Departures Template — Complete Guide

Departures turns your invitation into an airport terminal. The cover is a split-flap departures board: your event name clatters into place letter by letter, beside a flight number, destination, date, time, gate and a glowing "Boarding" light. Guests reply on a boarding pass, find their way with yellow airport signs, and read your schedule off a departures board of its own.

It is built for events where the team travels somewhere — offsites, retreats, summits, conferences, sales kick-offs, incentive trips — and it works just as well for destination weddings and milestone trips.

This guide covers how Departures looks, the options unique to it, how to apply it, and the treatment it gives each section of your invitation. For an overview of the template library and the picker, see How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation.

What makes Departures different

Standard templates restyle one shared layout with colours and fonts. Departures replaces the layout itself: the cover, the countdown, the gallery, the story, the location, the schedule, the gifts, the details, the calendar buttons and the RSVP form are all rebuilt as pieces of an airport.

Signature design elements

• A split-flap departures board — every letter of your event name sits on its own flap tile with the hairline split and hinge pins of a real Solari board. On load the tiles cycle through random letters before settling, then the flight row follows: Flight, Destination, Date, Time, Gate and a Status light. Empty positions show as blank flaps, just like a real board
• A boarding-pass RSVP — the reply form lives on a paper boarding pass with the passenger's name, flight, date, gate and boarding time, a perforated tear line with punched notches, and a stub with the destination code and a barcode generated from your event name
• Airport wayfinding — every section title is a hanging yellow sign with its own pictogram (a plane for the schedule, a bed for hotels, a bus for transport, a passport for your story), and directions to the venue are yellow-on-black signs with arrows
• Countdown on flip tiles — the days, hours, minutes and seconds are flap tiles that flip whenever a digit changes
• Four boards — Classic black, Midnight navy, Terminal white (a light version) and Sunset amber
• Motion with manners — guests who ask their device for reduced motion see the board already settled, with nothing moving. You can also switch the flip-in off for everyone

When to choose Departures

Departures suits any event where getting there is part of the story:

• Company offsites and retreats — the flight number, gate and destination make the trip feel real from the first screen; see corporate events
• Summits, conferences and sales kick-offs — the schedule reads like a departures board, and the travel information pages hold hotels, shuttles, parking and a Q&A "information desk"; see conferences
• Incentive trips and company anniversaries — the boarding pass makes replying feel like checking in
• Destination weddings and milestone trips — pick Sunset amber or Midnight navy for a warmer, evening feel

Choose Bento instead for a modern product-site look with rounded tiles, or Folio for a quiet Swiss editorial layout.

Applying Departures to your event

1. Open your event, click Invitation in the sidebar, then the Invitation tab
2. In Design Template, click Change template if the gallery is collapsed, and find Departures under Designs (the Corporate filter narrows the list)
3. Optional: press Try it on to see Departures with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
4. Or click the Departures card to apply it straight away
5. Open Departures options to adjust the template-specific settings described below. Changes save automatically

Departures works on every plan. On free events a small "Made with Fotify" badge appears in the bottom corner of the invitation; any paid plan or an active subscription removes it.

Switching to another template later is non-destructive: your event content stays exactly as you entered it, and your Departures options are kept in case you switch back.

Customization options

Departures has eight options of its own. They take the place of Fotify's standard colour and font controls, which Departures doesn't use. Every board value has a sensible default built from your event, so the board reads like a real departure before you touch anything.

1. Board

The colour of the whole terminal:

• Classic black (default) — a near-black board with warm-white flaps and signage yellow
• Midnight navy — a navy board with white flaps and warm yellow signs
• Terminal white — the light version: white panels, black type and yellow accents
• Sunset amber — a deep aubergine board with glowing amber flaps

Every board keeps text readable at accessibility contrast levels, and the boarding pass stays paper-coloured on all of them.

2. Flight number

Shown on the board and the boarding pass — for example "OS 2027". Leave it blank and Departures builds one from the initials of your event name and its date: "Amelia & Sebastián" on 20 June becomes AS 620.

3. Gate

The gate on the board and the boarding pass — for example "B12". Defaults to A1.

4. Airport code

The huge three-letter code on the destination panel and the boarding pass stub — for example "LIS". Leave it blank to use the first three letters of the destination ("Lisbon" becomes LIS). When the destination's first word is shorter than three letters, as in "St. Moritz", no code is shown until you type one.

5. Destination

The city on the board. Leave it blank and Departures takes it from your event location — the city after the venue name, skipping street addresses and postcodes. "Château de Villette, Paris" becomes Paris, and "Hotel Arts, Carrer de la Marina 19, 08005 Barcelona" becomes Barcelona. Set it yourself when your location is written differently.

6. Cover line

The green status line above your event name on the board. Defaults to "Now boarding". Try "Final call", "Wheels up in June" or your company's own words.

7. Closing title

The large line that closes the invitation. Defaults to "Have a pleasant flight".

8. Flip the board in

On by default: the cover board clatters in letter by letter. Turn it off to show the board settled for everyone.

Every text Departures prints on the invitation — the board labels, the status, the section signs, the boarding pass fields and the button labels — can also be rewritten directly on the page: switch the live preview into edit mode and double-click the text. The cover line and closing title are edited in place the same way.

How each section is treated

Cover

The departures board replaces the standard header: a yellow Departures header strip with a plane pictogram, the status line, your event name on split-flap tiles, and the flight row. Long names wrap between words and the tiles shrink so the longest word always fits a phone screen. Under the board, a big Board now sign scrolls to the RSVP, followed by the full date and time, your event location and the reply-by date. Your cover photo appears in an aircraft cabin window, with the window shade pulled a little way down.

Hide the time with the Show time setting of your cover. On a save-the-date the Board now sign is left out.

Message

A public-address announcement: a console strip with a chime and "Attention, please", then your message. A short first paragraph is set in a monospace announcement voice; longer text reads in a comfortable body size.

Countdown

A board panel with a flip tile per digit and a small label under each unit. The units you switch off in the countdown settings disappear. When the day arrives, your completion message replaces the numbers.

Gallery (Carousel)

"Window seat": your photos as a row of cabin windows along a fuselage wall, each with its shade. Guests swipe the row on phones; on desktop, arrow buttons step through it.

Story

A "flight log": each milestone gets an inked passport stamp with its date (the day big, the month and year around it), then its title and text, with the photo pinned beside it like a snapshot. Dates you typed as free text ("Summer 2019") are stamped exactly as written. The stamps sit on a dashed flight path.

Location

"Destination": the airport code set huge beside the city and the venue's full address, your directions and an Open in Maps link as yellow-on-black wayfinding signs with arrows, and the map framed like an arrivals screen.

Itinerary

Your schedule as a departures board, one board per day with the day on a yellow strip. Each row shows the time on small flap tiles, the event, where it happens (and any note) and an "On time" status light. On phones the rows become stacked cards.

Gifts

"Duty free": registries, cash and transfer options, good causes and wishlist items as shop-front cards, grouped under small signs when you offer more than one kind. Payment details sit in a code field with a copy button; long account numbers and wallet addresses wrap inside the card. Pay links and scan-to-pay QR codes appear beneath.

Event Details

"Travel information": the dress code on a hanger sign with your suggested and avoided colours as swatches, hotels as info cards (distance, price range, phone, promo code and a booking sign), ground transport as rows with a pictogram for each kind — shuttle, parking, taxi, rideshare, train, valet — and your FAQs as the information desk.

Save the Date (Calendar)

"Add to your itinerary": three signage pills for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Outlook.

RSVP

The boarding pass. The yes/no choice becomes two large selectable panels, fields are clear white inputs, and the submit button is a full-width boarding sign. On desktop the stub stays in view while guests fill in a long form. Guests without a name on their invitation are shown as "Our guest".

Closing

A runway with a plane taking off, your closing title, the boarding-closes date on a yellow strip, and the event name, flight, date and place.

Sections that use the shared layout

A few sections keep Fotify's shared layout and are dressed in Departures' style — each lines up with the rest of the terminal, with its title hung on a yellow sign:

• Photo upload — yellow sign-style upload button
• QR code — rounded plate that stays scannable on every board
• Your table — table names shown as yellow chips
• Sub-events and perks — sign-style accept, decline and unlock buttons
• Playlist requests
• Custom sections — sign titles; embedded HTML is shown on a paper panel so it stays readable on dark boards, and tall portrait photos are capped in height

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Departures only for corporate events? A: No. It leads with offsites and conferences, but any event where travel is part of the story works — destination weddings, milestone trips, reunions. Sunset amber and Midnight navy give it a warmer evening feel.

Q: Where do the flight number and destination come from? A: From your event unless you set them: the flight number from your event's initials and date, the destination from your event location, the airport code from the destination. Set any of them in Departures options to override.

Q: Will guests who get motion sickness see the flipping letters? A: Not if their device asks for reduced motion — the board then appears settled and nothing flips. You can also turn Flip the board in off for everyone.

Q: My event name is long. Will it fit on the board? A: Yes. The board wraps between words and sizes the tiles so your longest word fits on one line, even on a phone.

Q: Does the board work in other languages? A: Yes. Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew names flip letter by letter; scripts whose letters join together, such as Arabic or Hindi, flip a word at a time so the writing stays intact. Times and flight numbers always read left to right.

Q: Does Departures support all the standard features? A: Yes — cover, message, countdown, gallery, story, location, itinerary, gifts (including wishlist reservations and contributions), event details, calendar buttons and RSVP all have Departures layouts, and the remaining sections use the shared layout in Departures' style. The envelope opening and background music work as usual; with an envelope, the board flips in once the guest opens it.

Next steps

• See How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation for the template gallery and how to try a design on before applying it
• Compare with Bento for a modern tiled layout or Folio for Swiss editorial minimalism
• Learn more about digital invitations with RSVP and corporate events on Fotify

Need help? Get in touch through the in-dashboard help widget.