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Designer Daily’s gift guide: 2012 edition

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 07:59 PM PST

Christmas is around the corner, and if you didn’t buy your gifts yet, now is the perfect time for it. If you have a designers friend or family, I suggest that you consider one of the following items as a gift.

Electronics

Yep, designers often like gadgets and are big users of it. By offering some electronics to your designer friend/family, you are almost sure to hit the target.

Kindle Fire

Amazon’s new popular e-reader is probably the first serious competitor to the iPad, and it’s much cheaper. Buy it

Apple iPad

Do I really need to introduce the iPad? Buy it

Giant pencil iPhone/iPad stylus

An awesome looking stylus for your touchscreen device. Buy it

Oona anywhere iPhone mount

The coolest iPhone stand you’ll see. Not only it will hold your iPhone at your desk, but you can use it anywhere. Buy it

Geeky stuff

Satisfy your designer’s inner geek’s needs by offering him one of these geeky gifts.

Grassy lawn charging station

Hide your rats’ nest of cables with scenic grass. Buy it

Joystick-it iPad Arcade Stick

Add a real physical joystick to your tablet computer for enhanced gaming precision. Buy it

Freeloader pico solar charger

Power up your devices with the rays of the Sun. Buy it

Mug Boss

Turn your wimpy mug into a rugged office companion. Buy it

Books

Good designers love to improve their skills, and design books are a great way to learn, here are a few suggestions.

Design by Nature

Maggie Macnab takes you on an intimate and eclectic journey examining the unending versatility of nature, showing how to uncover nature's ingenuity and use it to create beautiful and compelling designed communications. Buy it

Saul Bass

This is the first book to be published on one of the greatest American designers of the 20th Century, who was as famous for his work in film as for his corporate identity and graphic work. Buy it

344 Questions

The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself Guide to Insight, Survival, and Artistic Fulfillment. Buy it

Visual Storytelling

With its collection of inspiring, insightful, interactive, and entertaining examples, the book Visual Storytelling reveals how the contextualization of information is pushing the envelope of today’s design and aesthetics. But it

Steve Jobs

An inspiration for anyone who wants to understand this amazing entrepreneur who always thought that design was an important part of his products. Buy it

The New York Times Magazine Photographs

Edited by Kathy Ryan, longtime photo editor of the Magazine, and with a preface by former editorial director Gerald Marzorati, this volume presents some of the finest commissioned photographs worldwide in four sections: reportage, portraiture, style and conceptual photography, including photo illustration. Buy it

T-shirts

A t-shirt is always a welcome gift, especially a cool one. We found some t-shirts totally appropriate for designers.

Wi-Fi Detector Shirt

A shirt with a built-in Wi-Fi signal detector, perfect for nomad designers with laptops. Buy it

There’s no place like 127.0.0.1

For fans of IPs and maybe the Wizard. Buy it

No Comment

Tired of constantly having an opinion about everything? Just shutup. Buy it

Professional stuff

Most people prefer to get gifts that aren’t directly related to their work. However, the workaholic designer will be happy to get a gift that lets him work better.

A mouse

Owning a good and accurate mouse can dramatically increase the perfomances of a designer, thus let him earn more money. We already did a post about the best mouses and graphic tablets for designers, so I’ll let you just chose from there.