When someone leaves an office, a hostel or a college, the send-off usually has a card that everyone signs in a hurry. A farewell board does the same job better: a board covered in printed photographs of the person’s time there, with a message from each colleague or classmate beside a picture. It stands at the farewell as the centrepiece, everyone gathers round it, and at the end of the day it goes home with the person leaving.
It is also one of the few group gifts that costs very little per head and still looks like a great deal of effort went into it.
What the board is for
A farewell board works on the day and afterwards, and it helps to plan for both.
On the day, it is a talking point. People stop in front of it, find the photograph from the launch night or the first-year trip, and tell the story. It is also where the messages are written, so it keeps the room busy in the awkward half-hour before speeches.
Afterwards, it becomes a keepsake. A large board is hard to carry home and harder to keep, so the plan should be that the prints, and the messages beside them, come off the board and go into an envelope, a small box or a book. The board itself is scaffolding.
Which photographs to use
Think in eras, not in quantity. A good board covers the person’s whole time with the group, in order, so it reads as a story as people walk along it.
- The first weeks. The induction day, the first team lunch, the fresher’s party. These are the rarest photographs and the most fun to find.
- The work itself. The launch, the deadline night, the event they organised, the stall at the college fest.
- The people. Them with each colleague or friend who is signing the board, where you can find it. Everyone looks for themselves first.
- The in-jokes. The whiteboard that was never wiped, the canteen table, the office plant. One or two of these earn their place; a board of them loses the person.
Collect quietly if it is a surprise. A shared folder with a deadline, and one person asking individually for the photographs that are missing, works better than a message to the whole team group, which the person leaving can see.
How to collect messages for a group gift →
How many prints, and what it costs
| Group | Prints | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A small team, or a hostel wing | 30 | ₹270 |
| A department or a class | 50 | ₹450 |
| A whole floor or a batch | 80 | ₹720 |
Prints are ₹9 each, from 30, with a flat ₹70 delivery on the order. For a team of fifteen, 30 prints and delivery come to ₹340, or about ₹23 a head.
Lamination is worth it on a board that will be handled, at ₹3 a print — a glossy, water-resistant surface that survives fingers and a splash of the chai at every farewell. The catch is that a laminated print cannot be written on, so if people are signing the prints themselves, skip it, or laminate and have them write on cards beside the prints instead.
Lamination on polaroid prints →
How people sign it
Three arrangements work, depending on the crowd.
| Arrangement | How it works | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Message on the print | Captions left blank; each person writes a line on the strip below a photograph they are in | Small groups, unlaminated prints |
| Card beside the print | A small card or sticky note pinned next to each print | Larger groups, laminated prints |
| Printed captions, messages on a separate sheet | The captions name the moment; messages go on a sheet of paper at the foot of the board | A board that will be displayed as it is |
About six or seven words fit on a caption strip, so a message written there is a signature and a line, not a letter.
Captions under polaroid prints →
Building the board
A board needs very little, all of it from a stationery shop:
- A cork or foam board, big enough to hold every print with a finger’s width between them. For 50 prints at 3x2 inches, a board around 60 by 90 centimetres fits them in neat rows.
- Pins beside the prints, or washi tape over the corners. Two pins under a print’s bottom edge hold it like a shelf and come out cleanly; a pin through the border ruins the print.
- A title strip across the top with the person’s name and the years, printed or handwritten.
- Pens on a string, so they do not wander off.
Lay the prints out in order of time, left to right. If you are unsure how the grid should look, the layouts that work on a wall work on a board too.
Getting it home
This step is easy to forget in the rush of the day, and it decides whether the gift survives the week. Before the day ends, unpin the prints in order, keeping each message with its print, and put them into an envelope or a small box, numbered on the back so the order is not lost. The person leaving carries a light packet instead of a metre of foam board on a crowded train. If they are flying to a new city, a flat envelope fits in a laptop bag, and a board never fits in hand luggage.
You can go one step further and have the best photographs and messages turned into a small magazine afterwards, so the board becomes a book that stays on a shelf. Custom Magazine →
Timing
Farewells are often announced at short notice, and made-to-order prints need time. Delivery is 5 to 14 days from order to doorstep, and prints are dispatched on Mondays, so an order placed by Friday goes out the coming Monday once the preview is approved. If the last day is sooner than that, message us on WhatsApp before ordering and we will tell you honestly whether it can be done.
For a college or school farewell, the date is usually known weeks ahead, which makes it the easy case: collect through the term and order a fortnight before.
Farewell gifts → Polaroid prints from ₹270 → Polaroid prints in India: the full guide →
Frequently asked
How do you make a farewell photo board? Collect photographs covering the person’s whole time with the group, print them as polaroid-style prints, pin them in order on a cork board, and have everyone add a message beside a photograph.
How many photos go on a farewell board? Thirty for a small team, fifty to eighty for a department or a class. Count people signing, then add photographs of the milestones.
Do prints on a farewell board need lamination? Only if people will not be writing on the prints. Lamination protects them from handling but cannot be written on.
How does the person leaving take the board home? Unpin the prints in order with their messages and put them in an envelope or a box. The board itself stays behind.