Designers, creators, writers, artists, and other creative types often make it difficult to know what to gift them. There are so many specialist tools or fun creative gadgets, how can you even know what to buy for someone? Here's an ideal gift list for creatives, ranging from small gift items to larger more extravagant items that would really make your creative friend's year.
✕ Remove Ads
Related
Best tablets in 2024
From iPads to Android and Windows devices, these are the best tablets you can buy in 2024
11 Online creative classes
There are many platforms to decide from
Whether your creative friend went to art school or started their creative journey as a hobby by themselves, giving them a membership to the myriad of online creative classes online will boost their skills and knowledge, no matter their position.
✕ Remove Ads
There are dozens of platforms to choose from. Some of them are platforms dedicated to creative courses, like Skillshare. But generic course platforms often offer creative courses of varying types too, such as Coursera and Udemy, which both have options for university-level classes in art, design, and UX topics.
10 Pay for creative subscriptions
A month or a year is a generous gift
✕ Remove Ads
Most of your creative friends are probably lumped with Adobe subscriptions. If they're not, it may be Canva, Figma, or they may donate to one of the many open-source alternatives to premium creative software.
Offering to pay for one month, six months, or even an entire year would be a thoughtful gift for your creative friends or family. It helps to ask about their preferences, because some designers are pretty entrenched in a particular software.
In most cases, the option to outright own your creative software doesn't exist; however, software like the Affinity Suite -- containing Affinity Photo, Publisher, and Designer -- can be bought outright, which makes a fantastic gift with no pressure to keep paying or passing future payment on to the gift receiver.
✕ Remove Ads
For less expensive software gifts, consider Procreate for the iPad or Procreate Dreams, the iPad-focused animation app.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Starts at $10/month
Canva
$120 at Canva
Figma
See at Figma
Affinity Designer
$70 at Affinity
9 Tablet upgrade
Especially the latest iPad
✕ Remove Ads
Many creative people, whether designers, illustrators, or even tattoo artists, rely heavily on a tablet for day-to-day idea generation or drawing. While not the only tablet for creatives, the iPad is typically the most popular option.
Alternatively, you could purchase paper-like screen protectors or a tablet case, to ensure your creative friend enjoys their tablet while it stays protected.
Related
Best iPads in 2024
There are a surprising number of iPads on the market, so which one is right for you? Let's take a look at all the options.
8 Dynamic stylus
Apple Pencil Pro or other styluses are great options
Source: Apple
✕ Remove Ads
If your creative friend uses an iPad or a tablet, then another great gift option is a new stylus. You don't have to go all in on the latest Apple Pencil Pro -- although it is a fantastic stylus with dynamic gesture controls for more creative precision -- but there are other brands that work with iPads, and other brands that are intended for Android tablet types.
If you can't afford or don't want to gift a full stylus, then many styluses require new tips from time to time. The Apple Pencil has a tip that screws on or off and needs to be replaced with lots of use.
✕ Remove Ads
You could also buy rubber stylus grips or covers, which not only help your artist friends to hold their stylus, but also can make them look personalized and funky.
Drawing gloves are a great item to pair with a stylus gift too -- these are individual gloves that only cover your little and ring fingers with fabric, allowing your middle and index fingers, along with your thumb, to grip the stylus properly. The purpose of drawing gloves is to let your hand slide across your tablet screen without drawing or ruining your artwork.
Related
Want to purchase a new stylus? Good luck dealing with the different types.
There are a lot of pen types, which could make finding a stylus complicated
✕ Remove Ads
7 Mentorship membership
A one-to-one tutor for design or creative processes
Online classes are one gift type, but if your creative friend would benefit from more personalized mentoring, you could gift them a creative mentor. Sites such as Superpeer offer one-to-one mentorship on a variety of topics. For example, Gemma Helyer is a UX/UI mentor from South Wales. She works as a senior UX/UI designer and uses the mentorship platform to impart her knowledge to others.
✕ Remove Ads
An online mentor is a great option for someone who hasn't had the opportunity to go to design school and have in-person teachings, mentorship, or customized learning in their creative journey.
6 Tickets to design festivals
Design conferences reinvigorate creativity
Many large design brands hold annual (or more frequent) design festivals or conferences. These are often held in various large cities around the world, but with the largest focus on North America.
✕ Remove Ads
The tickets do not come cheap; however, the learnings, inspiration, and networking achieved from attending these conferences or festivals cannot be replicated attending the online versions of the events.
Adobe Max costs close to $2000 for the tickets alone. In October 2024, Adobe Max was held in Miami, Florida, but in previous years it's been held in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In February 2025, it will be held in Tokyo, Japan.
Figma's annual conference, Config, is typically held in San Francisco, and tickets to that cost between $400 - $800 depending on when you book.
✕ Remove Ads
Canva's annual conference, Canva Create, is hosted either in Sydney, Australia or sometimes on the USA's west coast. Since Canva and Affinity became a partnership in 2023, it's likely these conferences will be bigger and better than ever.
5 Vintage or digital camera
Fun, creative, and nostalgic rolled into one gift
Source: Polaroid
✕ Remove Ads
This one is a fun gift that happens to be right on trend. Many older designers or creatives likely grew up before digital cameras were widely available, but now in 2024, vintage and film cameras are used and purchased more than they have been in the last twenty or more years.
Not only are film cameras on trend, but old digital cameras are too. Let your creative friends be creative in trendy ways by gifting them a camera.
A disposable film camera makes a great gift, or an Instax film camera with a selection of film types and even a scrapbook, so your friends have somewhere to stick their photos and turn them into creative art. These gifts are kitsch and fun, leaning towards the creative gift angle.
✕ Remove Ads
Related
Acer's new camera lets you take 3D photos and video
Plus there are a lot of monitors and laptops on the way
4 RGB or strip lighting
A beautifully lit studio is great for creativity
Content creators, YouTubers, and outright cool creative beings love to light up their studio space with funky lighting.
Whether you gift RGB strip lighting, blue or red bulbs, or smart lighting that can be controlled via remote or smartphone, they make fun and thoughtful gifts for most people actually, not just creatives.
✕ Remove Ads
Related
Level up Samsung's Edge Lighting feature with Edge Lighting Infinity
Edge Lighting Infinity is a new app that lets you customize the Edge Lighting feature on Samsung devices to a greater extent. Read on to learn more.
3 Traditional art mediums
Let that creativity flow away from the screen
Lots of creative people like to dabble in traditional mediums from time to time. And if they don't personally dabble, they usually appreciate looking at it. This gives you two options for gifts: artistic mediums to create art with, or art made with traditional mediums they can present and admire. Or both.
✕ Remove Ads
As a life-long creative person, one of my favorite gifts to receive -- or to buy myself -- is a beautifully made sketchbook. I have dozens of them. All are empty. But I appreciate each and every one, despite never using them.
Poska marker paint pens, good quality paints or pencils, high quality paper, Cricut vinyl or cutting blades and materials are all items that make great gifts and let people continue their creative hobbies without being glued to a screen.
✕ Remove Ads
Finding local art or design makes a thoughtful gift too. Or find your friend's favorite designer or artist and purchase something from their independent online store. If anyone is buying for me, I'll take an art print from Mr. Bingo or anything designed by Aaron Draplin.
2 A standing desk
Gift great posture to your creative friends
Source: Vari
✕ Remove Ads
This one's a little out of left-field, but as a creative, I know many of us have terrible posture while doing our hobby or business work. We spend hours -- as do lots of people -- behind a desk, or worse, curled up like a shrimp and bent over a drawing tablet.
A standing desk makes a great gift for anyone with a home office. It encourages more movement in your work day, ensuring you're not wasting away sitting on an office chair while burning your retinas in your design studio.
✕ Remove Ads
Vari Electric Standing Desk
The Vari Electric standing desk is easy to assemble and comes in multiple finishes.
$750 at Amazon
FlexiSpot E7 Pro Standing Desk
$400 $600 Save $200
FlexiSpot's E7 Pro standing desk is a simple yet functional way to get work done at home. It's sturdy at every height, looks great, and supports up to four height presets. Best of all, it doesn't try to offer too many features. That means the desk can be clean and clutter-free with ease.
$400 at FlexiSpot
1 A hard drive or cloud subscription
Help your friends protect their assets
Close
✕ Remove Ads
Nothing is more precious to a digital creative worker or hobbyist than their digital assets and files. Photographers, graphic designers, videographers, illustrators, and content creators of other types all require storage.
A physical hard drive, SSD or HDD, or cloud storage plan make usable gifts and will show your friend how important you consider their work to be. So important, that even you want to protect it.
✕ Remove Ads
Related
6 tips for seamlessly organizing your digital art assets and files
Tips and tools to organise your digital creative files, assets, and workflow
Gift useful creative tools to your friends
Black Friday and the upcoming holiday season is a great time to consider what you can buy for your creative friends. With a list of products that range from easy and affordable to products that many average people can't justify buying for themselves, this gift list covers all bases for all types of friendships and creative passions.