 meters to avoid the designs becoming too common. However, if being sold to a single buyer, we may consider printing more than 500 meters under a special agreement.

For the Designers Exclusive Edition, surface pattern designs are sold exclusively on a closed network. Designers that showcase their designs in this section are designers with exceptional skills and produce one-of-a-kind designs. Each design sold in this section will sell exclusively, meaning once it’s purchased, they are removed from the website.

A Buyer can make a formal request to access this exclusive collection. They shall be sent a unique code to access and view an exclusive collection from our in-house textile designers and crème de la crème design consultants.

Each design’s retail price is USD Four Hundred Dollars ($400.00). Once purchased, the Buyer will receive a folder with all the high resolution digital assets of the surface pattern design. Buyers can go and print the design for themselves or choose to email us with details of quantities they wish us to print for them.

UndaMeta Leso is a beautiful designed piece of material made of pure cotton. Lesos are well-loved in East Africa and are worn by our coastal people and used in various festive occasions – given out as gifts.

All our Lesos feature traditional borders (pindo) and bold, vibrant prints designed by independent artists. The majority of our industrially printed UndaMeta Lesos are printed in three colours which includes key (black) and two spot colors. However, some of our contemporary designs may not have borders but still follow this color principle.

In addition to our bulk-printed Lesos, Buyers can also print their own digital designs on any of our fabric types. The leso pattern will be printed on one side only, edge-to-edge, and as wide as the specific fabric. The quality of both industrially printed and digitally printed Leso is excellent. 

A pair of lesos is referred to as a gora and is joined along the width of the fabric. We deliver your lesos cut and packed as a gora within 14 working days.

Requesting a methali (Proverb) change is permissible, but keep the character count under 70. Please state the new methali in the “Notes” section before checking out with your order.
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Email UndaMeta at info@undameta.com with a brief. We shall get back to you within 3 work days.

UndaMeta offers 15 textile prints on 15 different fabric types. For natural fabrics, we have 8 options: Bahati, Baraka, Bedazzle, Taarab, Tangawizi, Taikenya, Tiara, and Trailblazer. For poly-based and blends, we offer 7 options: Becoming, Bliss, Bloom, Bustani, Sassy, Sensational, and Sparkle. Please visit our Fabric Types and Fabric Pricing pages to know more.

We are an end-to-end eCommerce store. UndaMeta accepts payments in US Dollars ($) or Kenya Shillings (KES) currencies. You can purchase online in either one of two ways:

1 – By PesaPal.

All the licensed designs and fabrics are priced, choose a product(s), select the option/quantities from any one Edition and click on the ‘Add to Cart’ tab. Once you have finished placing all your orders onto the cart, click the shopping basket (the Cart) at the top right-hand corner of the website. This will show you the full order details and request you ‘Proceed to Checkout’. Click this button. At the checkout you will be requested to fill in your billing and shipping details.

For PesaPal option, there are a variety of payment methods to choose from. These include; MPesa, Airtel Money, VISA, MasterCard, and American Express debit or credit cards. Key in your details correctly on the PesaPal prompt form.

Designers Exclusive Edition Orders:

For designs purchased on the Designer’s Exclusive collection, you will be able to download the design straight away from your email.

A 1.5% digital tax fee is applied to each purchase.

Upon checkout, UndaMeta will receive automatic notifications from PesaPal about your payment and order details. If the transaction is successful, your pattern design files will automatically be sent to your email.

Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition Orders:

For a purchase made from this Limited Edition range, you will be required to share your shipping address details before checkout. No additional cost will be charged for the local shipment. However, for all fabrics beginning with the letter ‘B’, there is a US Dollar Nineteen Point Ten Cents ($19.10) Origination Fee that is taken into account before checkout. This fee covers transferring digital patterns accurately onto the digital machinery approved by our manufacturers including storage of the design file. Kindly note that it is a one-off fee for each pattern printed on “B” textiles. “B” textiles include: Bedazzle, Bustani, Bliss, Bloom, Baraka, Bahati and Becoming.

Shortly after, you will receive an email/ message with an estimated time when your order will ship to you. Do note that at the moment, for the Limited Edition, we currently only offer free shipping within Kenya.

For orders shipped outside Kenya, UndaMeta will assist in facilitating the shipment offline. The Buyer must provide their DHL account details, and UndaMeta will arrange the shipment to the nearest DHL office for dispatch, including the invoice details. The Buyer is responsible for all shipping costs.

A 1.5% digital tax fee is applied to each purchase before checkout.

Upon checkout, UndaMeta will receive automatic notifications from PesaPal about your payment and order details. If the transaction is successful, we will start processing your order.

UndaMeta Leso Edition Orders:

For a purchase made from the UndaMeta Leso range, you will be required to share your shipping address details before checkout. No additional cost will be charged for shipment.

Shortly after, you will receive an email/ message with an estimated time when your order will ship to you. Do note that at the moment, for the khangas/leso, we currently only ship within Kenya. 

For orders shipped outside Kenya, UndaMeta will assist in facilitating the shipment offline. The Buyer must provide their DHL account details, and UndaMeta will arrange the shipment to the nearest DHL office for dispatch, including the invoice details. The Buyer is responsible for all shipping costs.

A 1.5% digital tax fee is applied to each purchase before checkout.

Upon checkout, UndaMeta will receive automatic notifications from PesaPal about your payment and order details. If the transaction is successful, we will start processing your order.

2 – By PayPal.

At checkout, you may also choose to checkout with PayPal. You will be required to pay using your PayPal email address account. Paypal only accepts payments in US Dollars ($). A receipt with the order details will be sent to your email once the transaction is complete. 

All the shipping and tax information mentioned above also applies to PayPal transactions.

The Vendor Name must be unique and determines the name used throughout the store. If the name is taken, an error will be returned after submitting the form. 

No. At the moment we do not accept returns. For designs from the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, Designers are expected to print their swatch samples to ensure that their textile pattern designs appear as envisioned and are assured of the print registration and quality.

For the Designer’s Exclusive Edition, we also do not accept refunds or returns of patterns once purchased and downloaded. However, if the file has an error, please contact us and we shall send you the file again by secure email.

Metameta is UndaMeta’s blog section. Here we keep our Buyers and Designers updated on the latest trends in textile and fashion, news and latest UndaMeta projects.

Buyers will receive custom fabric that will have the print of any one (or more) of the surface pattern designs available on the UndaMeta website. Do note that UndaMeta requires one to purchase a minimum of three (3) metres of custom fabric per each order. Buyers can collectively order a maximum of five hundred (500) meters of custom fabric for the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition. However, if a single buyer is keen on buying over 500 meters from the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition collection, we will consider this on a case-by-case basis.

The Buyer will receive 2500 lesos packed as 1250 gora. One (1) gora is equivalent to two (2) leso pieces. Each leso is printed on our lightweight Taikenya fabric, measuring 165 x 116 cm and finished to a cut.

These lesos are printed in three colours only; Key (Black) and two (2) spot colours.

Buyers will receive a downloadable folder via email containing the digital assets of the surface pattern design. Formats include PSD/AI/EPS and JPEG files of the design, ready for print. For some designs they have up to 2 additional colour-ways inclusive of the design pack. To see more about the pattern design specifications, do see below for our UndaMeta Technical Specifications for surface pattern designs.

No. Currently we only ship within Kenya. However, if you intend to make your own arrangements for shipping, do email info@undameta.com We can facilitate for you the shipment with a preferred shipping partner who has offices within Nairobi, Kenya. Do note that the shipping cost, insurance and risk burden would be borne by the Buyer.

UndaMeta accepts a wide range of payment methods, including approved Kenyan mobile money services like MPESA by Safaricom and Airtel Money, as well as local and international credit and debit cards such as VISA, American Express, and MasterCard through our PesaPal payment gateway partner. Additionally, payments can be made using PayPal.

Glad that you are considering joining our ever-growing community of textile and surface pattern designers. Our end-to-end eCommerce website allows vendors (Designers) to upload their seamless pattern designs for marketing and direct selling to the public. Here is how to join.

UndaMeta curates these designs on either the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, UndaMeta Leso Edition or Designer’s Exclusive Edition. Once a design is purchased, Designers will retain a commission from each pattern design sold on the platform. To know more about payments, do have a look at our UndaMeta Terms and Conditions page.

UndaMeta is open to partnering with emerging, experienced and award-winning designers/illustrators.

We strongly encourage anyone above the age of eighteen (18) years, who has an appreciation for and can create African-inspired surface pattern design to join. Each designer must be proficient in using appropriate vector and raster digital tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or Procreate to design their repeat motifs.

UndaMeta does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations. These activities include, but are not limited to, selection of volunteers and vendors, and provision of services. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, clients, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and clients.

Yes we do. But only for our Designer’s Exclusive Edition. UndaMeta in collaboration with the specific designer are happy to make considerations for customization such as colour matching, resizing and format adjustments and within reason that the design does not fundamentally change in design. If you would like to change/amend the design of our Designer’s Exclusive Edition, we would contact the designer to ask if this is possible and what cost would be involved to amend the design and contact you with the details. However, for the Pattern and Fabric Limited Edition, we do not customize any of the surface pattern designs and are sold as is.

Fabric and Pattern Limited Edition designs – The designs will come on fabric and start from US Dollars Eleven Dollars and Eighty-Six Cents ($11.86) per metre to US Dollars Seventeen Dollars and Eighty Cents ($ 17.80) per metre. Depending on the fabric chosen, one can use the fabric for personal use, in fashion apparel, patchwork, quilting, upholstery, outdoor textiles, or print pieces for art for your home. They also can be used in commercial production for resale up to 500 metres and no more. If you need a larger run of fabric then you may consider our Designer’s Exclusive Edition designs or get in touch with us.

Designer’s Exclusive Edition designs – these surface designs are digital files that are downloadable. They cost US Dollars Four Hundred ($ 400.00) each. These designs are also fit for the fashion, apparel and interior design industry. They can be used in commercial production for resale on unlimited units/metres. Purchase from this edition and buy the design outright giving you total exclusivity on the design, and can be used for as many products as you wish. Besides owning the design rights, the copyright passes over to you on a sale. This gives you total exclusivity – for unlimited commercial production. On purchase, the designs are removed from the marketplace.

Our designers prepare and finish your designs in either Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Procreate.

You will receive a high-resolution TIFF or AI file and a JPEG in repeat unless placement print. This design is exclusive which means you will have total use of the design and for unlimited reproduction. Only sold once and removed from the marketplace forever.

We cannot guarantee that this is possible as some of our designers sell their designs on other platforms. However, if you would like us to make the attempt to check this availability for the design to be purchased outright as an exclusive design, email us at info@undameta.com and we will get in touch with the designer to request if it is possible to purchase the design as a Designer’s Exclusive Edition design. Sometimes it may be possible so please do ask.

Yes. All copyright and intellectual property rights are transferred to you if you purchase a Designer’s Exclusive Edition design from us.

Specification requirement
1. File type (software)
Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop
2. Design file formats

Tiff. AI or Layered File PDF formats
3. Colour profile

CMYK palette
4. Colour map

Pantone/ CMYK
5. Pattern file size for print
Strictly 150cm Wide x 100cm Height

6. Pattern file size for the website
Strictly square format in JPEG, PNG or WEBP (preferred) format 

7. Repetition
Patterns must match in repetition, to enable seamless scalability during bulk production. Work with the Pattern file size given above and ensure that the files submitted are exact repeats only. Do not submit multiple patterned artworks. If the tile repeats flawlessly they will be duplicated for width and length as required.
8. Resolution
Minimum 72 dpi; Maximum 300 dpi
9. Scale
Artwork should be supplied at 1:1 print scale
10. Pure black colour settings
C=100%, M=100%, Y=100%, K=100%

For detailed instructions on uploading and selling your surface pattern design on UndaMeta, we recommend watching this brief video.

Specification requirement
1. File type (software)
Adobe Illustrator
2. Design file formats

EPS or AI formats
3. Colour profile

CMYK palette with one key (100% Black) and two (2) spot colours. Use Pantone (Solid Coated) colour space for your spot colours.
4. Colour map

Pantone/ CMYK
5. Pattern file size for print
165cm Wide x 116cm Height

6. Pattern file size for the website
Strictly square format in JPEG, PNG or WEBP (preferred) format 
7. Repetition
Patterns must match in repetition, to enable seamless scalability during bulk production. Work with the Pattern file size given above and ensure that the files submitted are exact repeats only. Do not submit multiple patterned artworks. If the tile repeats flawlessly they will be duplicated for width and length as required.

Ensure you have a pindo all round your khanga design.
8. Resolution
Minimum 150 dpi and Maximum 300 dpi
9. Scale
Artwork should be supplied at 1:1 print scale
10. Pure black colour settings
C=100%, M=100%, Y=100%, K=100%