WooCommerce Help for Artists: Manage Your Own Clip Art

Applies to Cmsmart Product Designer (NBDesigner) 2.17.0 · Updated October 2026. Every feature named below is checked against the plugin's 2.17.0 changelog or a live capture on the Cmsmart demo store; anything the plugin does not do today is marked as custom development.

In short

  • Outcome: your shop's own artwork — not generic stock clipart — shows up for every customer who opens the designer, sorted the way your team actually works.
  • How it works: you upload art to Cmsmart's Cliparts library (Manager Arts), sort it into categories, and choose per product whether Cmsmart's shared library joins it or stays switched off.
  • What it takes: an afternoon to upload and categorize your first set, a decision on licensing, and (optionally) a short project if you want a library that's private to one client or brand.

WooCommerce help for artists: what's the real cost of a messy clip art library?

A clip art library with no structure costs a print shop time and brand consistency: staff re-upload the same icon to every product, customers can't find anything in one giant category, and nobody is sure which graphics are actually licensed for commercial print. Cmsmart's Manager Arts and per-product library controls fix the structure side of that problem.

  • Manual re-uploading. Without categories, the fastest way to get a logo or seasonal icon in front of customers is to add it to every product that needs it, one upload at a time.
  • A flat, unsearchable pile. Hundreds of clip arts dumped into one default category means customers scroll instead of browsing a relevant set.
  • Licensing is nobody's job. If an artist's personal portfolio pieces, a freelancer's commissioned set and random web finds all end up in the same bucket, it's easy to lose track of what your shop is actually allowed to print.
  • Every store looks the same. If the only clip art on your site is the library every other Cmsmart store can also turn on, your personalization experience doesn't look any different from a competitor's.

Cost of the status quo, with your own numbers: minutes spent re-uploading or re-finding art per week × your hourly design-ops cost × 52 weeks. The bigger cost is often customers who give up browsing and grab the first generic graphic they see — exactly what a real asset library prevents.

What would a branded clip art library look like for your shop?

Picture a Cmsmart store where every seasonal drop, every client's logo set and every house illustration style has its own category, visible to customers the moment they open Cliparts in the designer, with no repeat email requests for the same file.

Example scenario. A print shop's in-house illustrator finishes a set of 40 holiday icons, uploads it once to Manager Arts, and sorts it into a new Holiday 2026 category, leaving the shared Cmsmart library on for general-purpose shapes. A buyer customizing an ornament opens Cliparts, finds Holiday 2026 at the top, and finishes in a few clicks — the shop's own art, not a generic snowflake everyone else is using.

WooCommerce help for artists: the Invitation product page with Start and upload design button on the Cmsmart demo store
Real capture, demo store: the product page where a buyer starts designing — this is where your clip art library gets its first impression.

Choosing "design online" keeps your categorized clip art one click away the whole time.

Design here online or upload a full design chooser shown to a WooCommerce customer before the editor opens
Real capture, demo store: "Design here online" is where the Cliparts tab — and your library — come into play.

If buyer-facing creativity with clip art is what you're after rather than the admin side, our tutorial on how to make your designs come alive with cliparts covers that ground from the shopper's seat.

How does Cmsmart's clip art library actually work?

Cmsmart splits clip art into two layers: your own library, which you upload and categorize in wp-admin under the Media group's Cliparts page (Manager Arts), and Cmsmart's shared global library, which you can leave on, turn off site-wide, or restrict per product — so what a customer sees is always a decision you made, not a default nobody checked.

The flow, in six pieces:

  • Upload (Manager Arts). Add artwork with a name and a category, or move it into one later without re-uploading (added 2.12.0).
  • Categorize. Create as many categories as your catalogue needs — by season, by client, by product line — the same way WooCommerce lets you nest product categories into parent and child groups.
  • Shared library, your call. Cmsmart's own global library (synced from studio.cmsmart.net) spans tens of thousands of cliparts across dozens of categories; a site-wide "Enable global clipart library" setting and a per-product "Include Cmsmart global clipart library" option (both added 2.14.1) decide whether it shows up next to your own.
  • In the designer. Cliparts sits beside Templates, Text, Photos, Elements and Layers in the same panel buyers already use to design — no separate app, no extra login.
  • On the canvas. A dropped clipart can be moved, resized, rotated, flipped and recolored like any other element, and the panel loads a category's full set from the server rather than one static page (fixed 2.14.0, so large categories open correctly).
  • Into the order. Whatever the design is built from — your clip art, a template, an uploaded photo — it reaches the same designer, the same Process button and Cmsmart Cloud, the rendering service that turns it into a print-ready PDF.
Cmsmart Online Designer sidebar with Templates open, showing the Cliparts tool listed next to Templates, Text, Photos, Elements and Layers
Real capture, demo store: the designer sidebar is shown here with the Templates panel open; Cliparts sits in the same sidebar — whatever you categorize there is one click away for buyers.

Cmsmart insight: the stores that get the most out of this are the ones that treat clip art categories like product categories: a handful of well-named, well-stocked groups a buyer can scan in seconds beat one giant "Icons" bucket every time, even though search still works either way.

In the plugin today: uploading, categorizing, moving items between categories, and the global-library on/off switches. Not in the plugin: a library private to one business client, or one that syncs automatically from an external asset system — see custom development below.

StepGeneric / manual workflowCmsmart clip art workflow
New artwork reaches customersEmailed as a file, or re-uploaded to each product one at a timeUploaded once to Manager Arts and assigned a category
Organizing hundreds of itemsOne flat folder, renamed files to fake sortingReal categories; items can be moved between them without re-uploading (2.12.0)
What buyers seeWhatever happens to be uploaded to that product, or stock clipart everyone else also hasYour own categories, plus Cmsmart's shared library if you choose to leave it on
Brand and licensing controlHard to stop a product from showing art you don't controlShared library can be switched off site-wide or per product (2.14.1)
Where it livesA separate asset tool outside the storefrontInside the same Cliparts tab buyers already design with

What's the business value of managing your own clip art?

A categorized, licensing-aware clip art library turns a generic design tool into a brand asset: customers finish designs faster because they can actually find what fits, your team stops re-sending the same graphic by email, and you reduce the risk of printing something your shop never had the right to use commercially.

BenefitHow it shows up in your businessKPI to track
Faster personalizationBuyers browse a relevant category instead of scrolling a flat library or leaving to search stock sitesAverage time from "Start Design" to Process
Fewer support requestsStaff stop fielding repeat requests to re-attach the same logo, since the art is already in the designerDesign-related support tickets per week
Consistent brand lookSeasonal drops and house styles are categorized and ready the day they're uploadedShare of orders using your own categories vs. the shared library
Lower licensing riskYour team controls exactly which art is available for commercial print, instead of assuming an unchecked file is fineFlagged or disputed artwork per quarter

Rough worksheet (your numbers): minutes saved per product you no longer re-upload the same art to × number of products that use it × how many times a year you refresh the set = hours of design-ops time back. These are variables to fill in for your own shop, not a promised result.

One thing worth getting right before you upload a large set: who owns the art. An employee's work is yours by default (17 U.S.C. §201(b), which makes the employer "the author" and owner). A freelancer's work defaults the other way — they keep the copyright unless a signed written agreement says otherwise. This isn't hypothetical: US law allows statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful copyright infringement.

How do you set up and manage clip art categories in Cmsmart?

To set up your own clip art library in Cmsmart Product Designer, you install the plugin, open the Cliparts page under the Media menu group, and build categories as you upload — the whole flow runs in wp-admin and the result appears instantly in the buyer-facing designer. The steps below follow the plugin's documented 2.12.0–2.17.0 feature set rather than a screenshot walkthrough of the admin screen itself.

  1. In wp-admin, open the Cmsmart admin menu's Media group and choose Cliparts (the Manager Arts page).
  2. Add new artwork, give it a name, and assign it to an existing category or create a new one.
  3. To reorganize existing art later, use the per-item category control on each uploaded clipart to move it into a different category — no re-upload needed (added 2.12.0).
  4. Repeat for Backgrounds under Manager Backgrounds if your shop also supplies background art.
  5. Open the plugin's General settings and decide whether Enable global clipart library stays on, so Cmsmart's shared 69-category library appears alongside your own.
  6. Open a specific product's Clipart settings to include or exclude the global library for that product only, if some products should show only your house art.
  7. If your local library is empty and you haven't set a Flaticon API key, the plugin prompts you toward the Flaticon field on General settings for stores that want that catalogue too (added 2.12.0).
  8. Open the product page, click Start Design, and confirm your new category appears in the Cliparts tab the way a customer would see it.
  9. Place a test order using one of your own cliparts and check the design reaches the order with its print-ready file, the same as any other design.

For the color side of clip art — letting a buyer recolor an icon on the canvas rather than uploading a second version in every shade — see our tutorial on how to choose color in Cmsmart Product Designer, which covers that part of the editor in depth.

Finished WooCommerce product design saved as Your artwork, ready to add to cart
Real capture, demo store: once a buyer finishes a design — built from your clip art or anything else in the editor — it's saved and ready for checkout.
How to manage WooCommerce Online Designer clip art in the backend, video thumbnail
Video: How to manage WooCommerce Online Designer clip art in backend (Cmsmart on YouTube).

Going further: what can Cmsmart build on top of your clip art library?

Beyond uploading and categorizing, shops that outgrow the shared, site-wide library typically want it split by client or synced automatically from somewhere else — both are custom development Cmsmart builds on top of the plugin, not switches hidden somewhere in the settings.

  • A private library per B2B client. Today, Cmsmart's clipart libraries are shared across the whole store; a library that's visible only to one logged-in business account is custom development, and part of the Cmsmart B2B Ecommerce package's brand asset work.
  • Auto-sync from your own asset system. If your art already lives in a DAM, a shared Dropbox or an internal CMS, Cmsmart can build a sync so new approved art appears as a clipart category without a manual upload step.
  • Licensing and usage tagging. A custom field on each clipart recording its license, source and expiry, with an admin report before anything is printed.
  • Bulk tagging and smart search. For libraries running into the thousands, Cmsmart can add automatic tagging so customers can search by subject across your whole catalogue, not just scroll categories.

Cmsmart has run this kind of asset and design-tooling work since 2012 as part of its web-to-print projects — see the web-to-print solutions hub for the broader toolkit a project like this usually sits inside, or the product designer customization service for how this kind of work is scoped.

Plan a private clip art library

Why work with Cmsmart on your design asset library?

Cmsmart has built and supported the Product Designer (NBDesigner) plugin since 2012 as part of Netbase JSC, with the clip art and asset tooling shipping inside the same product your team already runs — not a bolt-on from a different vendor.

WooCommerce order detail showing a designed line item, print file status and a Download print PDF quick action
Real capture, demo order: any finished design — including ones built from your clip art — lands on the order with its print file and a Download print PDF action for your team.

Frequently asked questions

Can I add my own clip art categories to Cmsmart Product Designer?

Yes. Open Cliparts (Manager Arts) under the Cmsmart admin menu's Media group, upload your art, and assign or create a category for it. Customers see your categories in the Cliparts tab of the online designer as soon as they're published.

Can I turn off Cmsmart's shared clip art library and show only our own art?

Yes. A site-wide "Enable global clipart library" setting and a per-product "Include Cmsmart global clipart library" option, both added in 2.14.1, let you keep the shared library off everywhere or on a product-by-product basis.

How large is Cmsmart's shared clip art library?

The shared global library syncs from studio.cmsmart.net and spans tens of thousands of cliparts across dozens of categories, each category paged in from the server rather than loaded all at once (2.14.0).

Can I move clip art between categories without re-uploading it?

Yes. Since 2.12.0, hovering a clipart or background card shows a category picker next to the delete control, so you can re-file an item without deleting and re-uploading it.

Can each of our B2B clients have their own private clip art library?

Not out of the box — the plugin's libraries are shared across the whole store. A library that's private to one business client is custom development, delivered as part of the Cmsmart B2B Ecommerce package.

Does a design built from clip art still get a print-ready file?

Yes. Any finished design — whether it's built from your clip art, a template or an uploaded photo — goes through the same Process action, and with Auto export design to PDF on, that queues the print-ready PDF the same way for every design (2.16.0).