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- [00:02]
Aaron Walter
Eli. We're at the holidays once again. And that means it's one of our favorite episodes. Our holiday gift guide for designers. People who like wonderful objects, wonderful things. They're looking for a good gift for themselves, perhaps, or for somebody special in their life. And we both have put together some nice lists.
- [00:22]
Eli Woolery
That's right. I'm very excited. They seem to come around quick this year, didn't it? It doesn't seem like that long ago, for sure.
- [00:31]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, yeah. And usually what we do is we just sort of think about things that we've come across throughout the year that have caught our attention that are, you know, cool products, different experiences. Sometimes I have, you know, some sort of, like, affordable options. If you're just looking for a quick, inexpensive gift. Something that's mid range. Ish. And then there's some blow the bank options out there.
- [00:57]
Eli Woolery
Very cool. Yeah, I'm somewhere along those same lines. So hopefully we'll have a good lineup of options for folks as we go through this.
- [01:05]
Aaron Walter
Cool. Well, shall we dive in?
- [01:07]
Eli Woolery
Let's do it.
- [01:08]
Aaron Walter
All right. Well, I'll let you go first.
- [01:11]
Eli Woolery
Oh, gosh. Pressure is on. Okay. So my first one's a fun thing if you like cooking, if you like pizzas, and if you like being outside. So I think we both fall into all three of those categories.
- [01:25]
Aaron Walter
Check, check, check.
- [01:26]
Eli Woolery
If you ever heard of solo stove, they make these really nice fire pits that are basically smokeless. Once you get the fire going, they burn hot enough that there's no smoke. Really nice to be around. And they have this pizza attachment which I just got recently. It's awesome. It gets up to 600 degrees. Throw your pizza in there. It's done in like four minutes. It's. It's got that kind of wood fired feel to it. Obviously, because you're using wood, use mostly madrone and oak here. And it's great. The family loves it. I used to make them on the barbecue and then have to finish in the oven. Cause it wouldn't get the top quite right.
- [02:00]
Aaron Walter
That was my next question, was how it handled the top. Because when I've put a pizza steel on a grill, I would get a burned bottom and an uncooked top. And so this is essentially kind of like evening out the temperatures.
- [02:14]
Eli Woolery
Exactly. Yeah. It's got some kind of like a reflective element essentially on the top. The mixture, it distributes the heat to the top. It does a really good job and it's portable. Gonna plan on taking it to the beach sometime. I'll make some beach pizzas. Hopefully no sand in the pizzas, but.
- [02:29]
Aaron Walter
That is pretty bougie. That sounds pretty awesome.
- [02:31]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, it'll be fun.
- [02:33]
Aaron Walter
Very cool.
- [02:34]
Eli Woolery
I love it.
- [02:34]
Aaron Walter
This looks really great. Fun thing to play around with year round. I love to make pizza. I'm a big sourdough bread baker, which was not really a pandemic thing. Most people got into that during the pandemic. But I love to make sourdough pizza crust.
- [02:50]
Eli Woolery
Well, you might just have to get one of these because they are quite fun. It's around 180. Solo stove also often has sales, so you can sometimes bundle stuff together and get it at a sale too. So it's a little bit of an investment, but I think worthwhile. Seems really well made and will probably last a long time.
- [03:06]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, super. Love it. That's a great place to start. All right, well, I'm going to stick with the outdoor option and this is something that I got for myself this year and I love. I have often thought about getting a Leatherman, which is a multi tool type of thing, and I finally broke down and got one because I counted how many times I wished I had it on hand. And then after about 10 times, I decided, okay, time to just get one. And I got the Leatherman Signal. The Leatherman Signal is the one that's got. It's got really cool colors, beautiful colors. It's got a fire starter, a ferro rod built in, has a knife sharpener built in as well. So if you were out camping or just sort of like if you're a hiker, somebody who likes to be outdoors, this is kind of the one you want to get. Of course, it's got pliers, it's got a great blade, lots of cool features. It's got a saw hammer, a little screwdriver set that is useful. It's got a safety whistle built in. So if you were in a distressed situation, you can signal to people. I love this. You can find it at rei. REI has their sales going on this time of year. This episode may or may not come out. After those REI sales. You can find them in lots of places and in lots of colors. I got a nice kind of turquoisey color and salmon. That is very cool.
- [04:39]
Eli Woolery
Nice.
- [04:40]
Aaron Walter
Yeah.
- [04:41]
Eli Woolery
That's super cool. I'm a big Leatherman fan. I've had them for probably 20 years. Back when they first made the very simple kind of boxy ones that weren't the most ergonomic things, but they're very well made and effective. And now, yeah, they've got a range of stuff that's great. They last forever. So you can just hand this one down to your sons.
- [04:59]
Aaron Walter
Yeah. And the price point on this is you're looking at around 130 to 140 is what it costs. So it's a little pricier, but it's a very, very nice set of tools that comes in handy. Saves me a ton of time.
- [05:12]
Eli Woolery
Fantastic.
- [05:13]
Aaron Walter
All right, well, I'm tossing it back to you. What you got?
- [05:15]
Eli Woolery
Yeah. Okay. So I have a couple things on my list that came out of Stanford. One's from the design program. The class I teach one is not. But I thought it was kind of fun. This guy started a company called Magnogrip. I think he went to the business school. His name, I think is Andre Woolery, but no relation to me.
- [05:36]
Aaron Walter
No relation. Okay.
- [05:38]
Eli Woolery
And I thought this was a cool idea. I mean, at face, it seems a little gimmicky, but it's called the Magnogrip. It's a little wristband that you can wear while you're working on a project. And it. It came to mind for me because this past weekend I was helping with a community project to build a playground. And I wish I had one of these on me because every time you're trying to screw something in, you know, you often have a screw. Sometimes I'm like, holding one in my mouth or if I have a tool belt, that's kind of awkward too. So this is great. And I ordered one to use for my next project. But it's simple. It's just a little stocking stuffer. Magnetic wristband, 1599. They also make bags and totes and other stuff. Work gloves that have magnets as well. But I thought it was a cool idea.
- [06:18]
Aaron Walter
That is awesome. That would be very handy.
- [06:21]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, definitely. I'm sure you've been in that situation where you're like, try to screw something in. You will have a screw in your mouth.
- [06:27]
Aaron Walter
And it's just like chaos pretty much every weekend.
- [06:29]
Eli Woolery
Yeah.
- [06:30]
Aaron Walter
Yeah. I love it. That's cool. I've got something that takes it in a very different direction. It's called She's Birdie. It's an alarm. It's like a safety alarm. So for anyone who worries, sometimes, like, you're in the parking lot at night or you're in a situation where, you know, sort of creepy people around and you want to have a quick way to just let everybody know there's something going down over here. It's an alarm that you can tie onto your purse, tie onto your bag. Good for kids as well, you know, in theory, if this responsible kid's not going to be pulling this in the classroom or something, which my kids would. But it's just like you just pull it and it automatically sends out this very shrill alarm that can notify people.
- [07:21]
C
I found this, actually.
- [07:22]
Aaron Walter
I was watching a YouTube video about a CIA, a former CIA agent, and he was being interviewed by a Navy SEAL and he was asking, like, what weapons do you carry on you? How I stumbled into this video, I don't know, but it was fascinating. And he said, you know, I don't carry weapons, but everyone in my family carries this personal alarm. It's kind of a cool idea. There's different versions of it. So the regular version, it's like 30 bucks. So this too could be a stocking stuffer, small gift that you could give to someone, gift of safety. But there's also a version that has a subscription that when you pull that, not only does it signal an alarm, but it sends out a notification to multiple people to say, like, here's where I am and there's something going down. Yeah, she's Birdie is what it's called. $30.
- [08:11]
Eli Woolery
Nice. That's a great one. All right, so I'm going to stick with the Stanford theme. And this time these two young women were in our class. This was probably, gosh, seven or eight years ago now. And the problem that they were trying to solve was they were interested in creating a fashion project. They wanted to do something sustainable. And they realize there's this problem in the fashion industry where there's a tremendous amount of material that gets wasted. Essentially they call it dead stock. And it just gets. Oftentimes just ends up in a landfill. So, like, what can we do to address this problem? So they started this company called Audley, and it's all about sustainable fashion. Very high quality products and made often with dead stock or other sustainable materials. It's mostly women's fashion. And they do pants and dresses and things like that. This one's a little more cross genders, but they did have this apron that's made from patchwork. And you can see this is the type of stuff they made right out of the gate were these cool patchwork things using dead stock material. They're kind of cool and individual and have this handmade vibe to them. It is a little pricey for an apron, 98 bucks. But again, high quality. You're buying sustainable material. This is not fashion that will end up in a landfill. And I think it's cool to support these young women who've created this really cool, sustainable fashion brand.
- [09:34]
Aaron Walter
Awesome. I like that. Well, the next one I want to recommend is a former guest of ours, Adam Moss and his book the Work of Art, because it just keeps coming up with different guests that we've had. For those who missed our interview with Adam, he is the former chief editor person in charge at New York Magazine. And he left that to be a painter. He's always wanted to be a painter. It's been a pursuit of his for some time and it's something that he's sort of like struggled to figure out. And in that pursuit, he was curious, how do other creative people approach the creative process? So we talked to amazing people. Samin Nosrat, Sophia Coppola, David Simon and many, many others. This book is great. So they're interviews with a diverse group of skill sets here and the creative process. You see themes of how people approach it and then there's a lot of photos and artifacts of the creative process as well. It's just a fun book to sit down and dig into. Especially in the wintertime when it's cold. You just want to be inside and sort of learn and grow. For me, that's kind of like a big focus of this time of year, is just kind of reflecting on things. And this is a great book for that. It runs about $27, which I think is a great deal for a very nicely bound. It's a hard bound canvas cover. Beautiful book. Really nice. The Work of Art by Adam Moss.
- [11:13]
Eli Woolery
Love it. Staying on the topic of books, my favorite book this year was by an author named Madeline Miller. It's called Cersei. And I've been reading a lot of kind of sci fi fantasy stuff recently for whatever reason. And this one just stuck out to me. It had been a while. I think I was stuck in a rut where I'd pick up a book and I just, I couldn't finish it. It just wasn't grabbing me. And this one just grabbed me from the start. And I think the kind of unique thing about it, this legend has been told before she was part of the Odyssey, but she was a very minor character. She's a witch, essentially the daughter of one of the gods. And she plays a minor part in that book and another Greek mythology. But here she's the main character and you kind of get this peek into the sort of the behind the scenes look at what's happening amongst all the Greek gods. Just very imaginatively done and I think wonderful writing. Would love to get her on the show at some point to talk about her creative process.
- [12:14]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, I read this book too, and I loved it. I liked that. Circe is a woman who is a bit of a cast off. Like she's a woman with powers and she just was sent away to this island and she builds her own world. That's just magical. Enchanting. And Odysseus passes through on his way back this troubled journey back home from the battle of Troy, which is the subject of the Odyssey. So as you said, she's a minor character, but she plays a very important role in helping him get back home. And Madeline Miller just does a great job. I also loved Song of Achilles, which she also wrote, which is taking Greek mythology and bringing it into like a modern voice to make it accessible. And there's just such rich narratives that are woven into Greek mythology that it's just wonderful to revisit. So, yeah, that's a great choice. I highly recommend this one and that book.
- [13:20]
Eli Woolery
You can find it in paperback for probably around 20 bucks.
- [13:22]
Aaron Walter
Fantastic. Well, let's keep on this theme. I have another book here. It is the Odyssey and the Iliad, which overlaps with your choice, but this is not the typical version. This is the graphic novel version illustrated by Gareth Hines. And he does a ton of research to sort of like pare this down to the most salient points, but he really lets a lot of the pictures tell key moments of the story. They're beautiful and sort of like it's not overwrought. It's beautiful and it's very descriptive, but it's not overproduced. The way that he tells these stories visually are wonderful. And I'm sort of a person that to sit down and read the Odyssey or the Iliad. I did try to do that and I just got thrown off by ancient Greek language that I think that's probably true for a lot of people, which is why he does these graphic novels that he does. But the Iliad is wonderful. I just finished the Odyssey the other night and I loved seeing Circe make a cameo in that as well. But the story of Achilles, the story of Odysseus, these are ancient stories. A lot of drama in these stories, but they're beautiful and so fun to read. So great gift for a kid, like a young adult who is maybe kind of like starting to branch out into new directions with their reading or you want to kind of level them up past Harry Potter into deeper classics. This is a great one. I just ordered Macbeth today. The graphic novel version of Macbeth looks wonderful because there's all these ghosts and Rich, dark characters in that. That will be really good. So this is Gareth Hines. I can recommend the Odyssey, the Iliad. He did Beowulf. That one is beautiful. Loved it. And These range from 12 to $14. Very affordable and wonderful books. They make great gifts.
- [15:30]
Eli Woolery
Okay, let's switch back to fashion. I guess you could call it fashion for a second here. So this one. This one. I actually got a gift for your kids, Aaron. That's why I asked for their T shirt sizes.
- [15:43]
Aaron Walter
Okay.
- [15:43]
Eli Woolery
Last week. Why does he want another? T shirt sizes. So there's a little bit of a backstory to this one, too. So for a while now, I've been doing these prints using a Japanese technique. So folks who know me know that I do some spear fishing, and I occasionally take a print of the fish that I've caught. I use edible ink so I can then, you know, eat the fish afterwards. But it's this Japanese technique called gyotaku. And I had a Japanese friend of mine who's a designer, helped me create these hanko, which are the stamps that you use as signatures, so they're included in there as well. And there's a couple different shirts I got your sons, each one different one. They can fight over them if they don't like it.
- [16:24]
Aaron Walter
This is great. They're gonna love it.
- [16:27]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, it's fun. Some stickers, too. And it's just something that's kind of a creative outlet for me, apart from the work we do here at Design Better. So, yeah, I was just excited to share it and get your kids a few T shirts.
- [16:43]
Aaron Walter
This is great. Thank you so much. I love these. I love that you do these prints. I think it's fun to be able to get in the ocean. Listeners who may not know this, Eli just has a general life rule that he has to live close to the ocean because he's got a spiritual connection to it. So he's often in the water surfing or spearfishing. And to be able to capture that moment, that experience, and turn that into a piece of art that, you know, you can hang on your wall in the case of the Prince, and then that you can wear. It's so cool. It's so cool and so interesting. Thank you. That's going to be fun.
- [17:18]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Hope they like them.
- [17:20]
C
Awesome.
- [17:21]
Aaron Walter
Well, let's keep going. The fish makes me think about the next recommendation that I have here, which is a book that I go to a lot. Some folks may already have this. It's Cooks. The Science of Good Cooking. This is a great book. It's sort of like a bible for cooking. And it's a lot of like what's happening when you make fond in the pan and how to cook a steak, how to cook fish, how to cook all kinds of things and why it works so well. So one of the things that I learned in there was when I'm cooking like a salmon or a trout filet, they end up putting a little sprinkling of sugar on the top of that filet and then, you know, you put it face down or you know, flesh down onto the pan, which makes this crusty kind of browning. That is beautiful. I never would have thought of that. But this is like if you know Cook's Illustrated, they do all this testing in the kitchen of different tools, processes and so forth to find like the best. And this is just a book of all of that scientific research and applying that to recipes. And it's not always about recipes because I'm not so much a recipe guy. I kind of want to know the principles so I can operate independently and think for myself and be creative. And this is a great guide for that. It's 40 bucks hardcover. Nice book that you want to have in your kitchen near at hand on the regular basis. But I got to tell you, I've caught my brother in law sitting in the living room just reading this book pretty regularly. It's a really good book. Lots of knowledge in here and it's also the sort of thing like, you know, could be passed down to the next generation. Lots of dog eared tabs and so forth of things that you liked and that you learned. So 40 bucks listed there. I found it on Amazon for 12 bucks used. But cooks, the science of good cooking is what it's called. It's great.
- [19:26]
Eli Woolery
That's great. Yeah, we've had a subscription to the Cook's Illustrated for a long time and I love their methodical approach to how they test things. And I actually hadn't. I cook a lot of fish, but I hadn't heard the sugar trick before. I'm gonna have to try that one. Like that.
- [19:40]
Aaron Walter
Yeah.
- [19:40]
Eli Woolery
It's tough to get a crispy skin otherwise, I think, you know, it's like.
- [19:43]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, you don't taste it. You don't taste it. Doesn't taste sweet. Yeah, I still dress it with like lemon or dill or something like that. But yeah, it definitely helps. There's a ton of those good techniques.
- [19:54]
Eli Woolery
Awesome. Okay, well, I'm going to stay on the cooking theme and share. This is actually a Local author. Local to me here in Carmel. Carmel Valley. And she also happens to be a very successful substacker. So she shares some substack community with us. Her name's Carolyn Chambers. She often goes by Caro Chambers. And she has a substat called what to Cook when youn Don't Feel Like Cooking. And it's a collection of recipes that are very simple but really delicious. And my wife Courtney got the book and she's been cooking from it. And I would say, much like you, I'm not so much a recipe follower, but Courtney likes to follow a recipe pretty tightly, at least the first time around. And so she's been doing these. And cool thing is, like, the kids really love them too, because I'm sure you find yourself in this situation where your kids are like, they're picky. I don't want to have this. I don't have this. And she'll cook the dishes from this book and everybody eats it. So instead of having to make, you know, three different meals for your picky kids, you could just grab a recipe from here and everybody likes it. So that's been a real success and enjoying it.
- [20:59]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, I've been checking out her substack. I'm picking up what she's putting down. She's got some good stuff in there.
- [21:04]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, definitely.
- [21:05]
Aaron Walter
Cool. And what's the price point on that book?
- [21:07]
Eli Woolery
That book is $24.50.
- [21:15]
Aaron Walter
We'll return to the conversation after this quick break.
- [21:22]
C
Hey, Web designers, let's talk about creative burnout. You're working on a site for a really big client, but between resourcing, feedback, tight budgets, and even tighter deadlines, it.
- [21:34]
Aaron Walter
Just doesn't make the cut.
- [21:36]
C
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- [22:34]
Aaron Walter
Hours building a website, but you know you got to do it.
- [22:37]
C
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- [22:50]
Aaron Walter
And then boom, you got it.
- [22:52]
C
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Aaron Walter
Like a boss.
- [23:01]
C
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Aaron Walter
Your website with bluehost. You've got ideas.
- [23:21]
C
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- [25:10]
Eli Woolery
Join now and get 50 off a one year annual membership shop.
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C
Black Friday deals first with Walmart plus see terms@walmartplus.com.
- [25:24]
Aaron Walter
And now back to the show. Okay, this one is on the cooking theme, but it's not a book. Very different thing. And this is something, Eli, that I want to surprise you with, and that is Mushroom Mountain. They're based out of North Carolina. They do mushroom foraging online courses and I do a little bit of mushroom foraging here in Georgia because we have chanterelles pretty frequent. Like it's not that hard to go out and fill a bag at the right times, you know. But Mushroom Mountain, they do these online courses and they have different regions. So based on your region, they have some coming up in February, they have one in January. And so they go over like, here's the dangerous stuff, steer clear of this. And then here's the good stuff, here's how you find it. I just signed up today for one of these. I'm going to take one in February. They're affordable. They're 60 bucks to be able to take one of these. It's like two hours on the East Coast. It's an evening thing on the West Coast. I think it would be, you know, late afternoon type of thing, but fun to learn. You know, you can get a book. But I find with something like this, I want to talk to somebody I want to really know. Like, okay, this is stuff I'm paying attention to before I start just randomly grabbing mushrooms out of the forest. I think this is a great life skill. It's a great culinary skill to be able to find wonderful mushrooms that are out there. I just like paying attention to the world, nature, what's happening. And I'll bring home like a bag of chanterelles and make a really wonderful sauce, like a cream sauce and pasta and man, that is living. That's good stuff.
- [27:13]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, I've always been interested in it. And in fact, many years ago my parents got this book by, he's a local author based in Santa Cruz named David Aurora, wrote this book called Mushrooms Demystified, which for I think many years was sort of like the mushroom Bible. And my parents have near their house a spot which they wouldn't share with me till very recently where they would gather chanterelles because I think they're not as easy to find maybe as in your area. We're going to hold on to this. We're not going to share with you kids until the timing's right. But yeah, I'd love to learn more Mushrooms. And definitely something. You want to know what you're getting before you pick them, because mistakes can be not good.
- [27:51]
Aaron Walter
Yeah. We used to have chanterelles growing in our yard. We put out a bunch of mulch, and evidently that was inoculated with some chanterelle mycelia. And so we just had like all these bright orange beautiful mushrooms all over the yard. And we didn't know anything about it. And I was like, kind of kicking them. And we had some friends over and they're like, hey, hey, don't do that. You know what you've got there, right? I was like, no, what is it? These are chanterelles. These are good eating. And so, yeah, that taught me a valuable lesson.
- [28:24]
Eli Woolery
That's great.
- [28:24]
Aaron Walter
I also want to mention. So if you're looking for a gift again for yourself or for somebody else. Also at Mushroom Mountain, they sell spores, so you can get it either in sawdust form or in little dowel form. And basically what you do. So I have a tulip poplar that was dying and had to come down the other day. And so I had the arborist leave me chunks of logs. And so you just drill a bunch of holes in those things, then you tap in the little dowels that have the mushroom spawn in it, and then you paint over beeswax. And I'm going to grow shiitakes again. I've been growing shiitakes for a few years now, so that's a fun project again, wonderful thing to do with kids. My kids love inoculating logs and growing mushrooms. It's a fun thing to do.
- [29:14]
Eli Woolery
Awesome. Love that. Okay, so this one's food and beverage related. So as many of you might know, we have a coffee, a Methodical coffee, partnered with us to create Design Better Coffee, which, I mean, maybe has some bias, but I think it's pretty great.
- [29:31]
Aaron Walter
It's great. Yeah. I drink it on the regular.
- [29:34]
Eli Woolery
Yeah. So we sent some to a New Yorker cartoonist and former guest, Jason Chatfield. He really loved it. And this is sort of a dual gift idea. So there's the coffee. Grab some coffee for yourself. Grab it. For somebody who loves coffee, it's a good little gift, $22 a bag. Or you can also do subscriptions. But there's another cool thing that's connected with Jason. So I don't know if you knew about this, Aaron, but you can get a personalized character from Jason, this well known cartoonist on the New Yorker, as a gift. So, yeah, if you're looking for something unique and you have maybe like a family portrait, you want to do or you with your pets or he will do a personalized custom character couture. And maybe this is a good time to announce that we're going to have him do this for us, right?
- [30:24]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, yeah, we're going to do some portraits with him.
- [30:26]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, he's a talented guy and it'd be cool to have a custom little work of art from him.
- [30:31]
Aaron Walter
Such a talented dude. Lots of cartoons that he's done for the New Yorker. To have someone from the New Yorker that caliber of an illustrator do your portrait, that's pretty special.
- [30:42]
Eli Woolery
Yeah. So this is a little bit on the pricier side, around 400 bucks, but worthwhile if you're looking for something really special.
- [30:49]
Aaron Walter
Very good. I'm going to go back to the learning thing. I love Masterclass. It's pretty great, actually. You and I both love Masterclass and we've spent a fair bit of time going through many of the courses. I really liked Sarah Blakely's course. She's the founder of Spanx and her story about being an entrepreneur just kind of like selling, going from store to store. How she built that business, marketing, branding. I think it's been a very smart branding approach that they've taken to Spanx. I like the Bob Iger Masterclass, but there's just so many other good ones. There's Penn and Teller teaching magic. Malcolm Gladwell teaches writing. There's former Design Better guest David Sedaris teaching writing and humor. There's so many good ones. What have been some of your favorite master classes?
- [31:43]
Eli Woolery
Probably my favorite one is Neil Gaiman's class because I've been doing a little bit of fiction writing over the years and I've actually gone through his course twice and I think he's especially good because definitely the quality is great across the board, but some people are just like a notch above because they're also teachers. So he actually is a teacher and professor. So he, he really gets like how to structure his course and teach it in such a way that really help you up, level your craft. So that was one of my favorites for sure.
- [32:14]
Aaron Walter
Yeah. So I gave my wife last year a subscription to Masterclass and she just got so much value out of it. You know, she have it on her iPad and if she's doing something around the house or whatever, she just kept going through all these classes and learned all kinds of stuff. What I like too about it is you get the chance to learn about topics that aren't really your mainline topic. You can hit design and creativity and learn from Dianne von Furstenberg or Jeff Koons or Futura or all these really interesting people. But I mean, you could learn about basketball from Steph Curry. So there's just all these different types of things. Plenty of cooking too, if you're into cooking, which we are. I think it's a great gift. And usually around the holidays, Masterclass has special deals and if you use the code designbetter, so go to masterclass.com designbetter. You can get like half off of a gift right now, so it's quite affordable. I don't know what the actual price shakes out to be, but that's a pretty significant discount. And it's just a wonderful, wonderful gift.
- [33:28]
Eli Woolery
And you can also. This is a little pro tip that if, you know, you might not have time to watch an entire course or you may just want to watch parts of it, but you can also listen. So you can treat it more like an audiobook, which is what I did. Oftentimes when I was commuting up to campus, I would just turn on the audio of it and listen to the courses. And they work really well that way too.
- [33:48]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, love that.
- [33:49]
Eli Woolery
Okay, I'm going to do another sponsored one here. And this is a newer sponsor, they're called Dewar. And that's the way that it shows up anyway is D U E R and they just started sponsoring our show and they got really great clothes. So I picked out this tech fleece denim jacket which actually modeling right now, it's like we're on QVC or Home Shopping Network. I really like. It's soft, but it feels durable. It's got a water resistant coating and they make pants and other clothes as well. And I think you got some pants that you really like, didn't you?
- [34:23]
Aaron Walter
I am wearing them as a matter of fact. Nice.
- [34:25]
Eli Woolery
So we can model them. You have to stand on your chair so everybody can see.
- [34:29]
Aaron Walter
I got a pair of, you know, kind of the classic dark indigo denim pants. But the thing about Dewar that you need to know is that it's designed like these are stretch so they look like the classic like a selvedge denim type of wash or whatever. But they like flex and then the way that they kind of build the pant in all your bendy parts of your body are built to sort of like give you range of movement. They're really nice. And I tried them on, like got them in the mail. It's like, okay, let's check these out. I just keep wearing them all the time. Like most days they look great. They feel great. It's a nice product, and they make a lot of great products, men and women. They're definitely worth looking at closely if it's a brand you've not heard of, you know, you like to look good. There's some sporty stuff out there that just looks so slacker, and that's just not my jam. And this doesn't look like that. It looks professional. Like, you could wear this to work. You could wear this, you know, out to dinner or something like that, but you could also go hiking in it. You know, like, you could just wear it in all situations. I like it. I like what they're making. And they've got a lot of cool stuff. Shirts, pants, outerwear. Lots of good stuff. Dewar.
- [35:54]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, Go check them out.
- [35:55]
Aaron Walter
Fantastic. I am a big fan of cashmere pjs, which is pretty indulgent. I know it sounds very hoity Toity Quints is a cool company. They make affordable luxury goods. A while back, my wife got me, like, these cashmere. They're like a jogger and a cashmere hoodie. And they are great as, like, just PJs. In cold months, if you live someplace that's cold, oh, my God, you'd be so excited that the cold days have arrived and you can put these on and, like, go to sleep in it. It is amazing. A little bit more pricey, but it's. I think in the grand scheme of things, it's not that pricey. So about 90 bucks for a cashmere sweater, which, like, you could just wear that as not PJs, but just as clothes, or you can sleep in it. 100 bucks for the hoodie. So if you wanted to go that route, it's like an extra 10 bucks for the hoodie. And then the pants are run about 100 bucks. So you're looking if you want a set of PJs, works for men and women. They've got stuff for men and women, multiple colors, all cashmere. You're looking at about a couple hundred bucks. Wow. Oh, such like, it's a good gift for somebody you love and that might just be you.
- [37:12]
Eli Woolery
That's right. That's right. So funny enough, my wife Courtney just arrived today. I think in the mail, a quint jacket. She got this leather puffer jacket that was a little pricier. It was on kind of a special sale, but she is so excited. So I think this is definitely a brand that men and women alike will really, really enjoy.
- [37:31]
Aaron Walter
Yeah. Quints.com.
- [37:33]
Eli Woolery
Okay. Staying with the fashion theme. Little bit of Backstory on this one. So Aaron and I were out in Savannah, Georgia. We were going to be on stage for this live show, and I hadn't really packed a shirt that I thought would work well for it. So we were walking around, he's like, I think you really dig this brand, Feherty.
- [37:49]
Aaron Walter
Yeah.
- [37:49]
Eli Woolery
I was like, okay, I'll take a look. And we went in. I was like, well, I really dig this. I. I definitely kind of got the California surfer vibe. But this store is, you know, like Aaron said was saying about Dewar, it's a little bit more put together, and the shirts are just amazing. I'm wearing one right now. This is one of their sweater shirts. Super soft, and it's just become part of my daily wardrobe. And very good quality. And the cool thing, too, is they have a very generous return or exchange thing. So the shirt I ended up getting in Savannah, it's like, I like this, but there's other stuff I like more. So brought it in, exchange it. No problem for 60 days. They kind of like, no questions asked, you return stuff. So, yeah, I've become a big fan of the Faherty brand.
- [38:30]
Aaron Walter
Yeah, they're a great company. I think that Faherty has become your version of what. For me, it's Billy Reed. Billy Reed is my man. That's, like, my go to favorite company. I pretty much like everything that they make. They're based out of Alabama, close to Muscle Shoals and men's and women's clothes. Billy Reed is the designer who used to work for Ralph Lauren. He's good, and he makes very good leather goods vests, outerwear, women's dresses that are beautiful, beautiful custom fabrics and knits. Billyreid.com, they do have a big Black Friday sale that's going on right now that will go for a little while longer. And then at the end of the year, like, if you look in January, they start to say, like, all right, we're getting ready for spring. And so they'll have great discounts. So it's a great brand, too. All right, I'm going to do one more. And this is my last one. And this is Break the Bank. This is definitely tilted towards a gift for the ladies, but there are definitely some fellows out there that might also like this. It is from Tiffany, kind of anything that Elsa Peretti designed. Elsa Peretti was an incredible designer that used a lot of, like, natural inspiration from, like, snakes and animals and wood and beautiful organic shapes. I bought my wife, she had a special birthday, and I bought her the teardrop bracelet recently, and it's just beautiful. Now, again, it's Tiffany. It's a little pricier. This is something you buy and you have it for your life, you know, and you pass it on to your kids. But about a thousand bucks, you can get a version of the teardrop bracelet, the mesh earrings and the mesh necklaces that she makes. They're in gold, they're in silver, various versions. It's basically like chainmail. It's just gorgeous. And to feel it, it's unbelievable. There's also these wood or bone bangles that are wonderful and super beautiful. And then they make this bone cuff. So it's like kind of big and goes on your wrist. Those bone cuffs, they start at about 1000 bucks. There's these snake rings that are like $725. So if you just look for Elsa Peretti Tiffany, again, like, this is a break the bank, special occasion type of present. Believe it or not, I have found Elsa Peretti Tiffany jewelry in secondhand shops. I think that for a while she kind of fell out of favor. She was good friends with Halston, so it was like very 80s. That is kind of looping back around. But Elsa Peretti, look her up. She's a special designer.
- [41:21]
Eli Woolery
That's great. So I got one last one too here. And this is a little gift for you, Aaron. And it's kind of choose your own adventure. So the company is called Bespoke Post. And what they do is put together these boxes where they use like local manufacturers or smaller physical products companies and put together these cool boxes that are kind of in the themes of like barware or outdoor stuff. And those of you listening may have heard a little tinkle of ice cubes. I've been having a little beverage here during our. During our episode. This.
- [41:55]
Aaron Walter
This is a daytime recording, folks, not.
- [41:59]
Eli Woolery
Morning, we'll put it that way.
- [42:02]
Aaron Walter
We did make it past noon.
- [42:03]
Eli Woolery
That's right, that's right. But this in my hand is a little infused cocktail that I made from one of their prior boxes, which you can infuse like a bourbon or scotch with, in this case, sort of like holiday stuff like a cinnamon and cloves and things like that star anise. So you can pick. I'm going to give you a gift card essentially, which hopefully doesn't feel like a cop out, but it will let you choose. You could choose something like this. What we're looking at here is a little cocktail set to make aged cocktails. You can make an aged Negroni with this. Aaron, I know you're a Negroni fan?
- [42:35]
Aaron Walter
Oh, yeah, I'm a good Negroni fan.
- [42:38]
Eli Woolery
And it comes with these cool little tumblers too.
- [42:41]
Aaron Walter
Oh, man, that's awesome.
- [42:42]
Eli Woolery
Yeah. But there's lots of other stuff you can choose more kind of outdoorsy things. This one maybe not with the kids around. They have like a throwing knife set. They have some clothing. I got this one too a while back, which was like, you can make smoked cocktails with it.
- [42:56]
Aaron Walter
Wow.
- [42:57]
Eli Woolery
Just kind of hard to keep lit. Yeah, that's right. So there's that. There's again, there's like camping stuff. They got cool little like survival kits, things like that. So you join the club. It's free to join. And essentially it says, hey, we're going to ship you this box this month. Do you want it? You say yes or no. There's no penalty either way. Or you can just buy it retail. But it's a little pricier to buy stuff just off the shelf where you get the monthly shipment. But it's a cool thing. And I, I'm not a member anymore, but I was a member for a while and I got a number of really like basically everything I got was great. So, yeah, fun little thing.
- [43:33]
Aaron Walter
I love it. That's great. Thank you.
- [43:35]
Eli Woolery
You're welcome.
- [43:36]
Aaron Walter
That's going to be fun. Right on. Well, happy holidays, everybody. Hopefully this helps you in your search for getting the right things for the people most important in your life. And I hope that this is also an opportunity to just reflect on your year, where you've been and where you've gone. I love that about this time of year, taking some time to reflect.
- [43:59]
Eli Woolery
Same for sure. And we want to thank all of you who have supported us over the years since we taken this show independent. It means a lot for us. Hopefully we're providing you with a lot of good education and other value inspiration in your lives. And I think we have one more quick announcement before we go.
- [44:15]
Aaron Walter
Right, one more quick announcement. We do have another special gift recommendation for you.
- [44:21]
Eli Woolery
Yeah. So we are going to put a sale on, just sort of a holiday sale on Design Better Premium, which you can either use for yourself if you are not yet a member or you can gift that to somebody. And it is going to have a couple new cool new features that we want to share here for the first time. Aaron, you want to talk about those?
- [44:42]
Aaron Walter
Yeah. So we have a new book that is going to be released on Design Better and that is Principles of Product Design. So if you're someone who's working in the product design space, the foundations are really important to do your work well. And this book, it's got lots of wisdom from many of the design teams that Eli and I have consulted with and visited over the years. Lots of great quotes, lots of great examples of work and so forth, and core principles that, whether you're leading a team or you're an individual contributor, that'll be really valuable for you.
- [45:18]
Eli Woolery
Yeah, so we've got that book. We've also got our sort of small but growing library, the Design Thinking Handbook, which you'll be able to access as a premium member. And then also brand new, we've got a documentary which aired a little while ago, but we've gained access to. It's called Design Disruptors. It's really well done. It interviews really luminary figures across the design world, just talking about how design has been and continues to disrupt different industries. And it's a really great thing to watch with your team or in your organization, if you're still in an organization that's trying to figure out what does design mean for us, how can we use it to our advantage? So lots of really great stories there. And even though it's a few years old, most of the lessons still are very valid today.
- [46:03]
Aaron Walter
It's evergreen. I mean, you get a glimpse inside of how people at Google and Microsoft and lots of amazing companies, Netflix, are solving problems and how they think about it. There's some things about our work that changes year to year. There's a lot that is evergreen. And this is a film that's full of those evergreen lessons from voices that we all trust. So it's a fun watch and just a reminder of should you decide to take advantage of this discounted access to design. Better premium. We don't do discounts. This is the only one that we do. It's the only one that we've ever done. So just say that. But that'll get you access to four episodes per month instead of just the two. There's no ads, so you don't get any of the interruptions that you would get with the free version. And you get access to our AMAs. These are monthly conversations with really sharp people with impressive careers who figured out how to collaborate, lead design, and do so many things that you're doing in your career already. You can get that guidance directly from them. So there's a lot of value that we've baked into the premium account. We hope that you'll check it out. And the way to get access to this discount is to go subscribe@designbetterpodcast.com if you're already subscribed, stay tuned. An email's coming out and we'll announce the discount. But this is a great thing to invest in yourself and if you run a team, invest in your team. We also have teams accounts. Eli and I work really hard to produce design better. We love it. It's a passion thing for us. And we hope that you love it as much as we do as well. And we hope that you'll support this work by subscribing and support yourself and your career by getting access to all that we have to offer.
- [47:55]
Eli Woolery
Yeah. Thank you so much and we hope you all have a wonderful holiday season with your family and your friends.
- [48:02]
Aaron Walter
Happy holidays, everybody. This episode was produced by Eli Woolery.
- [48:11]
C
And me, Aaron Walter, with engineering and.
- [48:14]
Aaron Walter
Production support from Brian Paik of Pacific Audio. If you found this episode useful, we hope that you'll leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to finer shows.
- [48:26]
C
Or simply drop a link to the.
- [48:28]
Aaron Walter
Show in your team's Slack channel. DesignBetterPodcast.com It'll really help others discover the show. Until next time.