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When people retire or leave a job after working at the same organisation for years, you could get them a nice easy retirement gift or leaving gift. A box of chocolates. A bottle of wine.
Or you could get them something really personal and unique.
Retirement or leaving work gifts celebrate someone's time at a workplace, their contribution, their friends and colleagues. Retirement gifts are a lovely, often informal, way to say 'thank you' and 'don't forget us' and 'we've enjoyed having you here'.
From the point of view of the person retiring or leaving, the gift can also be the thing that focuses their memories. The gift is a prompt to remember the people and the place, the events and the funny stories.
Retirement gifts can be last minute afterthoughts but they're better when they're not. They can be personal and they can be unique.
Here are four personalised retirement gifts that you may not have thought about before (you may not have known that they even existed!).
This geometric artwork is created from a specific date. The day, month and year of the date are integral to the design of the print - they determine the colour proportions in each of the three rings of the design. Every date is different. You can choose from several colour schemes and the artwork has an attractive textured, organic appearance.
This is a unique way to celebrate a retirement date. It means you don't have to resort to numbers and letters to show the date. It looks like a piece of art (because it is a piece of art!) rather than a print with a date on it.
In many homes, art looks more attractive hanging on a wall compared to a print full of numbers and letters, no matter how beautiful the font or the design. So the retirement gift is more likely to be displayed and appreciated for years to come.
Some famous paintings have hidden meanings contained within them, and this geometric artwork has a hidden meaning derived directly from the retirement date. It's fun for the retiree to reveal the hidden date within the artwork to whoever sees it.
There's room underneath the geometric design to add your own special message, so you can make the print really personal.
This retirement wall art is much more traditional, and that's why it's just right for many people. There's a lot of room on the print to make it carry exactly the message you want. As well as the retiree's name and a short greeting ('good luck' or 'thank you'), there are three areas of free text - enough room for a personal message or two and the names of all the work colleagues.
You can choose from several colours. The name of the retiree has a painted appearance, so the whole print doesn't appear just as blocks of text - there's some visual interest in there as well. It's a look that has proved popular on some of our family names crosswords.
Crosswords take time and effort but they're worth it. They're really personal, you can get really creative with them and they make wonderful gifts.
We wrote a blog post about how one customer created a crossword for a work colleague. They had the brilliant idea of a crossword showing the names of everyone that worked with the person who was leaving. The clues were a mixture of facts and funnies - descriptions of appearance or work role or behavioural quirks. Read the full blog post here.
There are a lot of possibilities with a crossword. You could ask everyone who worked with the retiree to contribute clues and answers (that could be a nightmare, though!). You could have a crossword full of work references - acronyms, report names, jargon, tech-talk - that would only make sense to someone who had worked in your particular organisation.
The thing about crosswords is that people like them. They are unusual enough to provoke a positive reaction, they look attractive hanging on a wall or sitting on a sideboard. And they make wonderful keepsakes.
A custom piece of mandala art created from the retirement date. We translate the individual pieces of the date - the day of the week, day, month and year - into aspects of the mandala design. To find out exactly how we do it, there's an image in the gallery of the mandala page that explains it all (click on the picture below to go straight to the mandala page).
The retirement date is hidden in the design. But, if you know how it's hidden, you can work it out by looking closely at the mandala. When someone comments on the mandala, imagine explaining that it was created specifically from YOUR retirement date and then demonstrating how the date is hidden. Pretty unique, huh?
And of course, there's room below the mandala for your own special message - this is where you add a little bit of 'you' to the print and make it really personal.
You can choose from several colour schemes. Here's the 'rainbow' colour scheme - bright and bold, a unique retirement gift:
Click here to see the full elevencorners range of personalised retirement wall art.