Design your tiles in Canva

Canva is where most people draw their tiles, so here is the whole trip, from a blank design to a ZIP of finished pictures. Free Canva is enough.

Before you start, print the checklist. It lists the 53 tiles in the editor's order, and that order is the page order of your design.

1. Start from our Canva template

The quick way: open our Canva template and press Edit template. Canva makes a copy in your account, already the right size, with 53 blank pages titled for their tiles in the checklist's order. Then skip to step 2.

The long way, if you would rather build it yourself:

1. In Canva, press Create a design, then Custom size.
2. Set the units to px and type 1026 wide by 1554 tall. Press Create new design.

Use pixels, not inches. Free Canva downloads a PNG at the design's own pixel size, and the "larger size" slider on download is a Pro feature. A design sized in pixels gives you enough pixels without it. 1026 by 1554 is exactly twice what our press prints on one face, in the same proportions, so nothing gets cropped when it lands on the tile.

2. Leave the background white

The face of a tile is white and the editor places your picture on white, so you do not need the transparent-background download (also Pro). Keep anything important away from the very edge: the outer 1/16 inch of every tile is a white border we cannot print on, because the edges are rounded and polished and ink there scuffs off.

3. One page per tile, in the checklist's order

Our template already has the 53 pages, titled. If you built your own design:

1. Draw your first tile, the 1 Bam, on page 1.
2. Press Add page (or duplicate the page, to keep the style) for each tile after it, in the checklist's order. The 1 Bam is page 1, the 9 Bam is page 9, the Green Dragon is page 10, and so on down to the back on page 53.
3. Give each page its title from the checklist (press Add page title above the page and type "1 Bam"). Titles are not printed. They are how you find a page later, and they keep the order honest.

The six blank tiles need no page. They stay blank. A shortcut: with a page selected, Command and Enter on a Mac (Control and Enter on Windows) adds the next page without reaching for the button.

4. Lettering that reads across a table

A tile is an inch and a half tall and it gets read from across the table, often by someone past fifty. Dark letters on a light background, or light letters on a dark one, with thick strokes. Blue on blue is not lettering. It is a rumor.

5. Download every page as its own file

1. Press Share at the top right, then Download.
2. File type PNG. Under Select pages, All.
3. Press Download. Canva gives you a ZIP with one PNG per page, numbered in page order. Unzip it.

The size says 1,026 by 1,554 px because the design was made in pixels. The crowns beside the size slider, the quality setting and the transparent background mark Pro features; you need none of them. Fifty-three files, each 1026 by 1554, each under 4 MB. That is exactly what the editor wants.

6. Open a blank set and upload them all at once

1. Go to Bring your own artwork, name your set and press Open a blank set. You need a free account, so your set is saved to you.
2. In the editor, open the Upload tab and press Upload photo. Select all 53 files at once. Pick New folder under "Upload to" and name it for your set, so the pictures stay together.

3. Open each tile from the tile picker (it is grouped: Bams, Craks, Dots, Winds, Flowers, Jokers, and the back, and you can search by name). Drag its picture from Your uploads onto it and place it exactly where you want it. Every tile is your call. 4. Press Done. Your set is saved in My Designs, and nothing is in your cart until you put it there.

7. Check it at real size, then order

Open the True Size Proof from My Designs, print it on Letter paper at 100%, and read every tile. Names and spelling first. Then Add to Cart, tick the box that says you checked it, and check out. The steps are in Design a set, start to finish.

Stuck anywhere? Write to us. Working in Procreate, Photoshop or something else? The same numbers apply: 53 pictures, 1026 by 1554 pixels, PNG or JPEG, white background. The rest is in Uploading your own artwork.