The newest gift guide for architects and designers from ARCHITECT—just in time for the 2019 holidays. You can see the full listing here.
The holidays are coming—so what gift do you get for your favorite architect/designer/planner, or architectural enthusiast?
That can be a challenge—assuming that you’re not focusing on the giftee’s other possible interests or hobbies (baseball, crochet, modern dance, scrapbooking, collecting vintage airline ephemera, cosplay, fine wine, yodeling…)—but rather want to get them something more aligned with their design-obsessed life.
For several years, we’ve seen annual lists of gift suggestions for architects. Such lists generally direct you to elegant pens and pencils, well-crafted sketchbooks from artisinal sources, inventive new iterations of drafting scales and triangles, digital hardware accessories (often something to append to your smart phone), and finally that gift of meta-importance (so that the above treasure-trove can be carried): bags of every type— briefcase/shoulder/messenger/backpack/tote/pouch.
An example of what turned-up on one recent list of gifts for architects. Actually, it’s a interesting list, and this happens to be a very fine book: a work one can learn from, no matter at what professional stage find yourself. So we recommend it highly too, even for the holidays. But if you’re gifting to an architect ordesigner, wouldn’t you want to also choose additional gifts that would be just a little less affiliated with work?
Such offerings are all supremely useful, even seductive (and we’ll admit those lists have guided some of our own gift purchases—for ourselves!) But the problem is that most archiects are probably already aware of those items (or products which are similar) and may already own them or have them in their on-line shopping carts.
The other issue is that these items are a bit too aligned with work. The trick—the ideal—is to find a gift that’s “architecty”-enough to appeal to their design-passion, but which doesn’t remind them too narrowly of professional concerns. Even better would be if it had a measure of fun. Finding just the right gifts for architects—ones with that balance— well, that’s hard.
So it’s a pleasure to now see one list of gifts whose suggestions often hit that sweet-spot: ARCHITECT Magazine—now in it’s on-line incarnation—has offered such a list.
ARCHITECT’s 2019 list of suggested gifts, for the architect in your life, goes beyond the usual set of pens, phone accessories, and shoulder bags—as the above fragment of their web-page shows.
Yes, it offers a few of the sort of objects which one would normally find on architect gift lists—i.e.: a meticulous reprint of a fascinating book by Adolf Loos, and Massimo Vignelli’s giant calendar (a monument in the history of Helvetica applications)—but it takes such lists in new directions, by offering design-focused items that have a bit more wit and color than usual.
What dog—at least, what dog owned by a designer—wouldn’t want a chew toy done up in patterns by Josef Hoffmann and his Viennese colleagues? Or how about a leather tote that is not only a clever work of morphology, but which also evokes The Vessel. Bravo to Architect for offering such a fresh list.
“Concrete” perfume, as shown in ARCHITECT’s gift list.
In previous posts we’ve shown examples of concrete used in the making of gifts, like a wristwatch, and items appropriate for Valentine’s Day—but none which suggest the celebration of concrete in-itself.
Now, that’s all changed—
The item on ARCHITECT’s list which really got our attention is “Concrete”: a perfume from Comme des Garçons.
As you can see, the packaging—both the box and the bottle) works very hard to evoke the look and materiality of concrete—in fact, the bottle (whose soft, tapering shape is itself appealing) is covered in it! By-the-way, Comme des Garçons web page for the perfume has a link to “The Concrete Experience”—a visual and sonic experience that’s well worth checking out.
We haven’t tried the fragrance—but we love the design! So it might make a great holiday gift for your Rudolph-ian friends.