THE MUSEUM OF DIPLOMAS AND CERTIFICATES
Here you will find our first diploma and certificate museum, which we will update periodically. I believe this is the first online diploma museum available! The purpose of this small museum is to show you diplomas/certificates in different styles and layouts over a period from 1900s to the present.
The oldest reproduction document we have worked with dates back to 1901, and the style is quite different from what you see today.
ANTIQUE LEVEL: PRE-1900S – 1980S
Before digital printing became a thing, creating a perfect diploma template was a thing of beauty. Manual methods had to be used to make sure everything looked professional and consistent across the board. These are true diplomas – the ones you see in museums and the like.
If you’re ordering a diploma in this time period, the template will usually have basic design with old-timey lettering and printing methods. We have a large selection of templates from this time period to choose from if you’re older and you need a degree that corresponds when you were younger and going to school.
One thing to note is that diplomas from this time period will usually have signs of wear – as the paper used wasn’t made to withstand the test of time, you will see yellowing of the paper and fraying around the edges. Since your brand-new diploma won’t have these natural signs of age, we recommend leaving it openly exposed to air, sunlight, and moisture to speed up the process.
TRADITIONAL: 1980S-2000
With the arrival of the 80s, most schools started changing up their printing methods to produce diplomas on a mass scale and save money. Here, you’ll see basic lettering, boring backgrounds (usually plain white), and nothing that really gives the diploma any personality.
We have almost every diploma template from this era, and because of the simplistic design, you will almost always pay our low base price for printing. There is no extra manual work needed for complicated seals and the like.
MODERN: 2000S TO PRESENT
Perhaps because of the growing competition with for-profit colleges, many universities and colleges completely redesigned their diploma templates to be a mix of the two styles described above. As you can see from the pictures below, every template has a bit of design making it relevant to the organization, but overall, the layout is still simple, clean, and modern.
You guessed it – as with earlier diplomas, we have almost every updated template for these newer ones, too. Get in touch today to see if we have the particular template you need in stock – no matter what era it’s from, we probably do.