10 Gifts For UX Designers Under $50

Updated 11/25/20: Happy Holidays, everyone! Here are 10 honest-to-goodness physical products (not software) that make great gifts for UX Designers. At less than $50 each, they won’t break the bank and will be a hit for that special techie in your life. Hope this makes your holiday shopping a bit easier. FYI, some of these items include affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from my site I’ll get a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for checking them out!

1. NuBoard Portable Whiteboard Notebook

Someone has finally figured out how to make a portable whiteboard that’s not too clunky or difficult to use in client meetings. The Cansay Nuboard is an elegant, Moleskine-ish approach to the portable whiteboard concept that works beautifully and is available in several different sizes. See a detailed review here.

2. UI Stencils Everyday Carry Kit 

This little kit from UI Stencils is pricey at $36, but it’s perfect for people who don’t want to carry a bunch of sketching tools all the time. Use it to capture flashes of inspiration and fleeting ah-ha moments before they disappear.

3. Behance Dot Grid Book 

Yeah, it’s expensive for a notebook, but it’s worth it. The Behance Dot Grid Book has plenty of space to do extensive design explorations and the dot patterns make it easy to draw straight lines. These books are hard to find these days, so I was psyched to find them for sale online.

4. Staedtler’s Lumo Color Non-Permanent Markers, Fine Point, 4-Count

These dry-erase markers are a perfect match with the NuBoard portable Whiteboard Notebook. The markers come in their own stand-up case and each marker has its own eraser, which is very handy.

5. Zebra #2 Mechanical Pencils .7mm 10 Pack

These little guys are the bomb for doing quick exploratory sketches. They are also great for creating “under drawings” used in high fidelity ink sketches for client presentations.

6. UI Stencils Quick Framer 

Honestly I could list pretty much everything on the UI Stencils site. Their products are excellent, and I use this little stencil almost every day in my freelance work. It is wonderful for banging out quick sketches on the fly and fleshing out product ideas as you brainstorm alone or with your team mates.

7. Drawing Ideas by Mark Baskinger and William Bardel

A wonderful primer and solid reference on industrial design, this book will help you learn to sketch your ideas as they happen and inspire you to think out of the digital box.

8. UI Stencils Case

You gotta have a place to put all your stuff, and this foldable case  is so useful I wrote an entire blog post about it.

9. UX/UI Designer T-Shirt

Wear your profession proudly, or at least after work when you’re watching Netflix. I ordered this shirt last year and it’s held up pretty well.

10. Original Bullet Journal Notebook

This little notebook has truly been a game changer for me. I discovered the Bullet Journal Method when shopping for a smaller dot grid notebook a few years ago. Now I have one for every quarter since 2017. I use them to keep track of my schedule, for journaling, and to track all of my personal and professional projects.

Over To You

What other gifts for UX designers can you think of? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

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