What can become the best gift for graphic designers? Think of the items that can be described as creative or even strange. Those are often a good way to inspire designers or ease their work.
30 Best Gifts for Graphic Designers in 2024
A designer is a person with a strongly developed fantasy, refined taste, creative abilities and a unique view of things. If you have difficulties selecting a gift for such a person, here is a list of 30 great gifts for graphic artists.
1. Set of Books for Inspiration
If you friend is a book lover, he/she will definitely like this set of inspirational books. Make any graphic designer's reading time great presenting one of these books or even several ones.
The set consists of 3 books: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going written by one author - Austin Kleon. All books are filled with engaging funny stories and helpful tips for creating masterpieces.
The set consists of 3 books: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going written by one author - Austin Kleon. All books are filled with engaging funny stories and helpful tips for creating masterpieces.
- Read more about Wacom tablets.
2. Computer Glasses
If the health and wellbeing of the recipient are dear to you, present them with a pair of protective glasses. Few other professionals spend as much time staring at a 5K monitor and the truth is that our eyes are not adjusted to it. A pair of anti-glare spectacles is designed to filter out some of the harmful elements that cause eye fatigue. Also, they can look great and can become a stylish accessory.
3. iMac Retina 5K Display
Although this gift is certainly not an affordable one, it’s something that will make your designer jump for joy, cry like a child and kiss your hands. Apple iMac is a beauty with 14.7 million pixels on a 27-inch display, power up to 4 GHz, 3.5 teraflops of graphics power and 20 Gb throughput with Thunderbold 2.
- View more the best computers for graphic design.
4. Pantone Color Guide
The fan-shaped reference guide developed by Pantone Color Institute is useful to every professional who works with graphic design. For the web designer, the version called Color Bridge Coated is the most useful, designed to convert shades into CMYK and RGB formats. It allows Pantone colors to be displayed most accurately on a screen.
5. Paint Marker Bundle Set
A set of 29 markers that your friend can use for taking brief notes, making illustrations or even pop art. Be sure they are water-based and can be used for drawing on metal, glass, plastic, mirror or any surfaces. The ink does not bleed.
- Examine the best photography magazines.
6. Logo Board Game
A special set of 400 game cards provides hours of play and can become a great present. This game will put your friend’s consumer knowledge to the test. They will come in a stylish bright box. Find out more amazing facts and surprises that will entertain not only graphic designers.
- Check out the list of the best gifts for photographers.
7. Wacom Bamboo Digital Ballpoint Pen
This Wacom bamboo digital ballpoint pen with snap-fit can be amazing addition to your friend’s tablet for taking notes. It’s not for professional purposes but will help for writing brainstorming ideas and sketches for projects, client meetings, and storyboards.
8. Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription
Illustrator is one of the best free graphic design software. If you or the recipient of the gift are into useful things, then this is a rather obvious option. Those who work with Adobe software will surely appreciate it. Also, this will be useful as a storage for any designer.
9. Pantone Notebooks
You will probably see it mentioned among the gift ideas for graphic designers everywhere. That is because these notebooks are somewhat of a craze among the designer folks. So your recipient will be either happy to try one or satisfied with a replenishment of the stock. Especially if you gift a large pack.
- Read about the main principles of design in photography.
10. Aura Box Clock Speaker
Instead of having a collection of useful or fun gadgets, you can get one tool and have them combined in a stylish cube. It contains a speaker, a lamp and a clock with an alarm. Besides, you can use it for hands-free calls and social media notifications or mess around with the pixel art display. The perfect device to make designer life more fun and easier.
11. Laptop Lapdesk
Every designer knows the pain of trying to balance devices, sketchbooks and coffee mugs on their laps. To avoid broken screens and coffee stains all over, a designer needs a lapdesk and this one has the perfect design. There is enough space for a 15” laptop, phone or an animation tablet standing upright in a special slot, and some other nonsense in a corner.
- Choose the best laptop for graphic design.
12. Bamboo Keyboard and Mouse
This is a delightful gift for graphic designers and anyone else. Such a keyboard for designers is actually handmade with the use of natural biodegradable bamboo. This miracle of technology is connected using a USB cable and is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS.
13. Dot Grid Sketchbook
The best gifts for graphic designers often work as creativity boosters and this one is an outstanding assistant. The dotted grid saves time at work with UI Stencils. But it is also convenient and fun to try out various ideas for logos or other designer things. The product being fully recyclable, it will please those caring for the environment.
14. Bellroy Classic Pouch
Don’t discard the idea of a pouch because even if it is common, it can still be appreciated among girls-designers. Especially if it is portable and stylish like this one. It is the everyday pouch for keeping your friend’s daily essentials in one place - cables, pens, cosmetics, HDMI tablet, toiletries, tools, etc. Besides, it has a water-resistant backing.
15. Temperature Control Travel Mug
This mug not only keeps hot drink at the exact temperature your friend prefers but also helps take a break from the workflow. This temperature control mug will become very useful if your friend-designer is fond of long trips and coffee.
16. Touch Gloves
Winter can be very frustrating for a creative fellow running around. Show them care by getting a pair of nice, warm and conductive gloves that enable the use of gadgets in the streets with the hands kept warm. Such gloves have special threads woven into the thumb and index tips which make any touchscreen respond swiftly.
17. Smart Carry-On
Some graphic designer gifts need to take care of the safety of their intellectual propertywhich is not necessarily digital. With this bag, a busy designer can travel around with ease of mind. The bag is linked to the smartphone for security and the smartphone is charged through the built-in powerbank.
18. CMYK Color Puzzle
Original entertainment for long evenings by the Australian Clemens Habicht. The puzzle, created on the basis of the CMYK color scheme, consists of 1000 parts, helps develop logic and a sense of color, plus it calms nerves.
19. Sakura Pens
The most boring presents for anyone else, pens are the most appreciated graphic design gifts. They only have to be of high quality to become useful to an artist. You need a pen that doesn’t skip spots, or create puddles, or dry out quickly.
20. Phone Camera Lens Kit
Don’t be too quick to discard this one as a tacky idea. It seems like every designer I know would love to get it if they still didn’t. This kit consists of a 20X telephoto lens, 205° fisheye lens, 0.5X ultra wide angle lens, 25X super macro lens, universal clip, tripod, eyecup and a bag. The best choice for designers-photographers.
- Learn here what is better Photoshop or Illustrator.
21. Tim Burton Playing Cards
It’s hard to find a more renowned figure in the world of artistic or alternative people of which designers make a large part. The works of this creator are hugely famous. So a deck of cards designed by him is an incredible little souvenir, great to look at and even more so to play with.
22. Movie Scratch Off Poster
This is one of those gifts for graphic designers who are true film and movie lovers. This is a very helpful thing if your friend can’t choose a movie to watch on weekends. This stylish poster depicts 100 Must-Seen and Popular Movies from significant classics to modern blockbusters, thrillers, horror and award-winning animation.
23. Power Dock Station
A thing artful people always struggled with is order. Modern artists have it worse for the number of wires and cables they are forced to keep in use. Help your designer friend with the best laptop docking station that can organize all those tangling chargers and also some small items, like keys or phones, that always get lost in the mess.
24. Multi-Port Adapter
Another great organizer is this well-designed and portable Type-C Hub. It combines three USB 3.0 ports, SD and Micro SD card slots, Ethernet, charging port, and 4K HDMI video output.It can become a great addition to a laptop for drawing. You can rest assured that it will come handy.
25. Extra Storage
Extra storage is among those useful gifts for graphic designers that you can safely rely on. There is a large variety of these gadgets so you can find something more tailored to your friend’s needs. But even a simple backup storage gadget is great.
26. Projection Keyboard
This small box is really what we should all be using already. But so far it remains a great present that your designer is unlikely to have. It is easier to carry around than a normal keyboard and an iPad mouse and makes life much lighter for those who move around a lot and work on the go.
27. Electronic Cleaning Brush
Graphic designers work every day with a wide variety of gadgets that also need to be cleaned from time to time. An electronic brush is an inexpensive but useful tool that helps keep a variety of devices clean – from the best laser projection keyboard to a smartphone or watch.
28. Stencils for Designers
While working on creating a user interface, web designers do some things on the screen of their computer and other ones they prefer to draw by hand. Such a stencil allows you to most accurately depict your ideas on paper. Typically, such gifts for graphic designers include pattern paper, a mechanical pencil, a pouch and stickers.
29. Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
If you don’t want to organize your designer’s workspace, try to boost their creativity with this workshop book. There will always be a time when they need a kick to find inspiration or fight distraction and this great gift can do that perfectly. The exercises can take as much time as one wants, from an hour to design a typeface to a couple of days to make a website.
30. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design
For those more academically inclined, this award-winning History of Graphic Design book is the perfect gift. It contains nearly 1.5 thousand high-quality images supporting equally satisfying text. It tells the stories of innovators, breakthroughs and other important developments that shape the graphic design industry and bear huge significance in this rather young field.
- Read more about the best photography books.
Tata Rossi
Hi there, I'm Tata Rossi - a professional blogger, read more
