Buying a photo calendar for 2022 - either for yourself or as a gift - is a great way to stand out from traditional pre-printed calendars. Each month greets you with a treasured memory and warm feelings brought from your favourite photos of the past.
The personalized nature of the best photo calendars mean that you - or a loved one - get to enjoy something much more precious than a random collection of cute cats or local firemen posing conspicuously topless. Customisable photo calendars let you take your friends and family (or any images you wish) in their best moments, and have them sat there on the wall with you.
Or perhaps it could be you on the wall, as you gift a calendar to loved ones. The best photo calendars make for perfectly personal presents, with our best picks below all offering easy-to-use creating tools and loads of themes to choose from.
For the best results, you'll want to take a few factors into consideration: how easy is the service to use, how fast is it, what quality is the end result, and how much does it cost? We've taken into account these and plenty more criteria when narrowing down this list of the very best photo calendars you can purchase right now.
The best photo calendars for 2022 in the UK
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Mixbook is our favourite UK photo calendar because it’s very easy to use and provides customers with lots of ways to create a standout photo calendar. In fact, the company has a “100% Happiness Guaranteed” policy, which means you’ll get your money back if you’re not happy with your product.
What we love about Mixbook the most is the simplicity of its design software. You can create a personalised calendar within just three steps. First, you simply choose one of Mixbook’s 125+ templates, or you have the ability to design your own.
The second step is to upload some photos from a smart device, social media account or Google Photos. Finally, you can customise the calendar with all the photos you’ve uploaded by dragging and dropping them onto your calendar. You can also add text, stickers and layouts to make it your own.
If you’re ever stuck and need help with something, Mixbook offers lots of support to ensure you get the most out of your calendar. For starters, there’s a live chat, but you’re also able to access plenty of how-to guides by heading over to Mixbook’s help page. Overall, you’d end up with a high-quality and affordable calendar that really represents you or a loved one.
Mixbook invariably has some kind of offer on, so head over to the site to see what you can save.
If you want a photo calendar that is highly personalised and affordable at the same time, Snapfish is a great choice to consider. First of all, you’re getting an absolute bargain as its prices start at just £11.99 for a desk calendar. And even if you want a bigger calendar, it still won’t break the bank.
When it comes to creating a custom calendar, you can add your own photos and text to reflect anniversaries, birthdays and other important dates. Like Mixbook, Snapfish allows you to select pre-made templates and backgrounds. As well as this, there are more than 3000 embellishments and more than 60 fonts to add even more personality to your photo calendar.
Should you ever need a bit of creative inspiration, Snapfish regularly updates its blog with different designs and ideas. And we love the fact that Snapfish offers a comprehensive and easy-to-use help centre, where you can watch videos and read guides to help you get the most out of the platform.
For anyone who loves playing around with photo design apps like Photoshop, Cewe is one to consider because it offers free editing software that you can download onto your computer alongside an online calendar maker.
Either way, you’ll be able to create a stunning custom photo calendar for yourself or loved ones. To design one, all you need to do is upload your favourite photos, pick a calendar type and personalise it using a drag-and-drop interface.
Quality is definitely a key focus area for Cewe, with it offering customers a choice of classic, matte, gloss and photographic paper. Each option has been designed to look and feel high quality, and you won’t be disappointed.
Just like any other reputable provider, Cewe has great customer support. It provides different ideas so that customers can create the perfect photo calendar and a 24/7 customer team who can help with a variety of issues. To see the designs it has on offer and start creating your calendar, head on over to the Cewe site.
Vistaprint is a name you’ve most likely heard of before, and being one of the UK’s leading photo printing companies, it provides photo calendars as part of its large product portfolio.
It offers four types of calendar: wall (in three sizes), desk (20x20cm), poster (292x444cm) and magnetic. And you can personalise them with different themes, photos and icons. You should find it really easy to create a custom calendar thanks to an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
In terms of pricing, Vistaprint is pretty cheap. You can purchase a wall calendar for just £11, with prices increasing based on factors such as size. What’s more, the firm often runs great promotions, so you’re definitely getting a bargain. Another area where Vistaprint impresses is customer support - it offers help via phone, live chat and email.
But something worth bearing in mind is that some customers have questioned the quality of Vistaprint calendars, such as colours being a little dark, and many other providers have better themes. Still, Vistaprint photo calendars are cheap and would certainly make great presents.
Bonusprint is another service that offers high-quality photo calendars in the UK. As is pretty standard for these services, it provides a variety of pre-made templates, illustrations and backgrounds to enable customers to create the perfect photo calendar for all occasions.
Through dedicated editing software, you’re able to add photos and customise your calendar easily. If there are any important dates you want to mark (such as birthdays, weddings and anniversaries), you have the ability to add them to the calendar.
Not to mention, Bonusprint gives customers a selection of three papers: extra matt, gloss and standard matt. And you’ll find plenty of deals on the Bonusprint website.
Meanwhile, all calendars will be delivered between five and seven days. Generally, Bonusprint photo calendars are perfect for personal use and gifts. And considering that this company has been around since 1979, it’s certainly feels trustworthy.
Photo calendar FAQ
What is a photo calendar?
Very much as it sounds, a photo calendar is a full 12-month calendar that you insert your own photos and images into. Using the easy-to-operate software on the service's website, you upload your photos and then arrange them in any way you wish from month-to-month. The service then prints it up and sends it out.
That makes it perfect photo gifts fodder (especially in the lead up to Christmas) as it's something to be enjoyed by the recipient - or yourself - for an entire year.
What is the best photo calendar site?
There's some strong competition on the web, but Mixbook is our current #1 best photo calendar site. It's really easy to find your way around the creation tool, meaning that you'll be creating professional looking calendars within minutes. The quality of the finished photo calendar is generally excellent and, although it's more expensive than some, the prices are definitely still what we'd call reasonable.
How long do I need to create a photo calendar?
This entirely depends on how much of a perfectionist you are and just how customised you want your photo calendar to be. You can literally create a photo calendar in minutes, if you're happy to stick to the templates provided by the service and roughly know what photos you want to include.
But the best services let you customize everything - to amount of images per page, where they sit, labels for special days, and much more. So if you really want to conjure up something special, you might want to give yourself adequate time to get it all just so.
How long to photo calendars take to send out?
This does change from service to service, but once you're happy with your design and hit 'Order', expect to receive your photo calendar after 7-15 days.
As we say, some services are faster than others. But also note that most photo calendar services let you pay extra to expedite the printing and delivery.
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