Custom name plates, hand-painted with your name

Round, rectangular, or with bells

The round mandala plates are the most popular. The pattern radiates out from the centre and the name sits across the middle on a clear band, so it stays readable against all the detail around it.

Rectangular plates suit a narrow space beside a door frame, and they give the name more room — useful for a longer family name or two names together. Some are made with a row of small brass bells along the bottom, which move and sound a little when the door opens.

Motifs are yours to choose. A Ganesha panel or a swastik at the corners is common for a main door; lotus tiles and floral borders are the usual alternative if you would rather keep it non-religious.

How your name goes on

Send me the name exactly as you want it to read, including the spelling and whether you want a surname, a house number, or both. Script matters too — most are painted in English, and Hindi or another script is possible if you tell me in advance.

I'll share a mockup with your name in place before painting. Names are the one thing on a plate that cannot be fixed afterwards, so this step is not optional.

Colours, size and where it will hang

Tell me the colour of your door and the light it gets. A dark plate on a dark teak door disappears; that is the most common mistake and it is easy to avoid at the design stage.

Size depends on where it goes — beside a flat door, on the door itself, or on a gate. Send me a photo of the spot and rough measurements and I'll suggest a size and shape.

One honest caution: these are hand-painted pieces with mirror and clay detailing. They are made for a covered doorway or an indoor wall. A plate mounted on an open gate in full sun and monsoon rain will not last the way it should — tell me if that is the plan and I'll say so before you order rather than after.

Name plates in a Gurgaon society

Before you order anything, find out whether your society has a rule about it. A lot of the gated developments here do, and the rules vary more than you would expect. Some RWAs specify a size, some specify that every plate on a floor has to match the builder-fitted one, and a few in the newer Gurgaon towers do not allow anything on the corridor wall at all, only on the door itself.

It is a two minute question to the facility manager and it has saved several of my customers from ordering something they then could not hang.

Where it ends up depends on what you live in. In an apartment, the usual spot is the door itself or the short stretch of wall beside the frame, and the constraint is width. Corridor walls in most Gurgaon towers leave somewhere between 20 and 40cm of clear plaster beside a door before you hit the frame on one side and a switch or the neighbour on the other. Measure that before choosing a shape, because a 12 inch round plate needs more room than people assume once you allow clear space around it.

Villas and independent floors in DLF phases, Sushant Lok and South City are easier. There is usually a boundary wall, a gate, or a pillar beside the gate, and you have room to use something larger. The catch is that all of those are outdoors.

Outdoors is the part I will be straight about. Lippan is clay. A plate on a gate pillar takes direct sun, monsoon rain and the dust off the road, and clay relief will not last the way metal or acrylic does in that position. If the plate is going on an exposed outer wall or a gate, tell me, because I would either steer you to a design with less exposed relief or say that mud work is the wrong material for that spot. I would rather lose the order than have a piece fail in eighteen months.

Under a covered porch, inside a lobby, or on an apartment door, none of that applies and the plate will be fine indefinitely.

What actually goes on the plate

More goes wrong here than in the making.

The most common choice is a surname on its own, sometimes with the definite article and a plural, so Sharma becomes The Sharmas. It reads warmly and it does not date when the household changes. Full names of a couple are the next most common, usually stacked on two lines, and they are the ones most likely to need redoing later.

House or flat number is worth including even when it feels redundant, because it is the thing a delivery rider is actually looking for. If the society numbering is awkward, Tower C, 1204 and so on, put the part that identifies you and leave the rest.

Some people want a line in Hindi alongside the English, or the surname in Devanagari underneath. That works well visually, because the two scripts have different weights and the Hindi line sits naturally as a secondary element. It does need more space, so say so early rather than after the layout is drawn.

Motifs are usually Ganesha, Om, a swastik, a lotus, or small brass bells hung along the bottom edge. The bells are the most requested addition and also the one to think hardest about, since they are audible every time the door moves.

Spelling is the one thing I ask twice about. A name laid in clay cannot be corrected the way a printed one can. Once the relief is raised and dried, a misspelling means remaking the plate. I send the exact text back to you in writing before anything is drawn, and I will not start until you have confirmed it character by character. It is a tedious step and it has never once been wasted.

Made as a gift

A name plate is one of the better housewarming gifts, because it is genuinely personal and the recipient cannot already own one. For a griha pravesh or a wedding, tell me the date you need it by and the name to paint.

If you are giving it as a surprise and cannot ask for the spelling, send me a photo of the existing plate or an envelope — I would rather check than guess.

Questions before ordering