Finding the perfect gift for the web designer in your life isn’t always easy. Like most creative types, web designers can be notoriously picky about everything from the software they use, to the books they read, to the posters they hang on their walls. And while the latest computer hardware, smartphone, or tablet might be a highly appreciated gift, it isn’t always easy on your bank account.
To help you with your holiday shopping, we’ve scoured the internet for the best budget-friendly Christmas gift ideas for the web designer in your life. Here are our 12 favourite Christmas gifts to give to your web designer pals this holiday season.
1. The Stood
If you know a freelance web designer who likes to move his or her office space to a different coffee shop everyday, then the Stood is the perfect gift. Easy-to-use, lightweight, and portable, the Stood is the kind of elegant laptop stand that every travelling freelance designer needs. Not only will the Stood help your hardworking friend to improve their posture, but it will save their laptop from clumsy coffee-spilling neighbours. And at just over $30.00 USD, the Stood is a steal.
Check out our list of funny lorem ipsum generators to help your design process, too.
2. My Cuppa Tea Mug
A great gift for colour sensitive designers, the My Cuppa Tea mug helps you find the perfect blend of milk or cream to coffee or tea. Just look at the color palette chips on the side of the mug and match the color of your drink to the chip for the perfect sip. Yum.
3. FUUT Foot Hammock
Ever need to kick back and relax even though there’s mountains of work to get done first? Why not do both at the same time? With the FUUT, you can put your feet up at work with this comfortable foot hammock that hangs under your desk. The hammock can be adjusted to any height you prefer and is available in five different colours — brown, orange, green, blue, and red.
4. The Mobile Book by Smashing Magazine
As web designers, we spend a lot of our days staring at our code, reading online blog posts, and answering emails on our phones. This holiday season, give your eyes a break from LED screens with a good old’ fashioned hardcover book from the web design experts at Smashing Magazine. The Mobile Book features the most important things that you need to know as a designer for your websites and is the perfect way to hone your mobile design knowledge in time for the new year.
5. Code&Quill notebook
If you know a web designer who likes to brainstorm or draw their design mock-ups by hand, then a Code&Quill notebook is a perfect stocking stuffer. Built specifically with creative thinkers in mind, the Code&Quill notebook includes both dot grid pages for drawings, sketches, and wireframes, and indentation rule pages for notes, lists, paragraphs, and code. Plus: they even come in a smaller, travel-sized version for designers who like to do their thinking on the go.
6. Sugru Cable Grips
An organized workspace means an organized mind. If you know a web designer whose desk could benefit from a little bit of clutter cleaning, help them get their electronics cables under control with Sugru Cable Grips. Sugru is the world’s first mouldable glue that turns into rubber, allowing you to shape and customize your cable grips so they can stick to any surface or grip any kind of cable. The Starter Kit ($15.00 USD) comes with enough Sugru to make 6 cable grips — more than enough to get any work station ship shape for the new year!
7. Subscription to Offscreen Magazine
If you’re the type of gift-giver who likes to give a gift that keeps on giving, then an Offscreen Magazine subscription is the perfect solution to your holiday buyer despair. Clocking in at $59.00 USD, the three-issue subscription plan is a great way to ensure your web-loving loved ones continue receive the latest insights from the creative web technology space long after the Christmas lights are taken down.
8. The Elements of Typographic Style, 4th Edition
Another hardcover treat for the web designer’s bookshelf, The Elements of Typographic Style is an essential guide for the web professional. Renowned typographer and poet Robert Bringhurst brings clarity to the art of typography with this masterful style guide that combines the theory, history, and practical use of typography in design. An interesting read for anyone looking to think critically about the design choices we make everyday.
9. The Mountie
Made for the mobile-minded web designer, the Mountie allows you to attach your smartphone or tablet to your laptop screen for the coolest multi-monitor setup ever. Simply clip your tablet or phone to the side of your laptop using Mountie's secure, rubberized grips and you'll have the ultimate dual-screen workshop set up in minutes. Monitor your twitter feed, chat with friends or colleagues over messenger, or even watch your favourite T.V. show without have to leave your computer's home screen.
10. Web Trumps
Web Trumps will combine your love off all things web with a classic card game. Featuring 32 uniquely designed cards of web and app companies, it’s the perfect gift for your techy web friends or your geeky self. Put your knowledge of your favourite web brands to the test and impress your friends with everything from who has the bigger Twitter following right through to which company was founded first. Game on!
(Psst: MJOM Cards, which makes this product, has offered our readers a 10% discount code for your holiday shopping! Use XMAS10 at checkout.)
11. Electronics cleaning brush
Do you find that your keyboard accumulates an unseemly amount of dust, dirt, grease, and crumbs? Start the year with a clean slate (or at least a clean keyword) with this sleek electronics cleaning brush. It’s twin headed design allows you to gently sweep away dust with soft bristles or scrub out stains with the silicone wiper tip.
12. Typodarium
Inspire a whole year of great design with the Typodarium typography calendar. Each day features a new typographical greeting to delight the typography connoisseur and take your designs in new directions. This small, fine type marvel has been given an even more elegant box this year and – more importantly – a generous splash of colour. Here’s to another great year of design!
BONUS: Build-your-own notification bug — a great DIY Christmas gift idea!
If you’re the kind of person who likes to make their gifts themselves, check out this blog post on how one designer built a notification bug for his Shopify store. It’s a great DIY gift you could give your Shopify clients, or it could even be reprogrammed for other notifications systems. So put a stop to those annoying beeps, pings, and whooshes coming from your electronic devices and make Christmas a truly silent night.
What are you getting the web designer in your life for Christmas? Share your gift ideas in the comments below.
You might also like: For Designers, By Designers: InVision's Marketplace Launches On Shopify
