Custom Throw Pillow With Your Photo Or Design

Throw pillows are the cheapest, fastest way to change how a room feels. Swap three cushions and a grey sofa reads completely differently. The catch is that shop bought throw pillows come from the same handful of prints, so the room ends up looking like a catalogue page rather than your home.

A custom throw pillow carries whatever image you choose. A black and white family photo, a pattern you designed yourself, a painting you made, a map of the town you grew up in, a close up of the sea from your last holiday. Placed among plain cushions, one personal pillow becomes the focal point of the sofa without the room feeling cluttered.

This page is about using custom pillows to decorate: sizes in inches and centimetres, how to style them, and how to choose an image that works as decor rather than just as a photograph. If the picture itself is the point and the room is secondary, photo pillows where the picture comes first covers that side.

A photo in black and white

Converting a family photo to black and white before uploading turns it from a snapshot into something that reads as decor. It sits comfortably in almost any colour scheme.

A landscape rather than people

The sea from a favourite beach, a mountain ridge, a field of lavender. Landscapes are calm, personal to you, and much easier to style than a group photo.

Your own artwork or pattern

Painters, illustrators and surface pattern designers print their own work to see it in a real room. Upload a high resolution file and both sides can carry it.

A design with words

A family name, the coordinates of a first home, a line from a song. Lay it out as an image in any design app and upload it like a photo. Keep the text large if the pillow is small.

The pet, styled properly

A well framed portrait of a cat or dog against a plain background works beautifully as decor. Cat throw pillows printed from a photo are among the most ordered.

A set from one trip

Three photos from the same holiday, printed in the same size, make a coordinated set that tells a story when lined up along a sofa.

An image that is perfect as a gift is not always perfect as decor. A few guidelines help a custom pillow look intentional in a room.

• Pick up a colour from the room. A photo with a touch of the same blue as your curtains or the same green as a plant ties the pillow into the space.
• Favour simple compositions. One subject against a plain background reads clearly from across the room. Busy group photos work better as gifts than as decor.
• Mind the resolution at 60 cm. A large pillow needs a large file. Photos from a modern phone are fine. Screenshots and images saved from social media usually are not.
• Patterns need to fill the square. If you are uploading a pattern, make sure it extends to all four edges, or it will print with a border.
• Edit first if you like. Cropping, converting to black and white or warming the colours in a phone editor before uploading is completely fine.

The free preview shows the image on the actual pillow shape, so you can judge it in context before anything is printed.

Interior designers tend to follow a handful of simple rules with throw pillows, and they apply just as well to custom ones.

• Use odd numbers. Three or five pillows look relaxed. Two or four look formal and symmetrical, which suits some rooms but not most living rooms.
• One statement is enough. A single photo or art pillow among plain ones has more impact than a whole sofa of photos.
• Echo a colour. Choose plain cushions in a colour taken from the custom pillow's image, so the set looks planned.
• Layer by size. Large at the back, medium in front, small accent pillows at the ends.
• On a bed, lean two 60 cm pillows against the headboard and place a 40 cm custom pillow in front, centred.

None of this is compulsory. Plenty of people simply put a photo of their dog in the middle of the sofa and are very happy about it.

A throw pillow is one of the easiest gifts to get right for a home, because it is useful, it does not need to match a whole room, and it can be swapped around if it does not suit one spot.

• For a new home, a housewarming throw pillow with a photo of the old house or the keys on moving day.
• For a couple, a black and white photo from their wedding or engagement, which sits easily in a shared living room.
• For an artist friend, a pillow printed with one of their own paintings, so they can see their work as something people live with.
• For grandparents, a photo of the grandchildren for the armchair they always sit in.

If you are buying for somebody else's home and do not know their colours, choose a black and white image or one with soft, natural tones. It will look deliberate in almost any room, and the person can always flip it to the other side if they prefer.

• Each pillow arrives finished: printed, filled and sewn shut. There is no insert to buy separately.
• Both sides are printed at no extra cost, edge to edge, with no white border on square pillows.
• The image is dyed into the fibres rather than printed on the surface, so it feels like fabric rather than a coating and does not crack when the pillow is squashed.
• Square is the standard throw pillow shape. Hearts and outlines cut to the image are available too, if you want something less conventional.

To clean it, put the pillow in a laundry bag and machine wash on a cool cycle, then let it air dry rather than tumble drying. A throw pillow on a family sofa gets leaned on, sat on and occasionally spilled on, so being fully washable matters more than it does for most decor.

Too many photo pillows

Five photo pillows on one sofa stop looking like decor and start looking like an album. One or two personal pillows among plain ones is usually the sweet spot.

A small file on a large pillow

An image that looks sharp on a phone can look soft at 60 cm. Use the original file, and check the preview at full size.

Text that is too small

Words that are readable on a screen can become illegible on a 20 cm pillow viewed from across the room. Make lettering bigger than feels necessary.

Colours that fight the room

A very saturated photo against a muted sofa can look out of place. Converting to black and white or choosing a softer image solves it instantly.

Using images you do not own

Artwork, logos and characters belonging to somebody else cannot be printed. Your own photos, your own designs and art you have permission to use are all fine.

Only ordering one size

A set of three in the same size looks lined up. Mixing a 60 cm with two 40 cm pillows looks styled, for the same effort.

Other formats and ideas for the home.

• all of our custom pillow formats, compared side by side
• pillows cut to a shape instead of a square, for something less conventional
• Custom plush, for a drawing or a pet cut to its outline
• a family photo for the living room, as a gift for the whole household