33 Amazing Gifts for Designers and Creative Professionals

Happy Holidays! Whether you cel­e­brate Christmas, Hannukah, Yule, Kwanzaa, or just the turn of the new year, this time of year is regard­ed world­wide as a time of giv­ing. But what does one give to graph­ic design­ers, illus­tra­tors, fash­ion design­ers, prod­uct design­ers, Web design­ers, and oth­er cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als? After all, we are often a difficult-to-buy-for bunch. To help you find the per­fect present for your favorite cre­ative, I scoured the Web for gifts that help design­ers do their work, cel­e­brate cre­ativ­i­ty, and express them­selves as creatives.

I found so many that I could­n’t pub­lish them all in one place. On CreativePro​.com I crammed as many cre­ative gifts as pos­si­ble into the accept­able length of not one but two arti­cles (part 1 here and part 2 here). And still I was left with more than 30 amaz­ing gifts your beloved design­er would be delight­ed to receive from you. Thus, here’s the unof­fi­cial part 3–33 more amaz­ing design­er gifts!

Merry! Happy! Joyous!

Creative Cloud Burst Converse Shoes

Introduced and almost instant­ly sold out at AdobeMAX 2013, these shoes com­bine the clas­sic style of Converse with the unmis­tak­able flair of the Creative Cloud branding.

Whooz Iz It iDevice Charger Skins

$12.95
Get It Here
The plugs and charg­ing bricks that come with Apple prod­ucts are white and bland. Help your design­er gif­tee make them his or her own with these inex­pen­sive cus­tom labels. Sold in sets of 4.

Alphabet of Typography Poster

An alpha­bet­i­cal primer on the won­ders of typog­ra­phy, includ­ing ser­ifs, hooks, dia­crit­ics, spines, lig­a­tures, and more. 18 x 24-inches. Hand signed and num­bered by the artists. Printed with Vegan friend­ly veg­etable based inks.

Graphic Design Trivia Games

Volumes 1, 2, and 3 avail­able. Impress your peers and increase your mem­o­ry skills with this fun, social, and edu­ca­tion­al game of graph­ic design trivia.

Grayscale Ultra Thin Wall Clock

Features accu­rate whis­per qui­et step­ping move­ment. One of the thinnest clocks in the world. Design by Thomas Buchheim

Model Leonardo Da Vinci Printing Press

$19.95
Get It Here
The inven­tion that inspired this snap-together repli­ca is tak­en from the pages of Da Vinci’s price­less and awe-inspiring note­books. This mod­el is made of plas­tic, snaps togeth­er and requires no spe­cial tools. No bat­ter­ies required.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

A type­face mem­o­ry game. With twenty-five pairs of cards, each pre­sent­ing a dif­fer­ent type fam­i­ly, this is a very styl­ish and inter­est­ing typo­graph­ic con­cen­tra­tion game. The kit includes a typo­graph­i­cal glos­sary with the main terms used in typog­ra­phy as well as a text about the evo­lu­tion of type design, locat­ing in his­to­ry each one of the fonts used in the game.

Multifont Belt Buckle

Get your type on! This is a buck­le cast in lead free pewter from actu­al let­ter­press pieces. Perfect for all those graph­ic design­ers, font lovers in your life. Try it with the brand new recy­cled rub­ber belt, sold sep­a­rate­ly. Fits belts up to 1.5″ in width.

Typographic Tote Bags

Fun, typo­graph­ic tote bags includ­ing “The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over A Lazy Dog,” a sen­tence is used by graph­ic design­ers when work­ing with type­faces, because the phrase con­tains all of the let­ters of the English alphabet.

Will Design for Money Zip Hoodie

$36–42
Get It Here
The per­fect hood­ie for the design­er in your life. Available in numer­ous colors.

Pixel Hand Tool Ovenmitts

$14.99
Get It Here
These pix­e­lat­ed oven gloves are def­i­nite­ly the coolest gloves to hold a hot plate! Generously padded, they’ll pro­tect your hands like any oven glove while pro­vid­ing some geek chic flair!

Lorem Ipsum Tie

In pub­lish­ing and graph­ic design, “Lorem ipsum” is com­mon place­hold­er text used to demon­strate the graph­ic ele­ments of a doc­u­ment with­out adding implied mean­ing of words the read­er could under­stand. Made of a soft microfiber, hav­ing almost the same hand as real silk and is print­ed with high-quality, non-toxic, water­based ink. Available in three col­ors and two widths—standard (3.5–4 inch) and nar­row (2.5–3 inch). All new mate­ri­als. Vegan safe.

Undo CMD+Z Necklace

Necklace is for those design­ers out there that just want to hit “undo.“ The pen­dent is cut from 3mm black acrylic and is 1.75” wide and 1″ tall. It hangs from a silver-plated chain approx­i­mate­ly 18″ in total length.

Font Snob T-Shirt

$26.99
Get It Here
The per­fect shirt for your favorite font snob. Available in a vari­ety of styles and colors.

Helvetica (Documentary) DVD or Blu-ray

$20–26
Get It Here
Helvetica is a feature-length inde­pen­dent film about typog­ra­phy, graph­ic design and glob­al visu­al cul­ture. It looks at the pro­lif­er­a­tion of one type­face (which cel­e­brat­ed its 50th birth­day in 2007) as part of a larg­er con­ver­sa­tion about the way type affects our lives. The film is an explo­ration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhab­its them, and a flu­id dis­cus­sion with renowned design­ers about their work, the cre­ative process, and the choic­es and aes­thet­ics behind their use of type.

MIMOBOT Independent/Artists Series USB Drives

$24.95–69.99
Get It Here
Available in 76 dif­fer­ent styles and 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB sizes.

Arial Mouspad

$12.95
Get It Here
Note: This is for a gag only! Designers hate Arial (the font), so give this only as a gag.

Multiple Ampersands Coffee Mug

$13.99
Get It Here
Express your­self with our premium-sized ceram­ic cof­fee mug. With its large easy-to-grip han­dle, steady base, and hefty 15 oz. capac­i­ty, this mug allows for com­fort­able sip­ping and slosh-free use, at home or at the office. Dishwasher & microwave safe, it’s easy to clean and for reheating.

& Hoody

The amper­sand (the “&” mark) is typ­i­cal­ly the most beau­ti­ful glyph (char­ac­ter) in a type­face (font), and type design­ers often tru­ly express their cre­ativ­i­ty when draw­ing the amper­sand. Thus this hum­ble lit­tle con­trac­tion (for “and per se and”) is almost uni­ver­sal­ly loved by every typophile (font afi­ciona­do) and designer.

Make It Pop! T-Shirt

“Make It Pop!” is a phrase design­ers hear all the time from clients who don’t know what they want and who can’t say any­thing help­ful. This shirt is height of irony, allow­ing any design­er to laugh off the frustration.

Scrabble Typography 2nd Edition

$199.99
Get It Here
Signed and num­bered lim­it­ed edi­tion set designed by Andrew Capener com­bines the beau­ty of typog­ra­phy with clas­sic Scrabble game­play. Features fif­teen fonts nev­er used before on any Scrabble set. Walnut cov­ered game­play sur­face on maple base.

CMYK Playing Cards

Featuring 54 cards of dif­fer­ent ink per­cent­ages and suits swapped fro printer’s ink colors—cyan, magen­ta, yel­low, and black.

Outside the Lines: An Artists' Coloring Book for Giant Imaginations

A strik­ing col­lec­tion of illus­tra­tions from more than 100 cre­ative mas­ter­minds, includ­ing ani­ma­tors, car­toon­ists, fine artists, graph­ic artists, illus­tra­tors, musi­cians, out­sider artists, pho­tog­ra­phers, street artists, and video game artists.

AlphabeTies

$30.00–45.00
Get It Here
Customizable typo­graph­ic ties avail­able in five dif­fer­ent let­ter styles, numer­ous fab­ric and ink col­ors, and var­i­ous let­ter placements.

PANTONE Bone China Mug Set

Three dif­fer­ent sets of six mugs each. Each mug is fine bone china.

TYPE Letterpress Calendar

$31.49
Get It Here
Printed on a thick, 100% cot­ton stock, each cal­en­dar card pass­es through the press twice, once per col­or (black and gray). The stock is then cut down to size with a die cut­ting machine. The 100% eco-friendly stand is craft­ed from pre­mi­um bam­boo and is hand sand­ed, then laser engraved.

Lumi Kit

$29.95
Get It Here
A DIY alter­na­tive to screen print­ing that prints onto fab­ric with light. Works on cot­ton, linen, silk, ray­on, can­vas, and any oth­er nat­ur­al & absorbent fiber. Prints are per­ma­nent machine-washable with­out fad­ing. Kits avail­able in red, orange, and blue inks.

Converge

$39.99
Get It Here
Converge dock­ing sta­tion shows off your elec­tron­ics while they charge. Wires slip in eas­i­ly, stay in place with the help of soft TPE grips, and stay out of sight. Your gad­gets face you, so you can check on ’em when­ev­er you need to.

Moleskine Sketchbook

$13.95–35.00
Get It Here
An essen­tial item in any creative’s go bag, Moleskin sketch­books and note­books are the gold stan­dard in on-the-go sketch­ing and notetaking.

Type. A visual History of Typefaces & Graphic Styles

$59.99
Get It Here
A connoisseur’s overview of type­face design, explor­ing the most ele­gant fonts from the his­to­ry of pub­lish­ing, 1628–1938.

Rainbow Umbrella with Adobe Logo

24 bright­ly col­ored pan­els make this umbrel­la stur­dier and, of course, much more styl­ish than the typ­i­cal rain stopper.

The Hand of the Designer

By Moleskine. A col­lec­tion of 462 repro­duc­tions of hand made sketch­es by 150 inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized designers.

The Christmas Story from Gutenberg's 42-Line Bible (Colored)

Produced by the Gutenberg Museum’s print­er on the finest hand­made paper using tra­di­tion­al print­ing meth­ods and his­toric machines, this absolute gem is a work of great crafts­man­ship. This is the Christmas sto­ry as relat­ed by St Luke the Evangelist from one of the most pre­cious books in the world: the first print­ed Bible cre­at­ed by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz in c. 1450–1455. Available in English, German, French, and Latin trans­la­tions. 16.5 x 11.8 inches.

Have a hap­py and safe hol­i­day sea­son from me, Pariah Burke, the Burke fam­i­ly, and the entire staff.