2025 Holiday Gift Guide

0:01Eli, I think we probably record, what, 50, 60 episodes a year? Something like that? It sounds about right, yeah. We talked to some fascinating people, but I got to tell you, this is my favorite episode every year. It is fun. Yeah, I love it because it sort of gives me an opportunity to look back at the things that I've enjoyed so much and things that I've encountered when I've been traveling around the United States and sometimes internationally. And I love to share cool things that make our lives better, more creative. And that's what we're going to do today. Share some ideas, holiday gift guide for people that you love, including yourself.

0:44In fact, oftentimes when I look at holiday gift guides, I'm ashamed to admit, I'm often thinking of myself. Same here. I think for me, the kids' gifts come pretty easily because they're vocal about what they want. Courtney's a bit harder. We often do sort of travel stuff together or experiences. But yeah, I do like the holiday gift perusal. It's pretty fun. Well, we've got a bunch of ideas to share. So I'll let you jump in. We're going to start with more affordable gifts and then ramp up to things that are a little bit more expensive. If you've got maybe a special thing happening this year, a special birthday, or you just want to go all out for someone, we've got some expensive options too.

1:25Yeah. Okay. Well, let's start on the cheaper side. And books, you know, are typically pretty affordable. And we had on Jordan Mechner this year, who is the creator of Karataka and Prince of Persia, and just wrote this graphic novel memoir called Replay. And it's really fantastic. It's about his own journey, but also about his grandfather and his father and his extended family who escaped from Nazi Germany and made their way to the U.S. And he illustrated it himself. he didn't really consider himself illustrator but over the years he just doodled and practiced and practiced and the illustrations are actually really quite lovely in this check out that episode if you haven't heard it with Jordan and this book replay is a really great gift yeah it's a great gift I mean he's the sort of guy who can do pretty much anything he chooses to do once he locks on to a goal he just dives in he's made video games he's worked with people on movies and it's a really cool book, really interesting story.

2:29Okay, well, I'm thinking a lot about cooking. And when I try to pull together a meal quickly, and I want it to taste great, I find that the most important thing is to have a cabinet of quality spices. And so Burlap and Barrel have done something that's similar to what we've seen with coffee and chocolate, which is they go out, They do sort of this fair trade, create relationships with farmers around the world who have the best of the best spices. Things like mint, cinnamon, they're royal cinnamon. I make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning every year. Their cinnamon is incredible, is by far the best.

3:13They have a vanilla kit that's a jar that comes with these vanilla beans inside. You just add your favorite rum or liquor to turn that into vanilla. I have a favorite rum called Kraken. I pour that in there, let that steep. And I use that in, again, my cinnamon rolls and all kinds of different things. I love their smoked paprika. They also have these lovely gift sets that make a wonderful gift for yourself and for others. And it's, you know, a reasonable price. I go to them for my staples of the things that I'm pulling out for cooking. I can't say enough good stuff about burlap and barrel. you can spend six, seven dollars for a spice of some sort on up to a little bit more depending on what you're getting.

3:57That's great, yeah. Finally went through the task of organizing our spices and even made sort of stadium seating so that you can see them each. Yeah, and that makes a huge difference if you have things alphabetized versus trying to like dig around for everything. Yes, we are that type of household where we have our spices alphabetized in drawers so you can see it all. And there are labels on all the drawers that say what's inside. So that's my wife. She's very good at keeping us organized. I appreciate that. Well, I don't have any real cooking things this year, but let's see on the affordable side, there's another book here, which one of our other guests, Jason Chatfield recommended.

4:37And it's all about comics and sort of the language of comics. It's called the Lexicon of Comicana. If you've ever wondered what to call these, you know, little doodles and things like that. This comic, Mort Walker, came up with essentially a dictionary of all these terms, which evidently a lot of the comic artists use. So the light bulb over the head is the emanata. The cursing are grox leaves. The tongue in concentration is protoolization. This is really cool. While you're at it, if you're getting this book, if this is interesting, don't sleep on Scott McCloud's book, Understanding Comics. It's been around for a long time at this point and is a staple in a lot of curricula in colleges around the world.

5:19But man, I still love Understanding Comics. It's a great, great book. All right, well, I'm headed back to the kitchen for another gift idea. I love Rancho Gordo. Rancho Gordo produces heirloom beans, chilies, sauces, spices. I also get spices from them. Love their chili powder, love their Mexican oregano. They're wonderful. They had a sale earlier this year, and I got the email that said, you know, we've got a sale going on. And so I ordered our favorite chili sauce from them. It's called La Paloma, mild sauce for hot people. It is wonderful. I would put it on cereal. It just, it tastes great.

6:02I like to put it on eggs in the morning for breakfast. You can put it on, you know, if you it's just so wonderful and it's not overwhelmingly spicy. So the sale went on, I ordered six of these and I was going to surprise my wife. And I got the notification that the delivery had just been dropped off at the door, went to the front door and there's two boxes. There's my box of six bottles and then there's another box. And I thought, this is strange. Turns out my wife got the same email and also bought six bottles of the same sauce. We both love it so much. And we got a kick out of the fact that we bought each other the same gift.

6:44That's awesome. I've known about this brand for a while because I'd spent a little bit of time in the food and wine world and food photography. And one of the chefs who was actually got a Michelin star, the first Michelin star for a vegetarian restaurant called Ubuntu used the Rancho Gordo beans and a couple of his dishes. and I love them. We can get them here locally sometimes and I'll use the cassoway beans, make a cassoway. Yeah. Yeah, they're really good. Yeah, it's wonderful. If you have an Instapot, I think that's a key that you can just whip up those heirloom beans real quick. Yep, I definitely use the Instapot for the cassoway too.

7:19I do not yet have an Instapot, but my justification for storing another appliance in the kitchen is totally Rancho Gordo. How can I make this faster? Yes. Okay, let's go on to more sort of stocking stuff for affordable gifts. So if you've watched the show or seen us in person, you probably know I'm a big fan of hats. And we just recently had on Aaron Draplin, who is a designer up in Portland and also makes great hats. He's, of course, best known as the co-founder of Field Notes. And I think all of us have had a Field Note notebook in our pocket at one point. I love the colors of all the stuff that he designs.

8:00Yeah, super colorful. If you go to his site, it's funny. There's stories behind everything. He's just a funny, interesting guy. And these hats are, you know, they're not super cheap, but they're like in the order of like 35 bucks, affordable for a stocking stuffer. And he's got a lot of other merch on the site. So yeah, be on the lookout for the episode with him, which is, it's a really good one. In fact, it was Brian, our producer's favorite episode or one of the favorite episodes that we've done so far. There's so many things that Aaron makes, and they're just wonderful. His patches, the stickers are super cool.

8:39All of it has a feeling of familiar Americana, like a history of things you might find in a hardware store. There's that amazing NASA space shuttle sticker and poster that he's done. And there's always a sense of humor in everything he does. It's just fun. It's really fun to have in your world. Yeah, it's great stuff. We visited Aaron recently and got a kick out of chatting with him. But we also traveled to just north of the Bay Area to the Eames Institute recently. And we met with Lisa Demetrios. That video of our interview and the tour of the Eames Archive is forthcoming by the time this is out.

9:22Maybe that video's there too, so check Design Better on YouTube. I love the playing cards, the Eames playing cards. They're so beautiful. You can get these from the Eames Institute or from MoMA, from the Museum of Modern Art, their website. I like to play cards at the holiday. That's something that we always did when I was growing up. We play spades or hearts or cribbage, all kinds of stuff. It's always fun to, after you have a big meal together, to sit down and play a game. And these cards are so cool. They're geometric. They're simple. A lot of fancy designer cards are not very, like you have to kind of decipher them.

10:02And it affects my game, you know? And I'm competitive. I want to win. I like that these are just like super clear and easy to use. Very Charles and Ray Eames. They're very purpose-driven and think about function. So these are inexpensive at$18. Great stocking stuffer, great gift for a designer in your life, maybe a colleague who you want to give something special to that they can live with and enjoy and think about you every time they use them. Yeah, they have a lot of cool stuff in that store, and I wanted to grab a bunch of things. I did get this cool little, you can see it in the background there, this little acrylic cube, essentially, or lucite cube that has these different sort of colors on it, and just a fun object.

10:46So people have probably heard me talk about the design of a new office I did here. So I've been trying to decorate it and make it designerly. And I got the Hang-It-All, the Eames Hang-It-All. That's also available at the gift shop, but I got mine through Design Within Reach, which my wife and I sometimes call Design Out of Reach because it's crazy. I think you're not the only one. Most people do. Yeah. So the Hang-It-All you can find in a few places, But we also have that in our kitchen. So when you walk in from the garage, it's where the kids hang up their backpacks and their coats and stuff.

11:22It's like a daily use object. So beautiful. I never thought of this, but when we went to the Eames Institute, there was a hallway with probably 10 or 12 of those in a row. And they fit together perfectly. So they're modular. So you can have as much hanging space, as many hooks as you want. That is super cool. Very cool. What color did you get for yours at home? So we have white frame, the wire frame that's powder coated with walnut knobs. Yeah, nice. And then, of course, you've got the colorful one. You can get the multicolor. All the Eames colors are in the paint there. Yeah, exactly. All right, still in the affordable category.

12:05I've been to Japan a couple times, and whenever I go there, I always swing by the stationary stores because I think many people know the stationary in Japan is superior. It's superior to every place in the world. They have the best note cards and pencils and pens and stamps and erasers and pencil cases. I love it all. And I found there the Oto Mechanical Pencil Wood Sharp. It's kind of a weird name, but it's O-H-T-O Mechanical Pencil. Basically what this is, is the feel of a wooden pencil and the function of a mechanical pencil. So it's always sharp and it looks cool as well. So this is like 11, 12 bucks.

12:52Just looks like a wooden pencil. I love a number two pencil, but the problem is they go dull right away. This is all the joy of a number two pencil with a mechanical pencil, like fine writing tip. And you've got an eraser. It's not complicated. It's pretty simple. And yet it's so brilliant. They just pull those things together. I have a bunch of these. You can buy them on Amazon. I only had to go to the other side of the world to figure that out. But I always have a few of these hanging around. They're my favorite pencil. I've tried a lot of mechanical pencils and they often don't have a good eraser or it's like got a cap over it, which is so cumbersome, which is why I think these are better.

13:33Like that's just that classic number two pencil eraser. so when we were up in Portland and we interviewed Aaron Draplin we actually did it at the James Brands studio and you and I have been fans of James Brand products for a while they became a sponsor this year and they just make such lovely beautiful stuff and they just started making a wallet which they call the low and it's really great super minimal I had to trim down the number of cards I carry which is fine because most of them are on Apple Pay anyway So just the necessities, it's got a nice little silicon band, so you can put extra card and cash in there.

14:11And when we talked to Ryan, he said his inspiration was cigarette cases from the 1950s, which he used to carry his wallet as a design, and it's sort of like a modern version of that. Yeah, I got a lot of compliments on it, so it's a cool purchase. It's a little bit over$100 for that. We got to see all the different prototypes, too, all the different iterations they went through. it's a pretty simple thing and yet so functional it just does like the essential stuff and i don't think i can ever go back to the fat billfold folding thing anymore because you know the back pocket i just got hip and back problems yeah you get the george costanza yeah slim wall it's the way to go.

14:52Yeah, absolutely. Next up is teenage engineering. If you are a synth pop electronic music nerd, chances are you've probably heard of teenage engineering. They design very cool objects, synthesizers, recording, audio equipment. They're just beautiful objects inspired by 80s Electronics and Dieter Rams and Braun from like the 60s. It's a very specific, very clean aesthetic. Even their website, like the website is just cool. A while back, I did a little project in Sweden and I was gifted some of their pocket operators. These are$60. They're kind of like a little, almost like a game, but it's a synthesizer that you can plug into your audio gear and make little loops and sounds and stuff.

15:50They're super fun to play with. They come in a cool package, different colors. There are these fun LCD screens with graphics on them, and you can kind of tweak the sound. And my youngest son used to come into my office and play with my pocket operators all the time. I've got three of these things. They're just cool. Like if you've got a young person in your life. This is a great stocking stuffer, something they would never ask for, but it will encourage their creative exploration. Anyone who's excited about music, these things are just very cool. They're very fun. And you can get these cool silicone covers for them too, and you can chain them together, which is really cool.

16:32We did a little panel episode up at Sequoia Capital, James Buckhouse, Kevin Bethune, Irene Au, who are experts in residence right now. And James had this fun little medieval soundboard, which is also teenage engineering, right? It was like, you could make a beat into these vocals, sort of Gregorian chants. They just make such cool, weird stuff. It's really great. Yeah. I love that medieval one. It was kind of just left on and we were sitting there hanging it out and talking. It was very calming. Yeah. I loved it. And while we're on the topic of teenage engineering, I'm just going to throw out one other thing.

17:07This is a significant jump in price. The pocket operators were just 59 bucks. This is 1500 bucks. It's the TP7 field recorder. So this is a beautiful device. Reminds me a lot of Deter Ramps. It's a field recorder so you can record interviews, notes, sound in the field. And it's got a circle that's spinning as if it's recording tape, which of course it's not, it's recording digitally. There's an app for your phone that it'll connect to and you can organize and translate. And if you want to pause the recording, you can put your finger on that spinning disc to prevent it from recording further. This is something I don't need, but I sure wish I did need this because it's amazing.

17:52Yeah, maybe we need it for doing our travel interview. use as our backup. There you go. I think so. I'm kind of bouncing back in price level a little bit, but one of the other things I needed when I was building my office, because first of all, I had to make sure that the foundation was level. So I got this laser level, Bosch laser level, and it was really handy for that. But it's continued to be handy because I'm making like a little art wall over here with all these frames. Oh, wonderful. I can just turn on the laser level and make sure everything's nice level and tight with each other just makes hanging stuff super easy too so oh that's great use it for construction or home art projects too and it's only like 50 bucks ish on amazon it's amazing that those things have come down in price like it used to be kind of an expensive piece of kit yeah for sure they're not that bad now no no So we have some nerds in our audience who spend their days in Photoshop and Illustrator and very specific tools, Premiere perhaps.

18:58Did you know that they make keyboards? There's a company called ICPAL. They make keyboards specifically with all the quick keys for your favorite piece of software. So if you are trying to speed up your workflow, you want to go faster and just be more intuitive in your workflow, this is pretty great. $120. You know, they're not for every piece of software. I don't know that there's a Figma version, but that would be very cool if there was. Yeah. Yeah, so we've got Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve. I don't even know what that is. I think that's color grading.

19:41So if you're doing color grading on a movie or video. But yeah, that's cool. I could use that for Final Cut potentially. Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty great little tool that can make things faster. So we've had some really great things and objects, but let's talk about experiences. And something I did this year that I never really thought of doing, but it was sort of bought for a gift for our family, is there's a place called iFly, and they have them all around the U.S., and it's essentially indoor skydiving. So you can think of it like a giant fan, essentially, that's powerful enough to lift you off the ground.

20:19So our whole family did it. You go through a whole training, and then there's somebody in there kind of helping you along. And it is actually really fun. You can kind of up-level and get to the point where you're doing it on your own. You're doing all sorts of acrobatics. But even just the initial experience is pretty cool. It's almost like you're skydiving, but it's super safe, obviously. and something you can take your kids to do. And we really enjoyed it. It was quite a lot of fun. This is great. My kids would love this. This is my kind of skydiving? Yeah. It's the skydiving without the dying?

20:52Yes. Yeah. That's a key part. All right. Well, I've got a couple options here that are less about a thing and just stores brands that I think people should go check out. I recently learned about a company called Imogene & Willie. They're based out of Austin, Texas, and they also have a store in Nashville. I might have that backwards. Nashville, Austin, I think they might have some shops elsewhere. They make really cool stuff. This is an American brand steeped in the history of American clothing. and they have great t-shirts, graphic t-shirts that are interesting. They often are a little irreverent and funny if you like a graphic tee.

21:43The John Prime baby shirt, that's pretty great. Yeah, that's great. You know, I am a person who like, I don't want just any t-shirt. I want a t-shirt that feels right. These feel like that broken in vintage style t-shirt that just feels soft and good. The collars are nice. They don't wrinkle up or roll. They're really great. But their history is fascinating. It's a husband and wife team, not named Ima Jean and Willie, but husband and wife team. And the wife whose name escapes me, her family has been in the denim industry for decades. And they know a lot about denim. And the denim production plant that they were running out of Tennessee, it went under at one point.

22:31I think it was the mid-90s. They were producing jeans for lots and lots of companies, all the big brands. And it got to a point where things were shipped overseas, and they had to quit. They tried some other jobs, tried to do different things, didn't work out, and they decided to go back to denim. and they make really nice jeans, really nice denim. So if you're someone who likes Americana, this is male and female too, so you can kind of find the thing that works for you. American clothing, American made, great story, very thoughtfully produced. Also, they are specific about, I think all the cotton they use comes within a 40 mile radius of where the cloth is spun and woven.

23:20So very cool. Their t-shirts are a little more expensive because of that. They're 60 bucks. Personally, I'm not a person who needs 50 t-shirts. I'd rather have five really good t-shirts. And that's what I'm talking about here. These are fantastic. Imogene and Willie, just check out everything they're doing. They make really cool stuff. I'm definitely going to be spending more money there. All right, so I'm going back to the experience side of things. and this particular person will be familiar to listeners. Andrew Evans, he's a magician and he runs something called the Magic Patio. It is an amazing experience in San Francisco where he has a little magic speakeasy and it's totally hidden, it's on Mission Street and you wouldn't know it was there.

24:08In fact, in the front of it is kind of a candy shop but behind he's built a little stage and seating and he runs a just wonderful, wonderful magic show. In fact, we're taking my wife, Courtney, and our family and some friends up there for her birthday party at the end of December, which should be a lot of fun. I love Andrew. I love magic. I love everything that he does. This is not on my list, but I know a lot of our listeners are in New York. If you're in New York, there is a very cool place where they know Andrew personally. It's called Tannen's Magic Shop. It's the magic shop that's featured in the book, The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon, which is a cool book.

24:54You can find Tannen's Magic Shop in Google Maps, but when you're looking for it on the street, no signs. It's hidden. You have to go find it. In fact, I had to hunt around to find it. But in terms of really awesome gifts, amazing magic tricks, history, like Harry Houdini's bathtub from his apartment, and a great library of magic books. The gift of magic is a great, great gift. So I'm going to build on Imogene and Willie. I think last year I made a recommendation. Billy Reed, who is a designer, clothing maker, based out of Florence, Alabama. That is just across the river from Muscle Shoals, where lots of great records were recorded.

25:38And they did a partnership with Gibson, Gibson the guitar maker, and they made some really cool clothing. There's a women's cardigan that is super soft, snuggly. And the motifs in these different articles of clothing, they have jackets, shirts, hats, tunics, all kinds of things. The motif comes from the design of Gibson guitars. So if you have a music lover in your life, maybe someone who plays music, they will notice some of these motifs like the famous hummingbird, the Gibson hummingbird guitar. Lots of great songs have been written on Gibson hummingbirds that shows up all over in the design of this clothing.

26:19Again, really great materials, beautifully made, handcrafted. Articles of clothing that last a lifetime, and they've got a cool story. So Billy Reed and Gibson, you can find these on Gibson's website. And by the way, this is how I found Imogene and Willie. They also did a partnership with Gibson, and they have some articles of clothing that they've made as well. Super cool. Even just the graphic tee is really nice, the Muscle Shoals tee. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so this is another office one. So in the effort to make my office a little cozier and welcoming, I wanted to get an area rug. and there's a site called All Modern, which I guess is probably a subsidy of one of these bigger companies, but they seem to have nice stuff and some Google ad, I'm sure, pointed me to it, but I ended up getting this Tripoli rug.

27:11It's really nice, plush. It's got kind of nice modern colors to it. It just adds a lot of warmth and kind of vibrance to the room, so I'm really enjoying that. I am making guests the office take their shoes off if they decide to go over to the carpet because it's got these white, kind of green-white sections on it. I don't want to get all dirty, but the kids know to take their shoes off now. That's nice. It's hard to find a good rug. I find a lot of rugs are just ugly. Yeah. Yeah, former guest on Design Better, Jonathan Adler, he has a bunch of rugs, and he has done a partnership with Ruggable a while back, and those are great rugs as well.

27:50So if you're looking for a good rug, these are low pile. You can literally pick them up and throw them in the washing machine to wash them. Yeah, we have one of those in the main house. It's great for kids and pets and all that. Yeah. Okay, I have an un-gift because I think some of us, maybe we don't need anything. It's hard to come up with a gift list because you just don't really need anything. I really like the idea of repairing something for someone you love. could be like a pair of shoes, pair of jeans, old jeans that maybe got a hole in them and you can't wear them because, you know, the crotch blew out or knee blew out or something like that.

28:30A sweater that might have been attacked by some moths or even an old family heirloom object, a piece of furniture or something that doesn't look so great. That is a really high impact gift to find something that is special, that has a story, that has visible history built into it. Find somebody locally who can repair that and give that as a gift. It's a surprise they won't be expecting it and it's something they'll never forget. Yeah, I love that idea because I think all too often we're sort of goaded into buying new stuff for the folks that we love, but many of us have these great things in our lives.