Burning Love Felt Desk Pad
You look at it almost everyday, so you might as well like the way your desk looks. The Burning Love Felt Desk Pad ($50) gives you a stylish home for all your desk peripherals — mouse, trackpad, keyboard, phone, whatever you want. The felt surface is perfect for replacing your ugly mousepad, and the leather strap gives you a convenient place to tuck important scraps of paper. Comes in a range of colors to suit your desk decor, including teal, navy, olive, charcoal, plum, chocolate, and more.
Type Letterpress Calendar
True, there are probably several gadgets on your desk that can tell you the date — but none of them can offer the old-world appeal of the Type Letterpress Calendar ($35). Printed by hand on a 1960s letterpress using 55pt 100% cotton heavy stock, this reusable calendar (new editions will be printed every year) offers outstanding typography, and comes with a stylish bamboo stand. Each card goes through the press twice — once for each color — and is then cut down with a die cutting machine, which also gives it rounded corners. In other words, each set is a handmade object that adds a nice touch of craftsmanship to your desk or countertop.
Makr Sketchbooks
We're not saying they're better than Moleskines, but they're certainly a tempting alternative. Makr Sketchbooks ($40) feature soft-touch, water-resistant covers, plain interior pages that are good for writing or sketching, and an angled elastic closure that's designed to hold your pen or pencil in place on the end of the book. At 5" x 8", it's plenty large enough to capture big ideas while still small enough to fit in a small bag, and it's available for pre-order now in six premium colorways.
Tactical Fountain Pen
Enjoy a dignified writing tool and the juxtaposing of a rugged body against elegant internals in the Tactical Fountain Pen ($45). This whimsical-yet-functional instrument features a chunky black aircraft-grade aluminum body with ribs for added grip, and a German-made fountain pen with a fine point nib and Iridium point. Not feeling the old-school fountain pen experience? Use the included parts to turn it into a standard rollerball pen.
Perpetual Calendar
Professional office settings require guys to give up their swimsuit calendars. Add some setting-appropriate pizzazz to your cubicle walls with this Prepetual Calendar ($40). Designed by Gideon Dagan, this unique calendar lets you move two magnetic balls to mark the date and month, respectively, while the injection-molded plastic build ensures years of faithful service.
Colors Cartesia Desk
Sometimes an idea is so simple we're amazed no one had thought of it before — and the Colors Cartesia Desk ($6,000) is one of those. Answering the challenge of letting you access more than one desk drawer at once, the Cartesia features a novel new drawer system that lets you open them from the front or the side, giving you the ability to access two or more at once. Made from Tamo Tree or Walnut, it also features a clean, modern design with a siding-like drawer tower and a small side drawer to store cords, cables and the like. [via]
Baux Pen
Bic pens are pretty much ubiquitous, used for everything from the community pen at your local bank to the giveaways you find in hotels. Unfortunately, that commonality also makes them rather... boring. The Baux Pen ($25/2-pack) aims to fix all that. Named after aluminum ore, this sleek pen is crafted from machined aluminum, available in grooved or smooth versions, and in one of five colors — natural aluminum, or one of four anodized shades. The best part? You can customize it using any color Bic you can find, giving you nearly endless tip/lid combinations to choose from.
Strong Like Bull Magnets
Stop worrying about your papers getting knocked off your fridge, file cabinet, or whiteboard and start hanging them up with Strong Like Bull Magnets ($24/2-pack). As the name suggests, these over-engineered helpers are seriously strong, boasting a Neodimium Iron Boron disc magnet that's set inside a stainless steel cup that directs the magnetic flux and increases pull strength. An anodized aluminum housing and grip ring give the magnet a stylish exterior and make it easier to handle — which is good, since it has a rated direct contact pull strength of over 25 lbs, or more than enough to pull up a 10 lb. weight or hold up a 50 sheet notepad from the outside.
Cleo Skribent Messograf Pen
Part multi-tool, part writing instrument, all German engineering. The Cleo Skribent Messograf Pen ($23) works great as a writing tool, accepting any Parker-style ballpoint or gel refills. But the chromium-plated brass body also serves as a metric screw thread scale, a tire tread depth scale, and as a 4-inch caliper that measures in both metric and inches. And not to worry, nervous pen-fiddlers — it still uses a standard click-to-open mechanism. [Scouted by Andrew]
Steelcase Gesture Chair
Most office chairs are designed to give us comfort and support as we sit in front of a computer all day — but with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, we're pulled away from our desktop setups more and more. The Steelcase Gesture Chair was designed with this change in mind. As such, it's built to support a wide variety of postures and sitting preferences, promising to give you support whether you're banging away at a keyboard, casually browsing a report on your iPad, or cranking out a quick text on your phone. Oh, and it doesn't look too shabby, either. Coming this fall. [Scouted by Ken]
Minimal Float Wall Desk
It doesn't matter whether you're looking to open up some floor space or simply want a stylish new workstation — the Minimal Float Wall Desk ($700) can do both. Made from either walnut or rift oak, this sleek desk mounts directly on the wall at any height you choose — meaning it can work as a sitting or standing desk — and features softly rounded ends and a full-length slide out tray for your keyboard, mouse, and/or writing pad. There's only one drawback: with a design this clean, you're going to want to make damn sure that you hide any cables as best you can.
Eco Highligther Pencils
You drink from a reusable bottle. You recycle. You even compost. But yet you still use standard highlighters? Make the switch to these Eco Highligther Pencils ($9). Available in all your favorite highlighter colors — yellow, green, orange, pink, and blue — they contain no plastics, ink solvents, or volatile organic compounds, and can be sharpened using a jumbo sharpener. Oh, and they won't bleed through the page — something that few traditional highlighters can claim.
