PICA Things We Love | Japanese Design Pop Art Print Illustrations and Poster Quotes

PICA News

New at PICA—Digital Downloads!

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Introducing PICA Things We Love Digital Download Prints! You know PICA Things We Love as the high-quality colourful illustration professionally printed wall art print shop. Now you’ll be able to choose between ordering a physical print shipped directly to your door and an instant digital download. The digital download print lets you have the artwork right away, saving shipping time and cost. It allows you to print it at home, at the local print shop you love, or at an online print store you trust. It gives you a choice to have the print in a variety of sizes that go beyond what we offer at the moment for our physical prints and the option to print multiple copies: one for your home, one for your office, and one for anywhere else that you can think of.

The Digital Downloads are available here on our PICA website and on our Etsy shop.

The first prints available are the newly added series of Halloween prints. Over the coming weeks, we’ll expand our digital downloads library, starting with our best sellers.

So what do I get with a digital download purchase?

Each offered digital download print will get you five high-quality, high-resolution 300dpi PNG print files in:

→ 2:3 ratio for printing 4×6 in., 6×9 in., 8×12 in., 10×15 in., 12×18 in., 16×24 in., 20×30 in. and 24×36 in
→ 3:4 ratio for printing 6×8 in., 9×12 in., 12×16 in., 15×20 in. and 18×24 in
→ 4:5 ratio for printing 4×5 in., 8×10 in., 12×15 in., 16×20 in., 24×30 in. and 40×50 cm
→ International paper size (ISO) for printing 5×7 in., A5, A4, A3, A2, A1 and 50×70 cm
→ 11×14 in.

PICA's Digital Download frame sizes

You can downsize each file to any of the mentioned frame sizes within the specified ratio. Each file being 300dpi means you could potentially go even bigger, but there might be slight quality loss in the process. Staying within the provided sizes means you will always get the best quality print possible from the printer.

And if you have trouble printing any files or have a custom size in mind not listed, don’t hesitate to send us a message.

How do I print my digital artwork?

This is up to you! You can print your artwork from your home with the printer you love. You can get it printed professionally from your local or online print shop.

For best results, use a high-quality medium or heavyweight stock matte photo paper with quality ink professional printer. For reference, all our physical prints are printed with bleed on a high-quality heavyweight 189g/m2 stock Epson Enhanced Matte Paper on a professional wide format Epson printer using 100-year lasting pigment ink technology.

This is what our print looks like hot off the press.

How does digital download work?

After clearing your payment, you can access your digital download files on the Order Confirmation page. In addition to the order confirmation email, you will receive a separate email containing the link to your purchased artwork files. This link will expire 24 hours after the purchase. You can then receive a new download link by clicking on the expired one, and it will be sent to your email address used for the initial purchase.

If you are shopping on Etsy, you can access your instant digital download files by going to Your Account > Purchases and reviews. Once you have located your order, click the “Download now” button.

We are very excited to introduce our digital download prints and offer them at discounted prices for a limited time! We hope our illustration prints continue to bring colour and joy to your walls.

New PICA prints: the Halloween edition!

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The spooky season is well upon us. Is your home decorated in all its wickedly horrifying attire yet? Or perhaps your walls are missing that something-something? Because we have something new and frightfully delightful for you. Our ever-colourful library of prints just welcomed three new additions featuring ghosts, bats, eerie Daruma and more. So without further ado, please meet our new Halloween illustration PICA prints.

Halloween Daruma Jack-o'-Lantern Pop Art Print

Our grumpy Daruma-san has transformed into a Jack-o'-lantern, accompanied by a cauldron of bats. Why not change up your Daruma print for this spooky seasonal edition?

Wait, what is Daruma, you ask? Daruma (だるま・達磨) is a traditional Japanese doll and a symbol of perseverance and good luck. It is used to set goals by colouring one of the doll's eyes when setting a goal or making a wish and colouring the other when that goal has been achieved, or that wish came true. Interested in hearing more of what makes Daruma so special to us, head on over here.

 

Supernatural Halloween Ghost Pop Art Print

How about a Japanese-style supernatural Halloween ghost print? Here we have a frightfully hauntingly-cute ghost in this magical starry night, a pair of eerie onibi spirits and a flying cauldron of bats. What a fun ghostly delightful addition to any wall!

Hold on, what are these onibi you speak of, you say? Onibi (おにび・鬼火), literally translated as demon or ghost fires, are a type of atmospheric ghost lights popular in Japanese supernatural folklore. They are the spirit fireballs born from the remains of the departed. They are often believed to be vengeful spirits or spirits with unfinished business. In short, a must-have for your Halloween decor!

 

Spooky Halloween Bats Pop Art Print

And last but not least, the spooky cute cauldron of bats in the night sky Halloween print! Who doesn't love bats at Halloween? No, really, who? They are just so adorable! Halloween is not complete without them, as they are simply essential.

So there you have it—our Halloween collection just for you and your walls. But don't wait too long. Halloween is just around the corner.


Oh, I almost forgot! Don't want to wait for your print to arrive at your door? Well, we've got some news for you! All our Halloween prints are available as Digital Downloads, and for a limited time, they are on SALE! So, what are you waiting for? Head on over here to shop now!

Our shop’s site got featured!

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This week our website got featured on Freelancer in an article titled “Top 10 Squarespace website designs of 2020”! As the title suggests, the article lists top 10 inspirational creative sites that utilize the Squarespace template capabilities.

At PICA we customized this site ourselves and are very honoured to have made it on the top 10 Freelancer’s list. That being said, we don’t only do illustrations. We are designers first, and this is not the only Squarespace site that we took under our wing. If you have time, check out our portfolio / alter ego at buoyantstudio.com ( ^_^)ノ

Click here to read the full article. We are listed as #5. :)

New Print: Celebrating our new addition to the PICA team

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I know you guys haven’t heard from us much of the past year and thensome, but we do have a really good reason for it. You see, we are now officially a three-man-plus-cat team. Or to be exact, a two-man-one-baby-plus-cat team. Feel free to pick your favourite.

Almost a year ago, Boxing Day in fact, our new rollercoaster adventure began when our family team expanded and turned our lives in a new exciting direction. I had grand plans to be inspired by this new joy brought into our home and create a new line of prints, but perhaps that was a tad too ambitious. One print did happen though. It was specifically created in honour of our little one. So please welcome our newest PICA collection print “Misha”.

There are two reasons why this print is titled Misha. First, misha (миша) is a colloquial name for bear in Russian. It is a short version of the traditional Russian word for bear—medved’ (медведь). Second, it is also the name of our little girl, Mischa. Traditionally, Misha in Russian is a diminutive name for Mikhail (Michael). Seeing how this name is also given to girls outside of Russia, we decided to do just that. We loved the Russian play on words so much that I knew I had to create a print in Mischa’s honour with an illustration of an adorable bear. And so this print was born.

We are so overjoyed by this new step in our lives, that we wanted to share the joy with you. To do that, this weekend we are offering the Misha print at a 20% discount on all sizes! Wouldn’t that make for a great present this season? We certainly think so!

Also, in case you didn’t already know, since all our prints are printed to order, we do offer colour customization options. So if you like any of our prints, but feel that the colours won't fit in with your decor, please contact us and I am sure we can work something out.

Festive greetings and joyful holiday shopping to everyone!

misha-white-double.jpg

Misha Bear Prints

Shop here for the various colour combinations to suit your woodland space.

New Awesome Shipping Price: FREE!

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pica-free-shipping.png

Great news for our US, Canadian and Japanese customers: we now ship to you for FREE! No minimum order required. :)

To the rest of the world we now ship for a lower flat fee of US$5. You can still qualify for free shipping when you spend US$50 with a FREESHIP50 coupon at checkout!

For more information on our shipping procedures and delivery times please visit our Shipping page.

Shop our awesome prints here: picathingswelive.com
Shop etsy: https://etsy.me/2wS5fZp

Sincerely eagerly awaiting your orders :)

Our Happy PICA Birthday! We are turning 3!

Thoughts, PICA NewsAlyonaComment
pica-bday-17.png

Today marks three years since we launched our first set of bright Pop Art prints into the world! And this year, our third, was definitely a very busy year for us. Settling down in a new place, let alone in a new country, has kept our days full with lots to do. Busy putting down the much needed foundation for a forthcoming creative new year. As I am typing this we already have a pair of new prints underway in their final stages of brand new colour scheme development for us to kick off the new PICA year on a creative note. *Spoiler alert* This time we are taking a new direction and going a bit more historical, channelling the upright warrior nerd in all of us. *End spoiler* 

Ambitions aside, we are very excited to have made it into our 3rd year of our artistic endeavour, and endlessly thankful for all the support and feedback we have received from you! We are hopeful and eager to grow our toddler enterprise into something big one day, to continue to spread and share our love for colour and Japanese culture with the rest of the world. Because at PICA we believe that everyone should have a dash of happiness on their walls!

*making a wish and releasing the balloons*  ゝ(▽`*ゝ)

We’ve moved to Japan! Back to where it all began!

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Last month we said goodbye to our hometown Toronto, Canada and got on a 14-hour flight to continue our PICA adventure in the land that inspired it all. That’s right, the three of us are now officially back in Japan!!! More specifically in Yokohama—the large city on the bay with a great Chinatown, and a stone’s throw away from Tokyo on the north and the beautiful serene mountains on the south-west.

This is our second move to Japan, and PICA’s first. It’s been awhile, almost four years ago, since we left Japan after settling here for two years in 2011. And it’s breathtaking to see how many things have changed and evolved since then. Tokyo, as one would expect, is truly an ever-changing city. That makes it equally nostalgic and exciting. Living so close to it gives us that unique opportunity to live through its transformations and happenings, and perhaps even take part in them. We can’t stop to hope that perhaps one day PICA too will find itself in a small shop somewhere on one of Tokyo’s quintessential streets, not just paying a tribute to the culture, but physically becoming a part of it.

yokohama-daruma

So what now?
Right now we are taking some time to settle in. We have our new place, but it is bare and waiting for our furniture and some decorating love. Once we fully settle in, we hope you’ll be seeing more blog posts about our new fabulous adventures under the rising sun as well as fun insights on what’s new and happening here and now.

We truly believe that being back is essential to our happiness (cause we love it here so!) and gives us that unique chance to draw our inspiration from this rich colourful culture first-hand for new and exciting ideas for our future prints and Japanese insights for our blog.

So stay tuned for more updates on our grand move! There are sure to be a great deal of new thrilling milestones in store for us in the year to come—an incredibly exciting time for PICA and us!

hime-in-yokohama

P.S. Hime Himstar the Great is a trooper and a true travel cat! We are so ecstatic to have her with us. And she herself quite loves the new place as well! (=^ェ^=)