Graduation

They’ve done it. They finished. Your big, amazingkid that you’ve spent years nurturing has just graduated. Hours turned into days turned into years of late nights, self doubt, reading weeks that were spent repainting rather than resting, lifetimes passed between the person they were when they started university and the one who is now staring back at you wearing a gown two sizes too big.. Graduation deserves better than a card with a balloon on it and a twenty tucked inside. Graduation gifts usually feel like they’re either too small for the occasion or so generic that they fail to mean much at all. A photo frame. A pen. A bottle of champagne. Stuff they could have bought themselves. When we started putting this collection together we asked ourselves one question over and over again to make sure we weren’t falling into the same trap. Does this feel earned? We landed on a collection that strikes a balance: celebrating the achievement without taking itself too seriously. There are some genuinely useful items in here because let’s face it, a lot of grads are about to embark on the most uncertain period of their adult lives yet. And if an item of pride can give them a semblance of preparedness, then that isn’t cheap. It’s practical. But not everything here is spreadsheet ready. We put together items that will let you celebrate like graduation is because, trust us, it is. Graduates come in as many varieties as there are universities, and who you’re buying for at the end of these sentences impacts what you should get them. Is it the friend who juggled three jobs alongside their degree to keep themselves? Is it the neighbour who decided to switch courses halfway through but never quit? Is it the friend who moved abroad to study in the first place? They need different things and unless you’re magician, you probably can’t guess what that is. So we tried to give you options; lots of options so you can pick something with a little more intention than whatever’s closest to your hands. When we picked these items we didn’t think about what would look good on a carousel. We asked ourselves if it was special enough for the occasion. An occasion we know you worked just as hard for as they did.