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Name the Dachshund

If you had to pick a name for this girl, what would it be?

On another note, my wife has volunteered to take over the duties of keeping my Facebook Page up to date. I know she’ll do a better job than I, since my updates were few and far between. Please check it our here.

Featured Artist Fulvio Ruggiero

I recently teamed up with the incredibly talented Italian fashion designer and artist Fulvio Ruggiero to distribute his remarkable series of Disney-inspired original art. Fulvio’s work will be featured in my shop, and will be available on various media, including prints, canvases and phone cases.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s coming. This example, inspired by the Disney film Frozen, shows Fulvio’s interpretation of sisters Anna and Elsa:

Prints and canvases aren’t available as of this writing (check back soon), but the phone cases are. Here’s what the “Frozen” iPhone case looks like:

You can find more phone cases featuring Fulvio’s original art here.

Also check him out on deviantART, linkedin and Facebook.

 

Fish on Friday

Who abstains from eating meat on Fridays during Lent? Personally, I do, but it just doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice when seafood is an option. This shot was taken at Kimono’s at the Walt Disney World Swan, one of our favorite sushi restaurants.

Nikon D800E, Nikkor 24mm f/1.4, ISO 3200, 1/50 sec @ f/1.4

Making a Custom Phone Case: Start to Finish

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the wide variety of mobile phone cases that I make and sell in my Etsy shop, and how to best choose a case to match your needs. On a similar note, I thought it would be interesting to share the process of making one of these cases, and more specifically, what is involved with personalizing the case using a photo provided by a customer. It all begins with a listing, which includes a thorough description of the case, ordering instructions and a photo which looks something like this:

As an example, I’ll use a recent sale to a customer who wanted a photo of her dog, Chloe, on an iPhone 4/4S case. The first step of course, was getting Chloe’s photo. I provided the customer with a link so that she could upload her photo to my file hosting service. This approach avoids the possibility of file corruption or compression that may occur when sending as an email attachment. Here’s what the uploaded photo looked like:

That’s a great shot of a beautiful dog, but there was one problem – the aspect ratio. You can see easily enough that the aspect ratio is 1:1 (it’s square). However, as you could probably guess, the aspect ratio of the iPhone 4/4S case is more like 2:1 (about twice as high as it is wide). Depending on the specific details of the photo, there are some creative ways to fit the entire image on the case. But in this situation, we were left with cropping as the most practical solution. To make sure my customer got what she wanted, I created the following digital proofs showing two cropping options:

She decided on the portrait orientation, which unfortunately meant that the date stamp was included in that part of the image. Luckily enough, it was in an area that was easily edited using Photoshop. Speaking of which, I use Phototshop to prepare my images for printing, and for phone cases usually print in groups of three for economic reasons. Here’s a screen capture showing Chloe, along with two of my more popular photos, ready for printing:

Here’s what that looks like coming out of the printer (notice how the images are reversed):

Positioning sublimation blanks on paper (two ready, Chloe next in line):

Getting ready to press:

Successful sublimation:

Chloe on her insert:

Insert and case, ready to be assembled (no second chances):

Got it right!

Making sure the case fits the phone:

One last inspection:

Ready for packing and shipping:

*****

That’s really all there is to it, and it sure is nice to have full control over each and every step of the process.