Here are a few more of my designs from Halloween Vintage…
Category Archives: Design
Graphic design by Jay Thomson
Sneak Preview: Writing a book about Zazzle
This Painted iPad cover is just one of hundreds of products I designed from my original oil painting, available in my Zazzle shops.
It’s been a hectic couple of weeks in the house o’ Lava, as I’ve been writing my little fingers to the bone… Yes! It’s true! I finally started writing (as in typing & layout/graphic design) the book I’ve been thinking about for two years… I’ve made terrific headway (about 135 pages so far) and found an editor to help me along the wily route of publishing. More on that later (much, much later).
What’s it about? In short, it’s a book about Zazzling. That is, using Zazzle to design and print your own…anything. (Well, actually you do the designing, and Zazzle does the printing.) I wished I’d had a book like this when I first started designing for Zazzle more than two years ago. I kept searching the library and book stores for something similar, and nobody has one. Even Amazon doesn’t have any books on the subject. So I did the only thing I could think of: I wrote it myself. It aims to be a very complete, how-to book on how to use Zazzle. It has everything from the very basics, to projects for advanced users. I’m estimating the total page count will be several hundred pages. It is lavishly illustrated throughout. Read the rest of this entry
I see a fabulous Halloween in your future!
Customizable Fortune Teller card by J. Thomson at Halloween Vintage (more…)
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Word Game Fabrics – Now Available! (Updated)
Printed on Cotton Sateen fabric.
UPDATE 8/26/11: I spent most of yesterday re-drawing this design (as I mention later in this post), but I was so happy with the results that I uploaded the revisions as REPLACEMENTS for the printed samples shown here, instead of completely new designs in addition to these. Updated photos are forthcoming, but you can see the designs at the end of this post.
A while back I designed three coordinating fabrics inspired by the Scrabble® brand crossword game. My fabric proofs just arrived from the printer, and here they are… Read the rest of this entry
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Toy Robot cut-n-sew project
I designed this easy-to-sew soft Toy Robot for Spoonflower’s “plushie pattern” contest (my first experience making a soft toy & first time using Sketchup 3D software.) The challenge was to design a soft toy that would fit on one fat quarter of fabric (18″ x 21″). It was a tough challenge to get all the necessary parts and pieces of the Robot to fit, but I finally figured it out without having to reduce the size of the finished piece. When completed, this soft Toy Robot stands over 17″ tall.
| Please vote for my design here (voting is open from August 25th until August 31, 2011 at 6pm Eastern). There are 9 pages of designs, and they are randomized for each voter. You can vote for as many designs as you like, but PLEASE VOTE FOR MINE! You have to go through all 9 pages and click “Save my votes” at the end. if you like it, soon you can purchase the fabric here to make your own! (I’m waiting for the proofs of the printed fabric to arrive.) |
Keep reading for the sewing instructions to make this adorable stuffed Robot. Just purchase one fat quarter of the fabric for each Robot you want to make. [Hint: If you’re making more than one, change the repeat from “centered” to “basic repeat” under layout options when you order the fabric. Then you’ll get FOUR Robots on a single yard of fabric, which is much cheaper than ordering four fat quarters. For the contest, designed MUST be “centered”.) It was designed for the quilting-weight cotton (which is the least expensive fabric Spoonflower offers), but you can print it on other fabrics as well. Read the rest of this entry
Green Stone Binders & More
Green Stone & Linen Custom Binders by J. Thomson at The Bindery on Zazzle. (more…)
Award Winners
Aug 19
This gallery contains 12 photos.
Each day, thousands and thousands of new designs appear on Zazzle, the world’s largest Print-On-Demand retailer. And each day, Zazzle hand-picks a few of that day’s best designs (usually around 30, but it varies from day to day) and features them on a page called Today’s Best.
Free Fabric Swatch — 24 hours only!
Today is “Free Fabric Swatch” day at Spoonflower.com. That is, until Noon tomorrow (Friday, August 19th, 2011) you can get a single swatch of custom fabric for free, instead of the normal $5.00. Even the postage is free. It can be one of my fabrics, or any other fabric for sale at Spoonflower. It’s a great way to sample the quality of custom fabric printing from Spoonflower.
EDIT: It seems that Spoonflower’s servers have been overwhelmed… the site has been slow all morning, and it just crashed as I clicked “place order”. If this happens to you, just try again later. Hopefully the problem will be sorted out soon. You can also check for updates on Spoonflower’s Facebook page.
EDIT: Spoonflower’s Free Swatch Day was a big success! They gave away 7,300 free swatches of fabric, and also raised $2,500 for Heifer International. Read more about it on the Spoonflower blog here. Read the rest of this entry
Eastern State Penitentiary Photos: A grunge texture set
Aug 13
This gallery contains 11 photos.
Yesterday I toured Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia with my aunt and uncle. Here are some photos I took of the crumbling ruin, which I am releasing on Flickr under the Creative Commons Share Alike license. They could be useful to someone working on a graphic design project in need of grungy textures, patterns or [...]
