Custom Pet Pillow From Your Photo

Most companies that print pet products mean dogs. Some remember cats. Almost nobody prints the rabbit, the horse, the elderly parrot or the corn snake, which is a shame, because those owners are just as attached.

We print all of them, from one photo.

A custom pet pillow is a cushion with your animal printed on it. Square, cut around their outline, or full length. It arrives filled and ready to use, and you see a free preview before paying anything.

Prices start at $25 and production takes about three days.

If your pet is a dog or a cat, there are dedicated pages with species specific advice: custom dog pillows covers photographing dark coats and choosing between formats, and custom cat pillows explains the whisker problem and why the loaf position cuts so well.

This page is for everything else, and for the parts that apply to every animal.

A cushion printed with a photograph of your own animal rather than a generic illustration of their species. Everything comes from your picture, which is why a three legged rescue or a rabbit with one lop ear comes out looking like themselves.

Formats

• Square cushion around 40 x 40 cm, keeping the background of the photo
• Die cut, where the pillow follows their outline and the background disappears
• Full body at 150 x 50 cm, for larger animals photographed lying down
• Mini around 15 to 20 cm, cheap enough to order one per pet

How it is printed

Dye based inks are pushed into the fibers rather than sitting on top, so fur, feathers and scales keep their texture and nothing peels after washing. Double sided printing is standard, which owners of multiple pets often use to put one animal on each side.

What arrives

A finished cushion, filled with polyester fiber and sewn shut. There is no removable cover, because an irregular outline needs its own filling to hold the shape.

A note on what it is not

This is not a pet bed and not a chew toy. It is a keepsake for the human. Animals will absolutely try to claim it anyway, which is charming right up until something gets chewed.

General advice applies to every animal: eye level, daylight, no flash, a background that contrasts with them, and at least 1500 pixels on the short side. Beyond that, different species have different problems.

Rabbits and guinea pigs

They flatten themselves against the ground, which makes them read as a fur blob from above. Get the camera right down to floor level and photograph from the side so the ears and head separate clearly from the body.

Horses

Stand back further than feels right and use a side on view. Photographs taken close up from the front give an enormous nose and a tiny body. If you want a die cut, avoid photos where the legs cross, because overlapping legs make an outline impossible to follow.

Birds

Feather detail prints beautifully and is worth showing off, so get close. Legs and claws are too thin to cut around, so a die cut bird is usually cut around the body and head with the legs left printed inside the shape. A perched side on photo works best.

Reptiles

Scales need direct, even light to show pattern, and glass tanks cause reflections that print as strange white patches. Photograph them out of the enclosure if it is safe, or shoot at an angle to the glass rather than straight through it.

Small animals in general

The smaller the animal, the more likely your photo is of the top of their head. Almost every improvement comes from lowering the camera rather than from a better camera.

The right format depends on the animal's shape more than on their size.

Compact animals suit die cut

Rabbits, guinea pigs, curled cats and sitting dogs are rounded shapes with no thin parts, so the cut line is strong and the finished pillow holds its silhouette. These come out best.

Leggy animals suit square

Horses, birds and anything standing on thin legs lose those legs in a die cut, because a two centimeter minimum applies to anything that has to be sewn. A square cushion keeps the whole animal exactly as photographed.

Long animals suit full body

A stretched out dog, a long snake or a large lop rabbit photographed lengthways fits the 150 x 50 cm format naturally, and prints close to life size.

Multiple pets

If they are in one photo together, any format works. If they are in separate photos, a set of minis is usually better than combining them, because merged photos rarely match in light and scale.

Fabric

Peach skin for every animal photo. It is matte, so fur and feathers read as texture rather than shine.

A large share of pet orders are memorial pieces, across every species. The approach is the same whatever the animal was.

Tell us at checkout

There is a notes field. Say it is a memorial piece and the print is checked twice instead of once before shipping. It costs nothing.

Old photos

Animals who lived a long time were photographed on old phones. Those files are small. Send them anyway and we will tell you honestly whether the photo can carry the size you want, and suggest a smaller format if it cannot, rather than taking the order and hoping.

We do not add wings, halos, clouds or text unless you ask. Most people want their animal exactly as they were.

Species specific notes

For dogs and cats there is more detail on the dog pillow page and the cat pillow page, including which formats owners usually choose.

If anything about the finished piece is wrong, tell us and we remake it.

Size is the decision people get wrong most often with pets, because the instinct is to match the size of the real animal. That is the wrong reference.

• 20 cm is a keepsake. It sits on a shelf or a desk and travels in hand luggage. It suits a cat or a small dog cut to its outline, and it is too small for a group.
• 40 cm is what most people picture. One animal fills it properly, square or die cut, and it works on a sofa without taking the sofa over.
• 60 cm is for a large breed cut to its outline, or for more than one animal in the same frame.

A great dane at 20 cm and a hamster at 60 cm both look wrong for the same reason: the size is doing something the photograph is not. Match the size to how much of the frame the animal fills, not to how big it is in life.

Households with two or three pets ask the same question, and there are three answers depending on the photograph you have.

If they sit still together, one square cushion of all of them is the simplest order and the one most people are happiest with. If they will not sit together, which is most of them, a grid of separate photographs on one cushion works and nobody has to be bribed with treats.

The third answer is one pillow each, cut to each animal's outline. It costs more, but it is the version that gets ordered again the following year when another animal joins. Both faces of every cushion print at the same price, so one animal on the front and another on the back is one order rather than two.

This page covers pets in general. The photography advice genuinely differs by animal, so each has its own page.

• Custom dog pillows, including which coats and colours cut cleanly
• Custom cat pillows, why whiskers cannot be cut around, and why a sleeping loaf is the easiest shape we sew
• Pet memorial pillows, when the photograph is the only one left
• Custom gifts for dog owners, if you are buying for someone else's animal
• Custom shaped pillows, the mechanics of what can and cannot be cut to an outline
• Custom photo pillows, if you want the background kept rather than cut away
• Ready to order? The pet pillow product page has the sizes and prices