Dead have the last laugh in ?1,000 custom-made coffins

For centuries, they have been little more than plain wooden boxes: anonymous containers for the bodies of the dead. Now, in an age when everything from motor cars to mobile phones can be customised to suit their owners' preferences, coffins are becoming the ultimate personality statement.

More and more grieving families are eschewing traditional wooden coffins in favour of colourful one-offs tailor-made to reflect the characters, tastes and achievements of their loved ones, according to leading figures within the funeral industry. Miniature spaceships and aeroplanes and giant envelopes and bells are among the wackier designs to have been commissioned so far from specialist craftsmen and artists.

Later this month, a new exhibition called The Next Place at Nottingham Castle Museum will put on show the new generation of personalised coffins. It will include those made by British producers, and the work of craftsmen from Accra in Ghana, where customised coffin-making has long since been a fine art. Among the most popular designs produced by local manufacturers are ones resembling hens, tropical fish, chilli peppers and even Nike trainers.

And it is not just those planning imminent funerals who have begun to see the virtues of the new trend. More people are ordering their own personalised coffins well before the event ? with some keen to make use of them in life as well as death.

Among the dual purpose containers produced in recent months have been ones designed to double as everything from motorcycle sidecars to coffee tables. Nottingham-based coffin manufacturer Vic Fearn and Company began specialising in custom-made designs in response to what it saw as a growing demand for more individualised funeral services. In the past few months, it has produced dozens of so-called "crazy coffins", costing anything from ?450 to ?1,000, to specifications dictated by customers.

Director David Crampton said: "We have offered people the chance to paint the coffins of their relatives for about 11 years now. One of our most recent coffins was painted in the livery of a vintage Ford Capri GT but with the colours of Chelsea football club.

"About nine months ago we decided to branch out into making unusually shaped coffins too, because we were finding a growing demand among grieving families for ones that genuinely reflect the personality of the people being mourned. But people are now starting to realise you don't have to wait until you die to have your coffin made ? you can order one in advance that genuinely says something about your life."

He added: "Some people almost seem to see their future coffins as fashion accessories. We had one man who was mad about his motorbike, so we made him a coffin shaped like a sidecar which he clipped to the frame and took on a tour of the country, and another young chap ordered one with a glass top that he has been using as a coffee table in his lounge.

Most recently, Vic Fearn, which was responsible for the pearl-coloured coffin built for late TV presenter Paula Yates, has produced ones resembling a Red Arrow jet, a barge and a skip. Mr Crampton, who is also chairman of the UK Funeral Furnishings Association, said: "We've also done a number of things for celebrities. We recently decorated a coffin for a well-known heavy metal artist who used to play a gold Fender guitar, and we got our signwriter to paint one on the front of the coffin in the position it would be in if he was actually playing it."

Vic Fearn is not the only company which is capitalising on the demand for designer coffins. Full Circle, a firm based in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, recently built one modelled on Buck Rogers's spaceship.

Others are going even further in their efforts to explore the full creative potential of the designer coffin craze. Brighton-based artist Hazel Selina has produced a series of custom-made bio-degradable "eco-pods" decorated with elaborate swan motifs in gold leaf.

Meanwhile, the Association of Burial Authorities is seeking backing from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Crafts Council for a competition aimed at ensuring the graveyards and crematoria of the future are more colourful and vibrant than those of today.

Chairman Sam Weller said: "In Britain, there has been a collapse in the standards of funerary art generally, by which I mean coffins, urns, headstones and even the buildings themselves, since Victorian times. Although things are slowly changing here we want to get artists and designers to be even more daring."

Neville Sankey, chairman of the Funeral Services Exhibition, added: "There is a trend towards celebrating people's lives as well as commemorating their deaths. The further south you go in Europe, the more interesting the designs seem to become."