Custom Shaped Pillow, Die Cut To Your Design

What die cutting actually means here

A normal photo cushion is a rectangle with an image printed inside it. A die cut pillow is cut to follow the edge of the subject, and the seam runs around that outline. There is no rectangle and no leftover background. If you send a drawing of a shark, you get a shark.

That changes what the object is. A rectangle with a shark printed on it is a cushion with a picture. A shark shaped pillow is a shark. People, and especially children, treat the two completely differently.

What you can send

Anything with a clear edge. In practice that means four categories.

Photographs

A person, a pet, an object. The subject needs to be separable from the background, which usually means it is in focus and the background is not, or the two are different enough in tone that the edge is obvious. A subject wearing the same colour as the wall behind them is the one case that causes trouble.

Children's drawings

This is the use we get asked about most and the one worth doing properly. Photograph or scan the drawing flat, in daylight, without a shadow across it. We print it exactly as drawn. We do not straighten the lines, correct the proportions or redraw it neatly, because the wobble is the entire point and a tidied version is somebody else's drawing.

Logos and lettering

Vector files are ideal but not required. A logo works well as a shape when it is reasonably solid. Very thin script lettering is the hardest case, for reasons covered below.

Illustration and commissioned artwork

Fine, provided you own it or have the artist's agreement. Plenty of orders here are pieces commissioned specifically to be turned into a pillow.

The constraint nobody mentions until after you have paid

A seam has to run around the entire outline, and a section of pillow has to be thick enough to hold filling and stay sewn. Below roughly one centimetre at final size, neither is possible.

So a cat's whiskers do not survive as whiskers. A thin antenna, a trailing ribbon, the crossbar of a thin letter: all of these get slightly thickened during production, or absorbed into the nearest solid shape. This is not a printing limitation, it is what a sewn edge physically requires, and every manufacturer in this category deals with it the same way.

The difference is when you find out. We trace the cut line, mark every section that has to change, and send it to you before payment. You approve the actual outline, not a description of one.

How size interacts with detail

Since the minimum is about a centimetre at final size, ordering larger keeps more detail. A drawing with fine lines that gets simplified at 30 cm often comes through intact at 60 cm. If the artwork is detailed and you care about the detail, go up a size rather than negotiating with the cut line.

Why it is measured on the longest edge

Width and height are meaningless across two different outlines. A shape that is 45 cm wide and 12 cm tall and a shape that is 12 cm wide and 45 cm tall are the same size in every way that matters to you and to shipping. So you choose the longest edge, 30, 45 or 60 cm, and the rest of the shape scales with it.

Why there is no removable cover

On a square cushion a removable cover is straightforward, because the insert is also a square and the two match. On an irregular outline they cannot. Filling shaped to a rectangle inside a cover shaped like a dinosaur collapses at every limb.

So die cut pillows are filled and closed as one piece. They are machine washable cold, and reshaping them by hand while damp brings the outline back. If you specifically need a removable cover, a square shape is the right choice, and the custom photo pillow route covers that.

Where this sits against the other shapes

If the outline you want is an animal, the process is identical but the photo advice is specific enough that the custom pet pillow page is the better starting point, particularly on lighting dark coats.

If it is a person's head, the same is true of the custom face pillow page, which covers hairline cutting and headroom.

If you want a full length shape rather than a compact one, a custom body pillow is a different construction entirely, and the guide at custom shaped pillows compares all of these side by side with examples of cut lines.

Questions people ask

Should I remove the background before sending it?

Please do not. Phone apps that cut subjects out leave a halo of background coloured pixels along the edge, which prints as a visible fringe. Send the original and we handle the edge properly.

Can I have a different image on each side?

Yes, as long as both fit the same outline. A common version is the drawing on one side and the child's name on the other.

How long does a complex shape take?

The same three days as a simple one. Cutting is part of production rather than a stage added on afterwards, so complexity costs you nothing in time.

What if the cut line is not what I expected?

Say so and we redraw it. You are approving the outline before payment, which is the whole reason that step exists.