It can be tough to shop for artists, but one thing you know for sure is – they’re into art. Commission an original work by a local artist or find a starving artist online who is hungry for a sale. The gift will be sincerely appreciated by everyone involved. Make sure you pick something that suits your friend’s aesthetic and not your own!
Smart Art is an art project in a box, delivered monthly to their door. It’s designed to inspire creative thinking and may be the perfect thing to help get them over a creative block. Each box will contain everything they need to create a new project. They’ll explore a new technique each month and experiment with encaustic painting, mixed media, impasto painting, street art, and much more.
Artists and writers often keep notebooks filled with ideas and doodles. If you know one that has boxes and boxes full of old notebooks, then this smart digital notebook may be the perfect gift. It feels like paper but can transfer what’s scribbled inside to their computer for saving and editing. Once the notebook pages are full, they just erase the physical copies, by putting the Pocketbook into the microwave. After being nuked the pages are blank again and they can fill it back up.
Inspiration is fleeting, and art trends come and go. Help the artist you know embrace the impermanence of their creations with this Zen water canvas. Water is brushed on the absorbent canvas, leaving beautiful gray marks that evaporate and completely disappear within minutes, reminding the artist that their best ideas are yet to come.
Artists often have their head in the clouds, which is also where they should be accessing their new suite of creative tools from Adobe. A subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives artists a powerful set of applications to make everything from graphic art, to videos and websites.
Drawing on a computer has its advantages but will never have the feel of drawing with pencil and paper. This thingamajig bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds and enables artists to digitally edit and enhance their traditionally hand-drawn artwork. The “smartpad” captures drawings from actual paper, converts them to data, and sends them by bluetooth to any computer. The pad also works well with iOS and Android tablets or mobile devices.
If the artist you know is of the starving variety, they probably can’t afford to take professional photos of what they make. Yet having high quality images is important if they ever want to sell any of their work. Until they save up enough to get that fancy camera, you can get them started with this table top photo studio perfect for documenting small artwork.
We are constantly awash in a sea of waves, fields, and rays, not to mention whatever the aliens are shooting into us, and if the scientists didn’t tell us about it we would have no idea any of that stuff is even there. The ferrofluid desk toy is a super cool way to see what magnetic fields would look like if they were actually visible. The included 2-poled magnetic wand allows the user to literally manipulate physics with their hands. Well, that’s probably not true, but it kind of looks like it.
For the artist, art is about expressing themselves and their individuality. What better tribute to their uniqueness than a work of art depicting their actual one-of-a-kind DNA? You can give them the DNA sampling kit as the gift and let them choose the style and color of print they want, or if you’re really clever you can find a way to get that cheek swab ahead of time and present them with the finished work of art.
Technology may be shockingly smart these days, but unfortunately your computer is still too dumb to stand up when you do. Though on that note, when it does become smart enough to stand up with you, you should probably run. On second thought, once the machines are that smart it’s already too late. Just sit back down and wait for the computer to tell you what to do next. If you don’t make any abrupt movements, it might spare you. In the meantime, buy this adjustable standing desk for someone you care about so they don’t ruin their posture.
The dual computer screen is one of today’s uber-nerd status symbols. Let the investment bankers have their Rolls Royces and the pimps their gold plated canes. The pinnacle of luxury living for a gamer is a super high resolution dual screen, so they can engage in some next level merkage (gamer slang). But it’s not just for video game junkies. Plenty of professionals have sworn off the single screen setup for good, pledging their allegiance to the gods of multi-tasking.
They say change always starts with the person in the mirror. But when you look into this mirror, you actually see two people. There’s you, and then there’s someone else in way better shape who’s trying to get you to do things you might not really feel like doing. And that’s not just any old fit person who’s goading you on — it’s an elite personal trainer from a top gym. So you better listen. This is the perfect workout gift for someone who needs that little bit of extrinsic motivation, but is narcissistic enough to kind of like staring at themselves while they work out. So, pretty much everybody.
A virtual cooking class with Gordon Ramsay is a chance to learn from a culinary master without the yelling and food punching you've seen on TV. His MasterClass lessons feature the seven-star Michelin chef in his home kitchen teaching everything from kitchen setup, buying ingredients, prepping, plating, and pairing restaurant quality recipes that wow guests. Crispy duck with red endive and spinach anyone?
Sleep Pod is a first-of-its-kind sleep solution designed around the science of Deep Touch Pressure Therapy that can help you fall asleep faster, and stay asleep longer. Sleep Pod applies a gentle, calming pressure to your entire body, much like a hug. This helps to reduce anxiety and gets you ready for sleep.
In classier quarters this might be called a “decanter.” But the built-in stupidity of a decanter is that it’s really just a big glass you’re not allowed to drink out of. You see, in the genteel world of wine, “classy” consists of adding unnecessary steps to what should be a simple process. Of course, bourgeois society has attached all kinds of stigma to drinking straight from the bottle, so some kind of compromise is necessary. And that compromise is right here.
Phones actually have more germs on them than a typical public restroom. This smart cleansing machine might not eliminate the dirty content sucking up the data on their phone, but it will be sure to return sterile swiping to their wired existence. Personal device hygiene should not be overlooked by today’s touch-screen fanatics. A high-tech disinfectant, this ingenuous accessory will decontaminate wireless communication and restore cleanliness to the digital age. Oh, and it also charges while it cleans!
So many of your household appliances would be better if they weren’t fixed in place. Wouldn’t you sometimes like to bake in the backyard? Do the laundry on your roof deck? And what about the toilet? Wouldn’t you like to…well, never mind. For now, we’ve got the inflatable hot tub. Move it, deflate and store it, set it back up and inflate it in three minutes whenever it’s needed.
