14 Designer Lifestyle Essentials to Give (Yourself) This Year

Whether it’s a Christmas present, an early BDay gift or just a simple act of self-love, giving yourself a little something is not only good, but necessary. If you’re a graphic designer, creative or have a visual arts worker-bee in your life, this short list of 15 essential items for the successful designer lifestyle will help you select the right gift.

To be honest, we struggled with the title of this post and, for a while, seriously considered “14 seemingly boring, but actually super useful tools for the designer in your life”, but that was too long. In reality, these are tools that will make your life easier and that nobody in their right minds will give you, but that you can actually garner a lot from.

So, without further ado: 1. Cloud Solution Storage “Flash drives are enough”, said no designer -ever. For creatives, storage space is a growing need; the more they work, the more they need. Choose from popular service providers like Dropbox (1Tb for $9.99/m), One Drive $6.99/month (which includes Office 360 if you’re into such a thing), or pCloud ($7.99/m). They’re reliable, affordable and have been in the market for a while, so they won’t be canceling on you at random. 2. Personalized Coffee Mugs Because ~coffee~. That essential heavenly nectar that fuels most of our projects, needs a cool mug. We happen to have those in microwave-safe, dishwasher-friendly presentations. Super affordable and custom made by vous. Can’t get any better, or actually it can: your personalized mug is a walking canvas to showcase your work so don’t hesitate and order one! 3. Coffee Mug Warmer Coffee or tea lover? After the personalized mug, you’ll want a handy mug warmer. Especially when temperatures drop and the polar vortex shows up. Why leave your desk and lose concentration if you can heat your beverage right there? Go for a cute oreo cookie USB one or a traditional mug warmer. They’re affordable and surprisingly welcomed. 4. Henry the Desktop Hoover Let’s face it: 90% of the times we eat our desks. Designers & creatives like to have everything clean and organized, but being pressed for time they tend to do everything in their workspace, which means crumbs, pencil shavings, spills and little bits of eraser dust all over. Henry is a very small but potent vacuum cleaner that fits anywhere and will help keep your desk crumb-free and tidy at all times. It’s also funny looking, because -why not? 5. Subscription to 1Password In today’s digital age we are subscribed to dozens of sites, have numerous email accounts, bank accounts and so on. By the time you’ve signed up to your 13th app or newsletter, you start using the same combination for everything -which is just as dangerous as writing them on a post-it and leaving said note laying around. Store them in this handy app and then just access whatever website you need with a single tap. 6. Subscription to Evernote There are lots of pc and mobile apps that allow you to easily take notes, record your voice, save images and so on, but Evernote still leads the pack because it does that and more. If you haven’t tried it yet, go for an Evernote free account first. 7. Subscription to Trello How about a task manager to boost productivity and give you an effective way to avoid missing important deadlines? Trello lets users see everything about their projects at a single glance. It’s absolutely perfect for designers and creatives, because it’s super visual and highly functional. Trello, you had us at “drop outdated spreadsheets and long email threads”. 8. Bluetooth Portable Speaker Because music is to inspiration, what coffee is to our body. A Bluetooth portable speaker is the ideal companion as it will let you enjoy your music and get pumped to work, anytime -anywhere. We couldn’t pick just one so we found this useful list of the top bluetooth speakers in 2014 for you to choose from. 9. Charger for Apple Magic Mouse Most designers use Apple products. The Mobee Technology Magic Charger is a wonderful addition to that list, because there are few things more frustrating than running out of battery mid-click. A full charge takes about five hours but it provides six days of clicking and pointing with no worries, whatsoever! 10. Dyne Monitor Organizer Desks tend to get really messy with all the stuff we use, but a Dyne Monitor Organizer gets rid of all the clutter. Since this device is attached to your monitor, it keeps everything right next to you and off the desk - clearing space for doodling, coffee mugs and warmers, bluetooth speakers and other shenanigans. Bonus: it adds 4 USB ports more to your world. And you know, there is no such thing as too many USB ports. 11. A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web This is a great book for designers for those that would like to enter the web design market or refresh ideas and notions. To the point and well-reviewed by others in the field. 12. Logo Design Love A guide to creating iconic brand identities. Who doesn’t want that? Another coveted book every designer should own. Original and effective logo designing is one the toughest jobs in the field, but it can be the most rewarding at the same time. This book inspirational and informative. 13. Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium This is a great package with everything a graphic designer needs-the ultimate kit for creative freedom. The Adobe Suite is probably not going anywhere anytime soon, so get yours already. 14. Subscription to Lynda How about the gift of knowledge? From time to time, any professional needs to develop new skills and what better way to do so than with online training? Enjoy the convenience of learning software and business skills through video tutorials when- and wherever you want starting at only $25 a month. Which trendy gift idea did you like best? Don’t forget to leave a comment below and we will make sure to add your gift idea to the list.