Why Custom Neckties Make An Ideal Gift For Men

Personalize Gifts with Designs That Matter to Him

Shopping for men isn’t easy. Whether you’re buying for your dad, your husband, your son, or a colleague—you’ve run into the same problem: a lot of gifts feel like... stuff. And most men, as a rule, don’t get excited about stuff. 

They get excited about what they do. Their work, their hobbies, the nations they served, the places they’ve lived or traveled, the sports they play, the tools they use, the things they love, the families they care for.

Let’s talk specifics:

• Do you think a man who has raised French Bulldogs for most of his adult life would enjoy a tasteful pattern of Frenchy’s on his necktie, or better yet a combo with the same pattern on other gifts? The Frenchie necktie shown above is here.
• What about an attorney? Would a richly colored necktie adorned with gold scales of justice (rendered tiny and arranged tastefully) elicit a positive reaction? The correct answer would be yes – it is my top-selling career-inspired design.
• And about those flag neckties displayed so prominently throughout this website. People clearly think men are interested in celebrating their ancestry, their adopted home or even just a place they visited and loved. (FYI the flag patterns are by far the best-selling category of neckties I’ve had since launching my humble storefront on Zazzle two years ago.)

Quick Personalization to Do-it-Yourself: Overcome the Tie Stigma

Believe it or not, this pattern is comprised of bowling pins and bowling balls. See the collection here.

These aren’t just design choices or marketing ploys, they are the essence of true personalization. This is how you turn the necktie-as-gift eyeroll into a smile of appreciation, by making the design meaningful, relevant to the life of the recipient. That can happen if you pick the right symbols, displayed with style. Here are two ways you can make that choice:

• Purchase a gift with a personalized design and/or other limited options for customization, such as a monogram. Most of what I offer online falls into this category.
• Use one of the Create-A-Pattern template products I have implemented on the Zazzle marketplace. These allow you to upload your own graphic such as a flag, symbol, icon, or other image, creating a pattern on the fly.
• Create your own patterns and design a gift from scratch. (We’ll have a post or two on the subject in the future.)

The upshot is: If you want to give a man a gift he’ll appreciate, particularly a necktie, make it personal—not simply by adding his name in big letters, but by connecting it to something significant in his life. That’s where MyTies comes in. Shopping for men isn’t so hard after all.

Make Personalized Gifts Great Again

As a gift giver, make the gift even more personal by designing it yourself – either by selecting the images to upload to a Create-a-Pattern template product, or creating your own pattern design. Resist the design temptations that many fall prey to when personalizing gifts, particularly neckties which require subtlety to maintain a modicum of style. 

I’ve worn more than my share of neckties over the years, and I’ve seen the bad ones. By bad ones I mean novelty apparel sure to end up in the back of the closet never to be worn again after the day it is given.  

Novelty themes on T-shirts are often humorous, quirky, or ironic. They work well because T-shirts offer a large, informal canvas suitable for casual settings. 

Neckties are the opposite. Their canvases are small and are worn in more formal settings than your typical T-shirt, so novelty isn’t likely to be an approach that leads to a successful gift. 

Three Don'ts When Designing Personalized Neckties

1. Don't use oversized graphics: If you can discern artwork on a tie from across the room, it’s too big. That includes logos, photographs, or any other images.
2. Don't create neckties that look like souvenirs instead of business attire or tasteful casual accessories.
3. Don't use excessive text, of any size or type. Part of me wouldn't mind saying: "Don't use text at all for any reason," but I think monograms tastefully integrated with patterns can work. I always position the monogram at the bottom of the tie so they can be covered by a buttoned jacket.

A Few Dos To Transform Personalized Ties into Great Gifts

On the other hand, when designed well—with a subtle pattern, a meaningful symbol, and a bit of design restraint—ties can become gifts that are as fashionable as they are personal.  

Take the flag tie collection. From a distance, most of them just look like smart geometric patterns—angled stripes or repeated textures in national colors. But up close, you see what they’re made of: tiny flags. It might be the Greek flag, the Brazilian flag, or the state of Minnesota’s new design (which makes a surprisingly handsome tie). 

Or consider a necktie with a repeating pattern of tiny golden wrenches on a deep burgundy background. It’s not loud. But if you’re a mechanic—or buying for one—it’s on point. Same idea with ties for teachers, science geeks, or anyone else whose work or interests can be translated into small, meaningful motifs. 

• Use subtle symbolism – Small simple icons, repeated tastefully, go a long way. 

• Reduce color noise – when working with photographs or busy logos, I like using sepia tones to blend them into the overall pattern or design. The results are more unified, and usually less gaudy or tacky. 

• Uncluttered collages – illustrations such as cartoons or hand-drawn pictures lend themselves to what I like to call a collage pattern where illustrations are laid out in a loose, non-geometric pattern. The key is to vary the size and position of each drawing, keeping the spacing between them equal so the resulting repeating pattern doesn’t form cluttered or empty areas. Be careful, it’s easy to drift into novelty apparel mode with cartoons. 

That’s what I try to design: patterns that don’t shout, but still say something. I’m sure you would like to do the same. 

Monograms: Great for personalizing wedding, abstract or geometric ties 

It’s surprising to some folks that we’ve gotten this far into this post without talking specifically about monograms. From some designer’s perspective, monograms, names, or initials are the primary sources of personalization. Clearly that’s not my perspective, since I think most men would rather have a gift that personifies how they define themselves in terms of their life’s passions rather than simply their name or initials. 

Some people like monograms; others don’t. I usually lean toward a single initial, if anything. Monograms are a way to personalize some designs that would be generic otherwise. For instance, I have several abstract and geometric designs that have monograms, and a few with placeholders for names or other custom text in a strip across the bottom of the necktie. 

Monograms also appear regularly on necktie primarily designed for wedding participants (at least in my collection.) Aesthetically speaking I like the monograms in these categories. I think they are less necessary, in terms of personalization, for designs comprised of meaningful iconography or symbols. However, I do have a few designs that have both. 

You can delete the monogram from any of my designs because it is layered on top of the pattern. On Zazzle, simply click on the Edit This Design button, select the monogram in the design tool, and delete. Usually, the monogram and its background are grouped together. If they are not, you may need to delete the background separately.  

Apart from those cases, I see little use for full names and big text blocks on a necktie. Text feels more promotional than personal to me. A tie should be seen—not read. 

Occasions Where Custom Neckties Make the Perfect Gift

Monograms are a great way to personalize a groomsmen's tie.

A few occasions when the gift of a necktie would be a great idea:  

• Father’s Day – Choose a design that reflects his interests: professional symbols like the scales of justice if he’s an attorney, silhouettes of leaping dachshunds if he has a dog, or colorful sailboats if he enjoys spending time on the water. 

• Birthdays and Christmas – A unique design can make the gift memorable. Consider a pattern of family members' photographs arranged and filtered to mark the occasion. 

• Weddings – Monogrammed floral ties for the groom and groomsmen are classic. Less traditionally, you might consider florals on black, copper, or plum backgrounds, or custom patterns reflecting themes like science fiction, anachronism, or medieval. 

• Reunions and cultural events – Flag pattern neckties and socks honor ancestry or heritage on national holidays, family reunions, culturally connected church-group social events, or military reunions. 

• Promotions or Professional Milestones – A necktie with professional symbols is a suitable gift for marking promotions, professional milestones such as meeting important goals, or graduations from medical school or law school. 

Popular Personalized Gift Categories: Flags, Professions, Hobbies & More

(Click On Image To Navigate to Each Collection)