A farewell gift for a colleague, made from their own story
Someone is leaving after nine years and the collection has reached €120. The usual answer is a card, a voucher and a cake. This is the other answer: one illustrated portrait with the running jokes, the desk plant, the Friday playlist and the years in it.
The problem with the usual leaving gift
A voucher says thank you and is spent by Tuesday. A card holds forty signatures and one story, the one somebody thought of at the last minute. Neither of them says what the team actually knows: that every dying plant in the office ends up on her desk and recovers, or that his voice drops an octave when he is closing a deal.
A story-portrait is built from exactly those things. The face comes from a photo. Everything else in the picture comes from what colleagues say about the person when asked the right questions.
How a whole team fits into one conversation
One person orders and does the interview. It runs in the browser, takes about ten minutes, and asks the questions so nobody has to know how to describe a colleague well enough to paint them.
The team joins in before that. Send these five questions to the people who worked with them, and collect the replies exactly as they come back:
1. What is one specific moment with them you still tell people about? 2. What little habit or detail is so typically them? 3. Is there a joke, phrase or nickname around them that only we would understand? 4. Which object do you immediately think of with them? 5. What are they in our group: the fixer, the joker, the one with the pep talks?
Do not tidy the replies up. If three people name the same habit, that is the signal we are after. Paste the lot into the interview at the start and the conversation begins from what you brought.
One example, from a made-up team
From the interview
A farewell gift for Maya
- Every dying desk plant in the office ends up in Maya's corner, and comes back to life.
- Friday 4pm: the volume goes up, and the desk-dance everyone pretends not to join begins.
- Their wild idea: paint her as the headline act of her own farewell festival.
Maya is a fictional person we invented to show the process. The photo is a model image and the interview was written by us, so that no real customer's story appears here.
What to have ready before you order
Two or three photos within reach: one clear face photo, plus a few of their world, their desk, their gear, the things everyone associates with them. Phone photos are fine.
Two or three specific stories, quirks or inside jokes. Nothing coming to mind is also fine; the conversation is built to draw them out.
The replies from colleagues, if you gathered them. Best of all in one document you can hand over at the start.
About the date
Every farewell has a last day, and it does not move. You see your piece within 48 hours of finishing the interview, usually sooner, and after that you choose your version and download the file. If the leaving drinks are on Friday, start the interview by Tuesday and you have room to spare. Tell us the date in the interview and we will say honestly whether we can make it.
Questions people ask about farewell gifts
Can several colleagues contribute stories?
Yes, and it is the best material we get. One person does the interview; the others send in their replies to the five questions above, and those replies are pasted in at the start. Three people naming the same habit is exactly what makes a detail land.
How fast is it, and can you make our last-day date?
You see your piece within 48 hours of finishing the interview, usually sooner. After that, picking your version and downloading is up to you. Give us the date in the interview and we will tell you straight whether it works.
What if we only have phone photos?
Phone photos are what almost everyone has, and they are fine. One clear photo of their face matters most. Photos of their desk or their things help us paint the real object rather than a guess at it.
Can we print it ourselves?
Yes. You receive one print-quality digital file that prints sharply up to A2 poster size, through any printer or framer you like.
What if it does not look like them?
You see the finished piece before you receive the file, and one revision round is included. If after that it still is not right, you get your money back. The refund terms are on the terms page.
An honest note
Your piece is created with the help of AI image generation, directed by us. You tell us the story in a guided interview; we turn what you said into a detailed brief, and that brief is what drives the image. Then a person looks at what came out and decides whether it is good enough to send you. Most first attempts are not.
The AI is the brush. The story is yours, and the judgement about whether it is any good is ours.
One portrait, €48
Order, and we send you a private link to the interview. Ten minutes of your time, then your piece within 48 hours.
Start a portrait — €48