Introduction

As designers, we can’t help but be particular about the gifts we give and receive. We’ve put together a list of beautiful and useful gifts at varying price ranges to help you satisfy everyone on your holiday shopping list this year, including yourself.

Wishing you and yours a happy, safe holiday season filled with love, gratitude, and connection.

Your pals,

Aarron and Eli

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For the full gift guide, visit our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/design-better-holiday-gift-guide#details

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Gift ideas that support our sponsors and the show

Eli: I'm kind of a coffee heathen, and tend to like really dark roast coffees, old school…and so I was a little skeptical because a lot of Methodical’s coffees tend to be a little lighter or medium roast. But this one that Aarron picked out is just great and I drink it all the time. 

Design Better coffee, $22

Eli: You've probably heard us talk about American Giant. They're a clothing company based here in the US. They're all manufactured here in the States. We actually had their CEO Bayard Winthrop on an episode that got a really good reception from folks.

Aarron: It was one of our more popular episodes this year. Bayard's an amazing person. And the company is just so cool.

Eli: And their mission is great about revitalizing manufacturing here in the U. S., and they make great clothing.

American Giant hoodie (m) (w), $138 but get 20% off with code DESIGNBETTER

Eli: Heath Ceramics is another brand that we're really close to. A few years back we had on Robin Petravic who's the current co-owner of Heath ceramics. Their brand is rooted in the Bay Area, another local manufacturer, and they just make these beautiful, very handmade feeling dinnerware, tableware, vases...they're beautiful.

Heath Ceramics: Small Modern Cup $24 dbtr.co/heathceramics get 15% off between now and December 31st with code DBholiday23

Aarron: We’ve been talking with our friends over at Vestaboard, and in this list of awesome gifts, this is like right there at the top. If you're familiar with a split flap display: when you go to an airport, a train station, and you see those [mechanical] displays that show what time your departures and arrivals are, that’s a split flap display.

This is a great office thing as well, and could be a holiday gift to the office. So what's cool about VestaBoard is there's a mobile app that's associated with it. You can connect it to different data sources, like amazing quotes, latest scores in a game that you're watching.

It's wonderful for families to be able to communicate with each other. If you're not at home and you've got a kid that's just gotten home, you can send them a quick message on this. There's so many different creative and cool things you can do.

Vestaboard $3,295

Eli: Some people can't listen to any kind of music while they're writing or focusing on a task but, brain.fm has actually done the scientific work to create soundtracks for your creative or focus work, and it's really great. I've been using it all the time, especially if I'm having to have deep focus and write something.

Brain.fm: $34.99/year

Aarron: DB+, if you haven't heard about it already, it's our subscription service. We've got a really good discount going on it right now through the holidays. You can get ad free versions of the show. You can get episodes of the show early and get invited to our exclusive AMAs with some big names in design and technology. We have one coming up with Meredith Black, who's probably the foremost authority on design and ops.

What we want to create with DB Plus is just a way for the community to get more, to learn more, and we're adding more to that subscription service as well.

DB+ subscription, $3.75 (ad-free episodes 1 week early) or $8.75 (monthly AMAs with design luminaries).

Charities

• Girls Who Code
• Nuçi’s space
• World Central Kitchen