The Best Gifts for Design Lovers Under $50

For as long as we’ve been publishing holiday gift guides — and this is our fourth annual one! — we’ve been dividing them up by editor, which eventually became predictable even to us. Want something monochrome? Go to Monica’s gift guide. In the mood for something colorful? Jill’s got you covered. Need something ever-so-slightly less girly? Our junior editors are almost invariably men. This year, we decided to do our readers a service, and lay things out according to the cold hard cash you’ll have to put down (though it’s still fun to guess who picked what!). Today we’ll be publishing cheap and mid-range guides for the design lover in your life, and tomorrow we’ll be putting out one that’s a bit more extravagant. One of the more delightful side effects of this approach has been seeing just how many great things you can get for under 50 bucks. Here you’ll find things that’ll help make a not-great year feel just a bit better — flasks, pretty makeup, the writings of Donald Judd, the hot male ceramicist as calendar model — and remember, if you’re not in the mood for gifting things at all this year, please consider giving to our latest venture, Design for Progress!