Stage three, the gift itself, is where this page lives, and its neighbours both take the opposite tack. Keepsakes argues for the gift that stays. Quote prints works out how much of a borrowed line will actually fit.
The card is the right place for a joke, and the gift usually is not
A card is read once, in a room where the joke has an audience, and then it goes in a drawer. That is exactly the shape of a joke, and it is why a funny card next to a straight gift is a combination that rarely goes wrong. A joke printed on the object itself has to survive being read for the two-hundredth time, alone, in a kitchen.
Humour is not the problem; the surface it is printed on is. What to write in a retirement card covers the writing side, and it is the cheapest part of the whole thing to get right.
What we can and cannot print a joke on
Nothing here is a joke design. The name print sets four typed lines beneath a fixed "Happy Retirement" headline: their name, their profession, their years of service and where they worked. There is no joke template and no box for a punchline.
What that leaves is dry, not loud. The profession box takes up to 40 characters and the years box up to 20, and the two print together on one line of up to 41 characters on a print, so "PROFESSIONAL TEA MAKER" or "38 YEARS, NO SICK DAYS" prints exactly as entered, in capitals, under their name. It reads as a straight record with one word out of place, which is the kind of joke that survives a fortnight. It's also the kind that can go wrong, so read it back before you pay: we typeset what's entered, and we don't check it for tone.
Dry lines that fit the boxes
A catchy retirement line on a print has to be short, and the boxes keep it that way. The profession box takes up to 40 characters, so it suits a job title they never had: "KEEPER OF THE STAPLER" or "OFFICE QUIZ CHAMPION". The years box takes up to 20, enough for "40 YEARS, NO REGRETS". The workplace box stays straight, because the name of the place is what makes the rest of it read as theirs.
The lines that land best are ones the room already knows: a phrase they said every Friday, the job everyone gave them unofficially. If nothing comes to mind, retirement quotes has a section of funny ones and a set of short lines that fit a frame or a card.
What each option costs
The print comes at A4 or A3. The mug carries the name and the profession-and-years line; the water bottle does the same. Each is priced on the name print page, with delivery within the UK included.
If the funnier gift is a picture, not a line, the portrait offers five art styles, from oil-painting to pop art. A photograph of them in the uniform they are about to stop wearing lets the picture carry the joke. Check the preview allowance on the upload page and judge the result before paying for it.
Who is in the room when it is opened
Two things narrow the choice. If family are present, an office in-joke excludes most of the people watching. If the career was long and the person is quiet about it, a joke can read as though the givers had nothing to say about the work.
Where either is true, the straight version does more: the two ways to personalise sets out both of them, and who is retiring is the better starting point if the person, not the format is the harder question.
