A digital file is the cheapest way in: downloads start from £9.99, with nothing printed and nothing posted.
Last of the six pages in the gift itself. Two of the five before it matter most here: the choice between type and a photograph settles what the gift says, and the three finishes covers everything this page is the alternative to.
What actually arrives
You fill in the four lines as you would for any other format, and what you get back is an email with a download link to the finished artwork at full print resolution, sized A3 at 297 by 420mm. The link stays live for 30 days, so the file wants saving somewhere rather than left in an inbox. There is no parcel, no tracking number and no production wait.
What that leaves you holding is a file, which isn't a gift until somebody prints it. That is the part worth being honest about: the digital version moves the work from us to you or to a local print shop, and it moves the framing there too.
When it is the only thing that works
Mostly when the leaving date is too close. Printing takes two to four working days here and UK delivery a further two to five, so anything inside nine working days isn't going to arrive in time, and a file has no such window.
The other case is an address problem. We deliver to the UK only, so a retiree who has moved abroad is reachable by email and not by parcel, and the same goes for anyone mid-house-move or being handed the gift somewhere other than home.
What it costs, and what the printed version costs
The digital name print is £9.99 and the digital photo portrait is £14.99. For comparison, the same name print posted to a UK address is £14.99 at A4 and £28.99 at A3, and £69.00 framed at A3 with the framing already done. Delivery is free on the printed ones, so the gap between £9.99 and £14.99 is the whole of what you save by printing it yourself.
Which is small enough to be worth saying plainly: buy the digital version because of the timing or the address, not to save five pounds.
Printing it once you have it
The file is A3 at print resolution, so it can be printed at A3 or smaller with no loss. Any copy shop or online print service will take it. We can't vouch for what any particular one charges or how good the paper is, so if the finish matters more than the date, order the printed version instead.
If the date is not as tight as it feels, the keepsakes page covers what arrives finished, and the page on budgets puts the figures in order.
