The tile you're designing for
Every Little Sparrow tile is 26 × 36 × 12 mm (1.02″ × 1.42″ × 0.47″), cut from solid pure white acrylic. That gives a portrait-shaped face with a 26 : 36 ratio — a little taller than it is wide. Your artwork is UV-printed directly onto that face in full colour and protected with a durable finish, then each tile is tumbled, polished, finished and packaged by hand in our Phoenix, Arizona studio.
Each one is a complete American Mahjong (NMJL) set of 160 tiles: the 152-tile set, including 8 jokers, plus 8 spares. Each tile is 26 × 36 × 12 mm, cut from solid pure white acrylic, with your artwork UV-printed onto the face.
What to send us
You don't need to be a designer, and you don't need to prepare anything at tile size. Send whatever you already have, in the largest and sharpest version you can find:
- Photographs — people, pets, places, objects.
- Illustrations, paintings or children's drawings (a good photo or scan is fine).
- A crest, logo or monogram.
- A colour palette, a fabric, wallpaper or an invitation you'd like the set to echo.
- Or simply a description — tell us the idea and we can develop the design with you.
How we fit artwork to 26 × 36 mm tiles
You supply the images; we fit each one to a tile and make the small adjustments needed so the whole set reads as one consistent, beautiful collection. That means cropping to the portrait tile face, balancing colour and scale across the suits, and keeping important details clear of the tile's safe margins so nothing is lost at the edges. The art stays yours, and you keep the rights to anything you supply.
A set can carry as few as one design or as many as you like. A single image can repeat across the set, each suit can have its own, or every one of the 160 tiles can be different. Because American Mahjong is played from the card, we keep the craks, bams, dots, winds, dragons, flowers and jokers recognisable so the set works with any current NMJL card and standard racks and pushers.
The approval process
Nothing is printed until you say so. You see the complete set, tile by tile and in 3D, and revisions are unlimited. When every tile looks right, you give written approval. Design and approval typically take 3–4 weeks, depending on how quickly you return changes; production after approval typically takes about 4 weeks, then the set ships with tracking in its presentation case.
Price
A complete set of custom tiles is $499 at our introductory price, or $748 with custom printed backs. You can order more than one set in a single checkout, and you can book a free 30-minute video consultation from the One of One page.