Pixquo

Funny Coffee Mugs & Gift Mugs — Printed to Order

A funny coffee mug is the most forgiving gift in existence. It costs less than a round of drinks, it does

not need a size, it does not need to match anyone’s decor, and the recipient will hold it in their hands

every single morning for years. That last part is the bit people underrate. A card gets recycled in

January. A joke printed on a mug gets re-read four hundred times a year, at seven in the morning, by

somebody who is not yet ready to be spoken to.

This page collects every printed mug we currently make. They are made to order — printed after you buy,

not pulled off a shelf — and they come in two sizes: a standard 11oz mug and a larger 15oz version for

people whose relationship with caffeine has escalated beyond the recreational.

Who actually buys funny mugs

Three groups, mostly. The first is people buying for a specific person they know well: a partner who is

famously unspeakable before their second cup, a friend who reads four books at once, a sibling who thinks

sunrise is a personal attack. The joke has to land on that individual, which is why the phrase matters far

more than the product specification.

The second group is buying for a workplace: Secret Santa, a leaving present, a new-desk welcome, an office

kitchen restock. Here the constraint is different. The joke has to be funny to someone you like but do not

know intimately, and it has to survive being read by their manager. Coffee humour and reading humour both

clear that bar comfortably. Anything sharper usually does not.

The third group is buying for themselves, which is the largest group and the one nobody admits to. If that

is you, buy the 15oz.

Buyer’s guide: what to look for in a printed mug

Size, and why it is not a trivial choice

An 11oz mug is the standard size you picture when you hear the word mug. It fits under every coffee

machine, sits comfortably in a cupboard, and holds a normal cup of coffee or tea. A 15oz mug holds

noticeably more, has a bigger printable area so longer phrases stay readable, and feels substantially more

generous as a gift for a couple of extra pounds. The trade-off is that some pod machines and narrow shelves

do not accommodate the taller body. If you are buying for someone else’s kitchen and cannot check, 11oz is

the safe default.

Print method and durability

Printed ceramic mugs are produced by transferring the design onto the glazed surface and heat-setting it,

so the artwork sits in the finish rather than as a sticker on top of it. The practical test is simple: does

the design survive a dishwasher and a microwave without cracking, fading or peeling? Ours are made to. What

no printed mug survives is a scouring pad — abrasive cleaning dulls any printed surface, from any brand.

Legibility beats cleverness

A mug has a curved surface, and the readable area is smaller than it looks in a flat product photo. Long,

subtle jokes get compressed into a strip of small text that nobody reads at 6am. If you are choosing

between two designs, choose the one you can read in the thumbnail.

Materials and printing

ProductMaterialPrint methodCare
11oz mugGlazed ceramicHeat-set printing onto the glazed surfaceDishwasher and microwave safe; avoid abrasive scourers
15oz mugGlazed ceramic, taller bodyHeat-set printing onto the glazed surfaceDishwasher and microwave safe; avoid abrasive scourers
Matching stickerPrinted vinyl with adhesive backingPrinted then cut to shapeWipe clean; apply to a clean dry surface
Matching printPrinted art paperInkjet-based printingFrame behind glass; keep out of direct sunlight

Exact substrate weights, ceramic sourcing and the specific press used vary by production partner and are

confirmed on each product page. We would rather tell you that than invent a specification we cannot stand

behind.

Funny mugs as office gifts and Secret Santa

Office gifting has a budget and a blast radius. The budget is usually small and fixed. The blast radius is

the number of colleagues who will see the gift being opened. A printed mug handles both: it lands in the

right price bracket without looking cheap, and the joke is aimed at a shared experience — being tired,

needing coffee, being interrupted before you are ready — rather than at the person’s private life.

Coffee-humour designs are the safest bet for a colleague you like but do not know well. If you are buying

for a team rather than an individual, buying three or four different designs at once reads better than four

identical mugs, and costs the same.

Gifts for book lovers and readers

Readers are unusually easy to buy for and unusually hard to buy well for, because they already own the

books. A mug that names the specific absurdity of being a reader — buying faster than you read, being

emotionally wrecked by fictional people, claiming you will stop after one more page and lying — lands

better than a generic “book lover” slogan, because it proves you have noticed how they actually behave.

These designs also pair naturally with our

printable wall art if you are building a reading nook,

and with a matching sticker for the front of a Kindle or laptop.

Mugs for night owls, non-morning people and the coffee-dependent

There is a whole category of humour that exists purely to communicate “do not talk to me yet”. It is a real

social function, not just a joke: a mug that says the quiet part out loud does genuine work in a shared

kitchen or an open-plan office. Designs about mornings being a rumour, sunrise being loud, and caffeine

being pending all sit in this bracket, and they are our most-requested phrases for a reason.

Building a matching gift set

The strongest version of a small gift is a set that shares one joke across formats. Take a phrase, put it

on a mug, add the matching sticker for a laptop lid, and add the matching print for a desk or coffee

corner. The total still lands in a modest budget, but it reads as considered rather than convenient. Most

of our coffee, reading and plant phrases exist across all three formats — check the

prints and

stickers pages for the matches.

Our full mug range

Every printed mug currently in stock and ready to produce, with live pricing:

How made-to-order works

Everything on this page is a physical product that does not exist until you buy it. There is no warehouse

shelf with your design sitting on it. When your order comes through, the artwork is sent to a production

partner, printed onto a blank item, quality-checked, packed and posted to your address. That is what

“print on demand” or “made to order” means, and it is worth understanding before you click buy, because it

changes what you should expect from the timeline.

The practical consequence is that there are two clocks running, not one. The first is production: the time

it takes to print, cure or press your item and get it boxed. For most printed goods this is a few business

days rather than a few hours, and it stretches during peak gifting periods when every print queue in the

industry is busy. The second clock is shipping, which depends on where you are and how customs treats the

parcel if it crosses a border. We do not publish a single delivery date here because a single date would be

a guess, and a guess dressed up as a promise is worse than no number at all. The individual product page is

where current production and delivery estimates live, and your order confirmation is where tracking appears.

Why this is different from our instant downloads

Most of the Pixquo catalogue is digital. If you buy a printable planner, a wall-art file or a sticker sheet

PDF, the file lands in your account and inbox straight away and you print it yourself. There is no

production queue, no courier and no customs form. That is the right choice when you need something tonight,

when you want to print the same page fifty times, or when you are buying for someone in a country we do not

ship to easily.

The products on this page are the opposite trade. You give up the instant gratification and you get a

finished object: a ceramic mug that survives the dishwasher, a cut vinyl decal, a poster printed on proper

stock, a shirt somebody can wear. Nothing here is emailed to you and nothing here can be downloaded. If you

are shopping close to a deadline, buy the physical item early or buy the digital equivalent instead — the

printable version is genuinely the better answer when the occasion is tomorrow.

What ordering actually looks like

  • You place the order and pay. Nothing is printed yet.
  • The design file goes to the production partner and enters the print queue.
  • Your item is printed, cured or pressed, checked and packed. This normally takes a few business days.
  • The parcel is handed to a carrier and tracking is issued.
  • Transit time depends on your destination, and on customs if the parcel crosses a border.

Because each item is produced individually, small variations between one order and the next are normal

rather than defects: the exact placement of a design can shift by a millimetre or two, and printed colour

will never match a backlit phone screen precisely. What should never vary is the legibility of the artwork,

the finish of the item or the build quality. If something arrives damaged, misprinted or genuinely wrong,

contact us with a photo and we will sort it out.

Related categories

Related guides

If you are shopping from outside the United States, our printables and planners by country hub is a useful companion: it points to the digital versions of many of these designs, which download instantly wherever you are and sidestep shipping and customs entirely.

Our habits, mindset and motivation guides cover

the morning-routine end of this — useful reading if you are buying a mug for someone who is trying to make

their mornings less of a crime scene.

Frequently asked questions

Are these mugs dishwasher and microwave safe?

Yes. The designs are heat-set into the glazed surface rather than applied as a decal on top, so normal

dishwasher cycles and microwave use are fine. The one thing to avoid is scrubbing the printed area with an

abrasive pad or wire wool, which will dull any printed ceramic over time.

What is the difference between the 11oz and 15oz versions?

Capacity and printable area. The 11oz is the standard mug size that fits every machine and cupboard. The

15oz is taller and wider, holds noticeably more, and gives longer phrases more room to stay readable. If

you cannot check the recipient’s coffee machine or shelf height, buy the 11oz.

How long until it arrives?

Each mug is printed after you order, so there is a production stage before anything ships. Production

normally takes a few business days, and shipping time then depends on your destination and the carrier.

Because both stages vary, we do not publish a fixed delivery date — check the estimate shown on the

individual product page before ordering, and use your tracking link once the parcel is dispatched.

Can I download the design instead of buying the mug?

Not the mug artwork itself, but many of the same phrases exist as instant-download printables elsewhere on

the site — see our printable wall art and

printable stickers. Those arrive immediately as files

you print yourself. The mugs on this page are physical items only and are never emailed.

Will the colour match the photo exactly?

Close, but not pixel-perfect. Product images are viewed on a backlit screen and printed ceramic is a

reflective surface, so there is always a small shift. Layout, contrast and legibility will match what you

see; exact colour temperature can differ slightly between production runs.

Can I buy several different designs together?

Yes — add as many as you like to one order. For team gifts, a mix of designs generally goes down better

than the same mug repeated, and the price per item is unchanged.

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