Designers are weirdly specific about the things they love - right down to their favourite mouse, mug, or mechanical keyboard. If you’re shopping for one, the safest move is to match the gift to their whole personality, not just their job title.
We put together a designer wishlist built around 10 archetypes: the minimalist, the maximalist, the archivist, and a few oddly specific chaos gremlins in between. Send this to someone as a hint, or use it to shop for the designer in your life and get them something more personal than a "Live, Laugh, Kern" mug.
1. The Minimalist
The minimalist is the grid-aligned, inbox-zero, “one good pen” kind of designer. Their desktop is spotless, their Dock is hidden, and their Affinity files are terrifyingly well-organised. They love anything that feels intentional: fewer, better tools that disappear into the background so they can stay in flow. If it’s slim, monochrome, and has a satisfying click: they're sold.
Desk Tray – Momentum Studio
A slim aluminium tray that keeps pens, tabs, and tiny tools corralled instead of rolling around the desk. It’s the kind of object that looks like a render even in real life—perfect for the designer whose workspace is basically a moodboard.
reMarkable 2
An e-ink tablet made for distraction-free sketching, writing, and wireframing. It feels like paper, syncs like a tablet, and lets them step away from glowing screens without losing that “I’m still working, I swear” energy.
Microsoft Surface Arc
This mouse snaps flat to slip into a laptop sleeve, then curves into a gentle arc when it’s time to work. Minimal lines, multi-touch scrolling, and a super portable silhouette for designers always between cafés, studios, and client offices.
BlankedStudios Desktop Folder
A sculptural desk organizer inspired by actual computer folders. It keeps notebooks, tablets, and loose sheets upright and tidy while still looking like it belongs in a super pared-back Pinterest setup.
Lofree Flow 2
A low-profile mechanical keyboard with clean lines, muted keycaps, and a soft, thocky sound. It’s the serious-designer answer to gaming boards: subtle enough for client calls, satisfying enough for late-night layouts.
2. The Colour Theorist
The colour theorist sees hex codes in the wild and quietly mutters “that’s not #FF0000, that’s #E50914.” Their shelves are lined with swatch books, print tests, and strange objects collected for “palette research.” They live for the perfect gradient, hate muddy CMYK conversions, and can spot a brand colour that’s 2% off from across the room.
Pantone swatches
The ultimate colour security blanket. Physical Pantone books let them compare screens to print, check colour under real light, and argue passionately about the difference between two almost identical oranges.
Risotto A1 XL Year Planner
A huge, risograph-printed wall planner that doubles as colour inspiration. Bold grids, chunky typography, and fluorescent ink turn boring deadlines into something you’d actually want to pin up above your desk.
Infinite Objects RGB lamp
A looping RGB light “print” that plays a fixed animation forever. It’s part display object, part light sculpture—a little shrine to colour and motion that sits perfectly on a design shelf or studio credenza.
CMY-Cube
A transparent cube that uses cyan, magenta, and yellow to create shifting colours as you rotate it in the light. It’s a literal, physical demonstration of colour mixing that also works as an excellent desk toy.
Interaction of Color — Josef Albers
A classic for colour nerds. Albers unpacks how colours behave next to each other, how perception tricks us, and why palettes that “should” work sometimes don’t. It’s theory, but in a way that actually changes how you design.
3. The Maximalist
The maximalist designs like they’re collaging 12 tabs of visual references at once. Their desk is a curated mess: colourful keyboards, stacked books, strange mugs, and at least one plant that’s hanging on for dear life. They love texture, layers, and anything that feels like it has personality built in.
Corne 42 LP split keyboard
A compact split keyboard with low-profile keycaps that looks more like a prop from a sci-fi movie than office equipment. Perfect for the designer who wants their desk to scream “I know what QMK is” without saying a word.
Ring-a-Date calendar
A perpetual wall calendar with sliding rings that frame the date instead of flipping pages. It’s graphic, clever, and feels like the sort of object that would live in a 1970s design studio in Milan (or your friend’s apartment).
Gustaf Westman chunky cup
Wavy, sculptural, and instantly recognisable. This oversized mug turns coffee breaks into mini design moments—and photographs disgustingly well for those “desk dump” shots they keep posting to Stories.
Tear-away wall calendar
Giant black-and-white pages you rip off each month. It’s part date-tracking tool, part poster series, and leaves you with a stack of oversized sheets they can reuse for wrapping paper, mockups, or impromptu photo backdrops.
Creator Micro 2
A tiny macro pad for shortcuts, macros, and scene switching. Great for Figma, Premiere, or streaming—especially for designers who love colourful little gadgets with a frankly unnecessary amount of RGB.
4. The Material Girl
This is the designer who hoards paper samples, print tests, fabric swatches, and weird packaging. They care deeply about how things feel: thickness, finish, embossing, the sound a box makes when it closes. They’re half graphic designer, half material archivist, and always thinking about how design lives off-screen.
Why Materials Matter
A deep dive into how materials shape products, spaces, and experiences. It explores everything from sustainable alternatives to unconventional finishes—perfect for designers obsessed with the physical side of design.
Portable scanner
A compact scanner they can drag over books, textures, and sketches to bring them into their digital workflow. Ideal for capturing print ephemera, old magazines, and those “I found this in a thrift store” moments.
Chubby cable
An overbuilt, satisfyingly chunky charging cable that feels more like a design object than a tech accessory. It adds a bit of fun to an otherwise boring category and stands up to being thrown in bags daily.
HOTO Snapbloq
Modular, magnetically-stacking storage blocks for tools, clips, and tiny studio objects. They scratch the same itch as Lego but with a clean, grown-up design language designers actually want on their desk.
Felt desk mat
Soft, textured, and practical. A felt mat instantly makes any workspace feel more intentional while protecting laptops, trackpads, and tablet pens from harsh tabletops.
5. The Era-Confused
They design in Figma but worship early Macintosh interfaces. Their playlists bounce from 80s city pop to 00s bloghouse. They love anything that looks like it time-travelled: retro hardware, skeuomorphic UI, and chunky plastics that feel like they belong in an old tech museum.
M0110 QMK/VIA/Vial keyboard
A modern mechanical keyboard inspired by Apple’s original M0110. Same iconic profile, updated internals. It’s nostalgia plus QMK/VIA support, so they can customise layouts while pretending it’s 1984 again.
Koss Porta Pro
Lightweight, retro, and still weirdly good-sounding. Porta Pros look like they walked straight out of an old hi-fi ad, but designers love them for their comfort and very specific “graphic designer on the train” aesthetic.
Flip clock
A classic flip clock that adds motion and analog charm to a monitor-heavy desk. The gentle clack of the numbers changing each minute is a nice reminder that time exists outside deadlines and sprints.
Kensington Orbit wireless trackball
A trackball mouse that feels a bit like piloting a spaceship, a bit like using an old CAD workstation. Great for tight desk spaces, wrist comfort, and cultivating a specific kind of nerdy desk energy.
Analog Algorithm
A book exploring analog techniques, glitch, and experimental print processes in a digital age. Perfect for designers who love mixing old-school methods with modern tools.
6. The Technophile
The technophile always has a new beta invite, a fresh gadget on preorder, and a drawer full of dongles. They’re the one friends text for monitor recommendations, webcam setups, and “what keyboard should I buy?” Their dream gift is something with specs, settings, and a deep Reddit thread attached.
XGIMI projector
A compact projector that turns any wall into a giant canvas—great for moodboarding, watching motion work full-screen, or running movie nights in the studio once the files are exported and the clients are asleep.
Modue touchscreen controller
A modular touchscreen controller for dials, sliders, and macros. It gives designers a physical interface for timelines, brushes, and colour controls—especially satisfying for motion, audio, and 3D workflows.
Insta360 webcam
A smart webcam with auto-framing and solid image quality, so their client calls, livestreams, and critique sessions actually look as good as the deck they spent all night polishing.
Tivoli Audio SoundBook
A portable Bluetooth speaker with a retro-meets-modern feel. Clean lines, nice sound, and just enough character to live happily on a design shelf or in a portable setup bag.
QK Alice Duo
A split ergonomic mechanical keyboard with adjustable tenting and a dedicated wireless pod. It’s overkill in the best way for designers who obsess over typing feel, layout, and build quality.
7. The Vibe Curator
This designer treats their workspace like a set. Lighting, scent, music, desk objects—it’s all part of the atmosphere. They’re the friend with the good candles, the perfect playlist, and a suspicious number of nice storage boxes. Their best work happens when the room feels right.
Govee floor lamp
A slim RGB floor lamp that can wash a wall in colour, react to music, or stay on a soft warm white. Perfect for late-night sessions when overhead lighting feels like an attack.
Houseplant incense droplets
Tiny sculptural incense “drops” that sit in their own tray, with scents straight out of a well-designed living room. A very designer way to make the studio smell less like burnt coffee and more like a considered space.
Culinary grade matcha powder
A good matcha that hits that “calm focus” zone without the coffee crash. Ideal for designers who treat making a drink like a small ritual between rounds of revisions.
Audio-Technica Sound Burger
A portable, clamp-style record player that looks like a toy but sounds surprisingly good. Great for spinning a few records while designing without committing to a full audiophile setup.
Folding storage crates
Colourful stackable crates that hide cables, props, and random tech clutter. They make shelves look styled instead of chaotic—and fold down flat when not in use.
8. The Trinket Collector
Every trip, every gallery visit, every flea market: they come home with something small. Their shelves are lined with tiny objects, prints, zines, and tools that “might be useful for a shoot one day.” It’s half clutter, half visual library, and all very them.
Smiski figures
Tiny glow-in-the-dark characters that sit on monitor edges, book stacks, or shelves. They’re just weird enough to feel like inside jokes and make desk photos instantly more charming.
Silly Little Star Chart
A tongue-in-cheek star chart or reward chart that turns small goals into something fun to tick off. Ideal for tracking “finished personal projects” or “days I didn’t open Slack after 8pm.”
Green lined cutting mat
A classic self-healing cutting mat—part tool, part backdrop. Great for actual craft work, but also for flat-lays, product shots, and giving their desk that “design studio” baseline.
Toyo Steel toolbox
A pressed-steel toolbox that’s as much a design object as it is storage. Perfect for pens, tools, film, or all the tiny bits and bobs they insist on keeping “just in case.”
Phomemo mobile printer
A tiny thermal printer for printing stickers, labels, and reference images straight from their phone. Chaos for notebooks, sketchbooks, and walls—in the best possible way.
9. The Retrofuturist
The retrofuturist lives somewhere between Braun, NASA manuals, Y2K UI and your favourite indie game. They love objects that feel both nostalgic and sci-fi: transparent plastics, bold grids, chunky controls, and anything that looks like it could be in a fictional OS.
NuPhy Field 75
A wireless mechanical keyboard with a retro-industrial feel and colourful accent keys. It looks like a prop from a speculative 90s sci-fi show but types like a modern board designers can actually use all day.
Uten.Silo wall organiser
An iconic 1969 wall organiser that looks like a piece of speculative architecture. All those pockets and hooks are perfect for tools and gadgets, but it also just makes a wall feel like part of the interface.
Nothing Headphone (1)
Transparent, minimal, and very “designed.” These over-ears mix retro hi-fi vibes with futuristic detailing and a clean interface, which is basically the retrofuturist’s whole personality in product form.
Getri flask wireless charger
A wireless charger disguised as a little retro object, often flask-like or geometric. It keeps their phone powered while blending into the rest of their curated desk artefacts instead of screaming “tech.”
Teenage Engineering computer case
A playful, modular enclosure that turns a tiny computer into a tactile object. Knobs, cutouts, and coloured panels all feed directly into the “what if hardware was fun again?” fantasy.
10. The Archivist
The archivist keeps everything: notebooks, ticket stubs, early logo drafts, film scans, and screenshots of random UI from 2014. They’re building a personal visual library at all times. Their ideal gift is anything that helps capture, store, or display memories and work in a more satisfying way.
HOTO toolbox
A minimalist toolbox with neatly organised compartments and a built-in set of tools. Perfect for framing prints, hanging shelves, or just feeling prepared whenever a studio rearrange is imminent.
Peak plug-in wall lamp
A simple, sculptural wall lamp that plugs in—no hardwiring required. Ideal for lighting a reading corner, sketching nook, or the wall they’ve turned into a permanent inspiration board.
Hobonichi planner
A cult-favourite Japanese planner with beautiful Tomoe River paper. Great for daily notes, layouts, doodles, and turning a year of design life into something they can physically flip through later.
Instax Mini Evo
A hybrid instant camera that lets them shoot digitally and only print the keepers. Perfect for pinning process photos, studio snapshots, and little moments straight onto walls and notebooks.
Smart Desk Mat by MOFT
A modular desk mat with magnetic accessories, device stands, and optional wireless charging. It gives the archivist a dedicated “control centre” where notebooks, tablets, and tools all live in one organised spread.
Whether you’re shopping for yourself or trying to impress the designer in your life, matching the gift to their archetype is half the fun. Minimalist, maximalist, archivist, or chaotic trinket goblin - there’s something here that will actually live on their desk instead of disappearing into a junk drawer.
And if all else fails, send them this wishlist and say, "Circle three." That's basically a design brief.
Note: Some of the links in this guide are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you decide to buy (at no extra cost to you).
