Photo gifts: examples and tips for making them
A photo is something special. It is an object, more or less large, it can fit in a wallet or hang on the wall of our living room. At the same time a photo is much more than that: it represents a “privileged moment” as the American writer and philosopher Susan Sontag describes it, a memory, an emotion, a distant place, a dream for the future, a moment not to be forgotten, the closeness of our loved ones.
This is why photo gifts — that is, gifts that decline a photo in the most creative ways — are always a popular thought, create a strong connection and are definitely customizable.
Today we’re giving you 5 creative ideas for photo gifts: from canvases used for decorating to photo frames for giving someone a treasured memory, moving on to other types of photo gifts-calendars, T-shirts, mugs and bottles. In this article on photo gifts you will find some ideas about the subjects to use and the occasions on which to give these gifts. Not forgetting valuable technical information about the objects and media that will embellish your gifts with photos.
Photo gifts for decorating: the best subjects for canvases
The canvas is really one of the best of the photo gifts. But what exactly is it? Canvas or canvas fabric is a medium that simulates the canvas of a painting. It is often used in interior design effectively to decorate spaces in a personal and sophisticated way. That’s the short answer (we gave the long answer in the article “What is canvas (and why to use it to decorate)”).
If you choose canvas to make a photoregal, in a single gesture you can give something very intimate and personal that at the same time is also a modern piece of furniture.
You were in South America, after a tiring day of walking with your friend, when you took a photograph of a wonderful Andean panorama. A glimpse of street art stolen from the rainy city where your companion has lived for so long. A rope folded over your backpack, white hands, a rock face-three details of the sporting passion you share with your father. These are all examples of subjects particularly suitable for photo gifts with canvas.
Indeed, one of the advantages of canvas for photo gifts is the freedom of composition: canvas paintings allow you to play with images and canvas sizes. For example, in a canvas painting you can make a collage of your photos. Or you can think in the opposite way: divide a photo into several pictures so as to increase the sense of movement and act on their size and positioning.
Other advantages of photo gifts on canvas include the depth of colors and the artistic touch given by the fabric, the lightness and manageability of the canvas (as well as the fact that there is no reflection on the glass). You can find more details about Pixartprinting printed canvas canvases here.
Photo gifts for reminiscing: ideas for great photo canvases
Photoframes are another great idea for photo gifts. These are photographs printed on canvas fabric with a frame that can often help them stand out on the wall. The canvas backing also embellishes this photo gift by mimicking the texture of a painting and providing perfect color depth.
Gifting a photo frame can be a good idea to give something very intimate or personalized. One and the same place can be told with more details: for example, a particular flower you photographed on your first spring walk in the woods can be juxtaposed with a strange mushroom you uncovered, in the fall, in the same corner. Photos of funny and bizarre animals, on the other hand, are a nice photogal to cheer up the little ones’ room. The framed photo of the three of you friends caught in a cheerful moment on your last trip to Barcelona is an example of how a keepsake can become a decor item in a studio or apartment.
One of the advantages of photoframes as a photogift idea is the different formats available. At Pixartprinting you can print on 21 different ones, from the smallest – 20 x 20 cm – suitable for a detail, a face, a more intimate keepsake, to the largest -100 x 100 – which you can use for a mountain panorama or a beautiful signature photo. You can find more details about Pixartprinting’s printed photo frames here.
Photo gifts that last a year: the calendar with photos
A lively photo gift idea is the photo calendar. This photo gift is a good solution if you are thinking of something for your family, roommates, office or team. Inside you can put a little bit of everything – even using creativity and irony.
Twelve moments depicting the wins, losses and challenges your volleyball team experienced during the last, exciting sports season. Photos of your student house (some of which it would be best not to show too much around). The best shots of vacations with your parents-so hated as children and so re-evaluated now that you are older. These are all nice ideas for photo regals with a calendar.
At Pixartprinting you can create calendars with photos of different types and uses. There are spiral-bound wall calendars, where each month corresponds to a page. Another type of calendar with photos to create is the desk calendar, again spiral bound and triangular so that it can be held, for example, on office desks. Then there is the photo-poster calendar, which is useful for having an immediate view of the whole year.
Photo calendars with gadgets: t-shirts and mugs
A final set of ideas we give you for your photo gifts are shots printed on a whole range of objects that you can use every day: pillows, T-shirts, mugs, water bottles, small bottles. Here you can put your own irony or team spirit!
A mug with a nice – and, we recommend, not too embarrassing – photo can be the idea for a more or less official gift to a colleague. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a thoughtful gift for members of your association, you could come up with an original photo gift: a T-shirt with a photo representing your passion printed on it. If you are part of a band, you could create T-shirts with photo-parodies of images of the most famous bands: think Nirvana’s Baby in the Water or Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures.
Photo gifts with author’s photos
If you decide to give a photo gift using canvas or photo frames, you can choose to use a photo of your own or buy an image from a professional photographer – you can start following several on Instagram and ask if any shots are for sale. Another alternative is to look for an unusual image in online collections of free images: here we have pointed out four of the definitely prestigious ones.
Whether you use your own photos or photos from professionals, photo gifts always represent something unique, intimately thought out for the recipient and personalized. Something completely different from what you can buy in a store.