Last updated October 22nd, 2024
Here you will find everything you need to know to order memorial bookmarks. To order right away please click on the button below. If you require more information, please read on.
If you need a quick answer, simply use live chat – this is the quickest way to contact us.
Please watch the video below to see how our memorial bookmarks look like and what the quality is.
The video shows selected variants of our BM-05 online template, it can be personalised and ordered here.
Table of Contents
Bookmark types
We offer two types of bookmarks – personalized online and custom designed.
Both are physically the same product offering the same high quality. The price of both types is the same too. Of course, if you need some changes done to a bookmark created online, just finish what you can and put your changes into “custom verse/message” field on checkout.
We will do the changes form our end and email you a proof for approval.
The video above shows Irish/Celtic-style memorial bookmark with a set of alternative backgrounds. We have videos like this made for most of our bookmark designs. They give you a quick glimpse into what your chosen design is going to look like.
Bookmarks Personalised & Ordered Online
Bookmarks personalised online: you order through our online personalization system by personalising one of our predefined layouts/templates.
It is a much faster option. You can try multiple designs in the privacy of your own home until you are happy.
The advantages of online personalisable designs are:
- a perfect foundation of custom design – simply do what you can in our online system and request changes
- text suggestions are available at every step
- simple to use, take your time and try different designs, backgrounds etc.
- instant online proof, no waiting for the designer to come back with changes
- you are personally involved in card design
Custom Designed Bookmarks
Custom Designed Bookmarks: you work with our designer to create a fully custom design. Proofs are exchanged by email until you are happy with the design.
There is no design charge.
To order custom bookmark please email your requirements to memorialprinters@outlook.com and we’ll take it from there.
You send us your desired text and images and our designer creates a unique bookmark for you. Proofs are emailed, your amendments are introduced and re-proofed as needed until you are 100% happy with the result.
Usual response time to your amendments is within 24 hours so the design process is smooth and fast. To start just email us at memorialprinters@outlook.com or use the live chat facility – we’ll guide you through the whole process.
There is no need to pay upfront when requesting a custom design (most memorial card companies in Ireland require upfront payment).
Advantages of custom design are:
- the design is unique and you are free to realise whatever idea you may have
- you deal with an experienced designer who knows this type of prints inside out
- any images supplied can be significantly improved by the designer
Prices
Our memorial bookmarks’ prices (both ordered online and custom designed) are as follows:
| Quantity | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 | 300 | 400 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | €79 | €119 | €159 | €179 | €219 | €249 | €279 | €309 | €384 |
Here you can see our full price list of all our products in one place.
Ordering
To oder you bookmarks online start by clicking the button below.
On the next page select a design you like. Add it to cart, enter name, dates, select verses, add photos, card style etc. Review instant online proof and order your bookmarks.
Below you can see some of our online bookmark designs. 90% of our bookmark orders are personalised and ordered online, so we suggest that you try them first.
If you do not find anything suitable or have special requirements, you can always order a custom bookmark design.
Progress bar on top of all order-related pages will let you know what ordering stage you are at. Ordering is fast, only 5 steps are needed, one of them (cart review) optional.
Turnaround time
We will deliver within 7 working days from your order or approval of final proof. If needed, this can be reliably cut down to 3 working days.
If we experience problems or delays, it will be shown on the top of each page. We update this information daily based on current workload:
Turnaround times shorter than 3 days cannot be guaranteed, but we can attempt them if you need us to.
Ordering two weeks before you need your cards is a very safe time margin.
How does a typical memorial bookmarks look like?
The typical bookmarks take form of narrow laminated strips.
The video below shows our BM-03 design template and can give you a very good idea how standard memorial bookmark looks like.
The dimensions can vary slightly as every print company would have their preferred dimensions. Our bookmarks’ dimensions are 58x190mm / 2.3″x7.5″.
The standard orientation of the bookmark is nearly exclusively upright/portrait. Below you can view a couple of photos of memorial bookmarks.
We never use real bookmarks as samples or for advertising so the photos of the people depicted on the whole website are stock photos and all information on the bookmarks is fictional.
Standard bookmark design types
Memorial bookmarks’ designs usually fall into one of these categories:
- Scenic – the design would incorporate images of beautiful nature. Sunset images, sea, beach, mountains would be the most popular themes.
- Religious – they consist of religious symbols and imagery
- Celtic/Irish – those incorporate Irish style ornament and also Celtic crosses.
- Personal – other quite common designs are those associated with life, profession/trade or hobby of the deceased. Images of the locality the person lived in, sports the person enjoyed, favourite places, flowers etc.
Bookmark’s content & wording
Typical wording of the bookmark would be as follows:
Front
In Loving Memory of
Name and Surname
Who died on 19/03/2015
Aged 61 years
Rest in Peace
Some of our bookmark designs use calligraphic headings that can be selected. Choice of our headings below:
If you are using our online system to order your bookmarks, you can select and preview multiple headings to see which one you like the best.
Back
The back usually contains a verse, a poem or a prayer.
Printing, durability and paper type
Like all low-run prints of today, bookmarks are printed on digital printing press. This means the image is created using small plastic particles that are fused into paper rather than using ink.
Paper we use for bookmarks is 350gsm heavy coated digital stock. Digital papers are heavily coated because printing technique demands this. They are also kept in airtight packages because they need to have certain humidity.
Adding lamination (plastic film coat) makes bookmarks not only look good, but also makes them extremely durable.
18 Popular verses for bookmark
Below you can see verses and poems available in our personalisation system. They all were selected and adjusted to fit on bookmarks without legibility problems.
The above verses are pulled from our online personalisation system and can be selected as you put together your bookmark. You are not limited to our verse collection though – if you need custom verse or text, we will put it in for you free of charge.
To indicate such change, simply select the first option on our verses list during presonalisation and put your custom text in comment section on checkout. You can also email the text to us.
Design considerations
While thinking of design for the bookmark it is important to consider its shape and limitations that this shape has. If you want to use a photo as a background you have to be aware that only a small portion of the photo will be used.
The good news is that even cropped into a narrow strip scenic photos look very well. This may be a bit counter-intuitive as “landscape” format is usually the opposite of narrow upright format of bookmarks. So photos showing seaside, locality, some rural scenery etc. usually can be used without any problems and produce pleasing result.
It often happens that in order to fit all important elements of a given landscape we extend the sky so more of the actual image can fit.
The photo of the deceased is also often used on the front of the bookmark. In such case it usually is not occupying the full size of the bookmark, but appears in a frame on the front. This helps to overcome the constraints of the bookmarks’ format.
Photos – potential problems and solutions
Please note that it is perfectly ok to create a bookmark without any images. Also, if creating a custom designed bookmark you do not have to provide images if you do not have them – we have an extensive library of stock images suitable for backgrounds and our designer will pick ones suitable for your design.
It is also a good idea to ask family and friends for photo ideas to use on the sympathy bookmark. These days everyone has a camera in their phone so the photos of even very specific places can be obtained quite easily.
If you are supplying us with images for custom design please make sure you give us the highest resolution / best quality available. We can really do a lot to improve the photographs as long as there is enough resolution in the file.
Please do not use any visual effects or filters built into phone photo apps. While they may be tempting to use, they usually do more harm than good, at least in the context of memorial bookmark and photo quality for print.
We understand that nobody is creating a perfect portrait photo for use on memorial bookmarks and most of the photos of the deceased we get are shot on random occasions using random cameras or phones.
Giving us full and uncropped versions of these files greatly improve our chances to make them as good as it gets.
Again – do not use any filters, if you need certain look let us do it.
When should I get the bookmarks done?
Having the bookmarks done for the death anniversary can be considered a standard. Just like memorial cards – bookmarks are usually ordered a few weeks before the first anniversary of the person’s death. This would be the case with more than 80% of our orders.
However, we have customers ordering them at different points of time too. We note a quantity of orders that happen after a year plus a few months. We see orders two years after the date of death too, but those are rare.
We also see orders after half a year from person’s death. The earliest we see are 3 months after the funeral.
“When you are ready” is probably not the worst advice too. It may sound not very helpful at first, but this statement is backed by variation in ordering times we see among our clients.
If you are not ready to order now, set a reminder on your phone. Order two weeks before the date.
You will normally get your bookmarks within less than a week from placing your order. But during the Snowmageddon 2018 all our parcels got delayed by nearly a week. An Post shut down and that was it. Things happen. So ordering a bit earlier certainly won’t hurt.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- They are the only keepsake apart from memorial keyrings that can be put to a practical use
- They are well know type of keepsake
- They offer more space than wallet cards
- Due to lamination they are very durable
- They are likely to last for a long time
- A long verse or poem can be used
- They can survive very long time when kept inside of a book.
Cons:
- Fewer and fever people read paper books nowadays – so they can be really appreciated mostly by those who do read real books.
- Prone to damage due to their shape
If you have any questions or would like to order custom memorial bookmarks please do not hesitate to contact us now. For immediate response please use live chat facility.
Download: Free Memorial Bookmark Template in InDesign Format
Please note: this pack is for use by graphic designers You will need Adobe InDesign version 4 and upwards in order to use this template! It will not work with MS office or similar packages. If you do not know what InDesign is this pack is not for you.
Good news – for non-designers we have free templates of all our product types. You can personalise and download them for free here.
You can download the template pack here:
Free Memorial Bookmark Template Pack (7.58mb, InDesign format)
Using our template, you can very quickly create bookmarks like these:
I you would like to quickly design a memorial bookmark artwork then our free Memorial Bookmark Template is for you. Our template’s size is 58x190mm. it is double sided with photo and standard information on the front and a verse on the back.
You can use our design as is or use it as a starting point for your own – either way it will save you a lot of time.
Our template files are in Adobe InDesign format version 6. There also are IDML versions that can be opened by InDesign version 4 and upwards. The template is also compatible with Creative Cloud InDesign version.
The template consists of two different versions – light and dark. Typically memorial bookmarks tend to fall in to one of these categories. You can use one of the six supplied backgrounds or indeed use your own backgrounds.
Usually the reverse of memorial bookmark contains a verse. We included ten most commonly used verses in a separate file, so you can just copy and paste one onto your design.
The contents of the pack is as follows:
