Looking to add some flash to your funeral? The Auckland-based company, Dying Art, is offering custom caskets.
Whatever your interests — whether it’s fire engines to doughnuts to LEGOS — the company can design a casket to match your personality.
Owner and founder Ross Hall tells the Otago Daily Times that he came up with the idea 15 years ago while writing his will.
“I didn’t want to go out in a brown box,” he explains. “So, I thought to myself I’m going to write in my will that I want a red casket with flames on it.”
“A couple days later I said to my wife, ‘I wonder if anybody else wants something a little bit different rather than a brown mahogany box,'” he continues, “and we sort of looked at each other and thought about it for a while.”
After initially laughing the idea off, Hall decided to do go for it.
“I did up 20 different designs and I went to the funeral directors with a little brochure and went ‘hey, how about this you guys?’ and they all thought I was mad.” he recalls.
But the idea slowly caught on and now some weeks they can get up to five orders for custom caskets, he tells the newspaper.
The cost of the coffins varies depending on the complexity of the design, but Hall insists it’s not about the money, but about making people happy.