random buttons! If you see one you like click on it!

I can put anything you want on a button or sticker, images, text, photos, pressed flowers (*your* pressed flowers!)... and they cost the same as the normal buttons ($1) and stickers (25 cents).

READ ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE YOU ORDER!
please! thank you. : )

There are some very important things you need to consider before you ask me to make some for you though. I know there's alot to read, but it's important if you want good looking buttons.

• First off, I reserve the right to refuse to make for you if I don't agree with it. If you want something that's racist or homophobic or hateful, well then you are part of the problem and I'm not going to help you. No way.
• Please try not to ask me to make buttons that you've seen at Hot Topic or something. I'm not doing this so you can get buttons for cheaper than you can at some awful sweatshop-labor-using corporate store.
• Do ask me to make buttons for rad grrrl bands. Your band!
• Don't ask me to repaint the Mona Lisa for your button. Meaning, be reasonable about what you ask for. If I have to spend three hours in photoshop doing all sorts of crazy things I'm not going to be a happy kitty. Remember, you are only paying $1.
• Try to make your own designs if you can instead of just asking me to do it, even if you think it'll be really easy for me to do. You wouldn't believe how busy I tend to be.
• Do ask me to make rad buttons and then say I can use them on the site! That's always best.
• If you ask me to make you custom designs and then never pay for them, thus wasting lots of my time, I will probably never let you order again. If you are asking for alot of custom designs I might ask you to pay for them before I design them for you.
• Remember, I'm just one kitty doing *everything*.

Basically, I got a bit burnt out before because people were asking for buttons that were too complicated and that's why I stopped taking custom orders for awhile. I stress easy, so be good! Okay, enough negative stuff! I hope I didn't scare you off.

the mushycat button designer!

I wrote a new and very exciting Flash app that lets you make your own simple designs online! I'm hoping that it'll let more people make their very own designs, thus making my life a little easier and the world a better place! Well, the former mainly.

click here to read about how to use it

okay here we go...

There are two ways to get your buttons made - design them yourself with the Button Designer, Photoshop, or whatever image editing program you use, or ask me to make you a design from your idea or image. In any case, please read this entire page before you do anything else. It'll make things easier and you'll better understand what's involved.

If you need me to scan in something I can do that. If you are producing drawn artwork there's no reason to make it too small, take up a whole page if you like. Please do not fold any artwork you want me to scan. Put it between two pieces of cardboard in a proper mailer.

the basic template

This is the basic button template. Save it (right click on it and 'save as'), open it in your image editing program and put the your design in the inner circle. Try to keep text away from the very edges of the inner circle. The outer ring is where the design will 'wrap' around the actual button.

Here's an example of a well sized and placed text button:

the photoshop template
*You are NOT allowed to use my template unless you are ordering buttons from me*

If you use Photoshop you can download my simple psd button template here (you might have to right-click and do a 'save as'). The template that I personally use is much more fancypants, but I don't give it out. There are four layers:

Please do not flatten the photoshop file before you send it to me! Leave all the layers intact. It's much easier for me to fix or tweak something that way.

If you are making a photo button, don't crop out or fill in the part of the photo that's outside of the inner circle, it looks better if there's enough image to 'wrap' around the button.

how to make your own designs

Making a button design is rather simple. The main thing to remember is that you are composing for a circle. You'd think that would be obvious but it's amazing how many people send me an image that goes doesn't work in a circle. It's easy, actually picture it as a button. If there's text at the edges of an image it's probably not going to work. Here's an example:

If you wanted this entire war poster to be on your button there would have to be blank spaces left of the sides of it, which is probably not what you want:

The text is too small to read and it's just ugly. If you try to resize the image so that if fills all the white space then you lose the text:

It just doesn't work in the same way that a good design like this one does:

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image size

If you want to put an image on a button, is should be at least 300x300 pixels in size. Anything smaller than half that won't look good when it is resized. Here's an example of an image that is much too small:

and here's one that's a good size

:

other tips

Try to not put too much text on a button. Remember, they're small! 1 inch in diameter. If there's too much text no one is going to be able to read it. Try to use good bold fonts, but interesting ones. Times New Roman and Ariel are *boring*. Don't use them.

If you are a photoshop fiend, try not to use every effect and plugin that you have on your design. Keep it clean, keep it simple. There's no point to a pretty button if you can't read what it says because of all the beveling and drop shadows!

When you save your design, please save it as a bmp, tga, psd, or tiff file. DO NOT SAVE IT AS A JPG OR A GIF. Just don't. Please. Unless you know what you are doing, saving it as a jpg will only introduce artifacts into the image, making the quality suffer, and there's really just no need for that.

Do you want your design to look like this:

or this?

The first image is badly jpg compressed, the second isn't. See how much clearer the second one is?

Don't send me more than one design in a file! Each design should be in it's own file. You aren't helping me if you put all your designs in one big file, so don't.

If you are trying to find a certain image on the web and are having a hard time, try using the google image search!

If you don't know what you are doing, ask me for help!

how to order

If you've gotten to this point and you haven't read *all* of the text on this page, go back to the top right now and start reading it! If it's obvious to me that you haven't read the entire page I'm going to call you on it, and you'll just be wasting your time (and mine).

Okay, to order:

1. First, decide what you want then read this entire page again!
2. Then make up your designs or start collecting the images you want me to make into designs.
3. Then add the items below to your cart. Once they are in your cart you can change the quantity to however many customs you want.
4. Next, place your order by going through the whole checkout process. Then email me your button designs or images. If you are using the Button Designer send me your codes and fonts as well. Send them to ken@mushycat.com.
5. Then send in your payment. If there's anything we need to discuss about your designs before we can proceed I will email you. If not, I'll just send you renders of your buttons so you can see what they'll look like in button form. Like this:

If you are ordering custom stickers, there's a new rule: I will only make you a custom sticker design if you order four or more of the same design. It's just pointless for me to do all of the work I have to do for 25 cents.

If you are ordering alot of custom buttons at once and there's work for me to do on the designs, I'll require that you pay for your order before I do the design work. I'll email you to that effect if that's the case.

Oh, and please let me know if I can use your (original) design on the site!

Button	Sticker