Gear Patrol

A man’s desk is his life. It’s where he does his work, pays his bills, keeps his keepsakes, composes his words and his thoughts. It might be the most intimate piece of furniture in the house — it’s where one is most fully alone, and where, tethered to an often unassuming 50 square feet, a man can finally get down to business. That’s why finding the right desk is so important. Fortunately, plenty of bespoke furniture makers sell gorgeous, modern workspace options. We’ve narrowed down the field with this list of great contemporary desks at a variety of sizes, styles and prices.

Touch screen interfaces are verging on honorary appendages, and our daily physicality has evolved as a result. Nowadays, we’re Strunching. The Gesture chair by Steelcase is purpose-designed to support all of nine new Steelcase-coined postures (like the “Strunch” and the “Smart Lean”), which are the result of a global study on how the body behaves when interacting with modern technology.

In the constant pursuit of a high-quality, stylish lifestyle, it’s understandable that we men may stray from the path a time or two — a truck stop frozen burrito here, a discount-grade pair of white socks there. Most times, though, we regret purchasing shoddy products. Owen & Fred, The Store For Men is a response to just such disappointing gimmickry, providing the superbly crafted choice for everything from dopp kits to ties to kitchen accessories and all the rest.

We have a ton of questions about the Ion Audio Air Copy, which was just announced at CES 2013. The primary one is, what’s a company most known for making inexpensive USB turntables doing throwing out a wireless scanner? More importantly, who actually needs — literally, needs — a wireless scanner? From our deep and…

Your home or office may not be a hazardous environment, but that shouldn’t stop you from hanging a vintage explosion-proof clock ($1,200) from the Crouse-Hinds Company on your wall. Designed with heavily insulated components to make it safe for use in volatile environments such as mines, paint factories, and grain processing plants, this 40-pound clock…

If you’ve been to Switzerland — or just watched The Eiger Sanction or The Bourne Identity — you may have seen the clocks of the venerable Schweizerische Bundes Bahnen (SBB), or Swiss Federal Railway service. The clock design, created in 1944 by then-SBB employee Hans Hilfiker, is instantly recognizable. Black points stand starkly against a…

Ah, those childhood days when you turned your parents’ kitchen table into your Revell model building station. But now you’ve got a job, and your own kids, who care more about their smartphones than about creating fine small-scale automotive replicas. Do yourself a favor and take back your inner maker with Papercruiser foldable PDF models ($3-$7).

Ah, the advantages of having your own home office. No micromanager looking over your shoulder, plus you can take conference calls in your pajamas and enjoy a relaxing post-lunch cigar break. No need to step outside of your cozy cubicle, either. Just crack open the e15 SB12 MARTOUB drawer humidor, where your Havanas can be…

Home theater buffs and audiophiles alike know that to achieve harmonic balance a quality low range is essential. For those who also seek balance in all things feng and shui, that usually means burying oversized towers under foliage of some sort or trying to stuff a subwoofer under a settee. To quell the dissonance, Seattle-based…

One day, we may all look back at today’s digital gadgets with loving fondness. Call it a hunch, but we’re pretty certain a 3rd generation iPod Nano won’t quite conjure up quite the same nostalgia that vinyl does today. Digital treasures do exist though, and here in its latest guise, the quintessential HP 12c 30th…

Since 1883 Kaweco of Germany has been applying their company motto “small in the pocket, great in the hand” in their efforts to produce high end writing implements. Case in point: the AC Sport Carbon Fiber Fountain Pen ($112), which embodies the company motto right down the last dotted ‘I’ and crossed ‘T’. The pen is…

You lean on him all year-round to assist, assemble and install everything from kitchen cabinetry to those amazing Patagonian rosewood floors you love so much. He tirelessly tackles the disparate demands of Honey-Do lists and familial fixes without so much as a peep. And yet, of all the men featured in our 12 Guys of…

If having the right work environment means junking that garage sale desk you’ve had for years, then by all means, hop to it. But you’ll need a (cough) suitable replacement, preferably one that doesn’t have a pack of melted Life Savers glued to the calculator in the top drawer. The Ralph Lauren Highbridge Desk ($12,000+)…

The Zerocaster ($26 each) was designed by a bona fide rocket scientist in a space lab to transform your office chariot into a veritable Ferrari, especially in the black and red color schema. Their axle-less, precision ABEC ball bearings and poly-urethane design draw inspiration from a traditional skateboard wheels, allowing desk chair modders to silently…

The West Elm Design Workshop Modular Wall Storage System ($80-$900) is a customizable craftsman solution to that mess you call a bonus room. Made in the U.S.A. using blackened steel and lime-finished solid oak, each component in this do-it-yourselfer instills a high-grade industrial aesthetic to any living space — and brings a mighty reckoning to…

Designed and crafted by ze Germans using aluminum and steel, the Retro Bureau by Wharfside ($4,500+) is a small office solution for OCD neat freaks and hue-happy hipsters alike. Inspired by the colorful and innovative designs of the last century, Retro’s made-to-order creation has the look and feel of a Cupertino-commissioned clamshell and comes in…

Skyfall is about to touch down in theaters, which means the promotional tie-in machine is flipping every switch on its weapons panel. Still, the James Bond 007 Miniature Vehicles Set ($60) is an interesting keepsake for Fleming fans, featuring eight miniature die-cast models of select Bond vehicles from the 22-film series. While we wouldn’t lump…

You may be confined to your desk for most of the day, plugging away at eye-burning Powerpoint charts and brain-melting spreadsheets, but your imagination is still free to roam when everything else shuts down. All the happy thoughts in the world won’t send your boss into orbit, but Papafoxtrot can distract you from the paper…

The humble business card is an antiquated yet necessary tool of business communication. Their simple swapping is a time honored tradition the world over, and not a form of etiquette that is likely to disappear. But in today’s digital world, taking the time to transfer those vitals to a useful place seems downright tedious. MOO…

Ah, the messy desk. It’s the stuff OCD nightmares are made of, single-handily ruining even the best interior designer’s work with one stray pen. You can continue to kid yourself about getting more organized, or simply swap in the Torino Desk Table ($500) by CB2 and hide your disheveled ways with ease. The lacquered white…

The startup vibe has officially infected America, and as such, no company can possibly hope to attract the top talent of today’s tweet-crazed youth without a proper funland work environment. We all know that ideal millennial bait includes Wiis, chocolate fountains, ironic neon signs, scalp massagers and other office nonsense that gathers dust inside those…

You do the pocket dump every day after work… keys, wallet, smartphone, coins, sunglasses, knife, watch, etc. And somehow, they all end up in different places causing you to scramble the next morning. Well, you can park your precious EDC in the simple but ingenious Office Originair Table Island (~$49), which doesn’t just house your…

The Tuff-Writer Frontline ($96) pen fits nicely with any survival EDC with its ability to write anywhere, in any condition. A hermetically sealed thixotropic ink cartridge that’s pressurized to 35 psi, ensures this Excalibolígrafo will write at altitudes of up to 12,000 feet. It’s also functional in temperatures ranging from negative 35–250° F, meaning you…

We always stress simplicity, and that’s why The Desk ($1,850) by Christofer Ödmark strikes a chord with us. Much like other focus-centric tables we’ve shown you, The Desk aids productivity through smart design. Ödmark’s desk accomplishes this through the removal of distractions — cords, namely — to turn your work space into a large (59…

Outside of your bed, couch and maybe the john, too, there’s a good chance that most of your time at home is spent at a desk. The trouble is, it’s extremely difficult to find a dependable and good-looking work station at a reasonable price. Those items sold at big box retailers that eventually become a…

On a recent visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, we got to appreciate the iconically designed home in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. We figured we’d visit on a daily basis with the new, albeit slightly smaller LEGO Architecture Series Robie House. Showcasing Wright’s simple prairie style, the Robie House contains no fewer than 2,276…

Henry David Thoreau, in his famous work Walking, writes that when he thinks of those who work indoors all day sitting, “as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon… they deserve some credit for not having committed suicide long ago.” Thoreau’s words don’t bode well for cubicle-dwellers…

Calligraphy is big business. It’s also manly. Has it been hijacked by the fairer sex? For the time being, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean ol’ John Hancock wasn’t afraid to whip out his quill and nib/feed combination when the right cellulose paper called for it. Are you better than John Hancock? We didn’t think so,…

IdeaPaint, creators of the brilliant whiteboard-anywhere technology have now concocted a new iteration that looks even better: IdeaPaint CLEAR ($225+). Brace yourself, doodlers, because now you can turn any surface, of any color into a writing station. Specifically, CLEAR is a certified low-emission and LEED-compliant finish that goes over any interior paint (or wood) to…

Nobody wants to bring work home, unless of course, you’re one of the fortunate souls earning doubloons as model photographer, single malt critic, or Jennifer Aniston’s brassiere fitter. But when it just can’t be helped Crate & Barrel’s Reese Tobacco Compact Office ($480) offers a minimalist solution that trumps working on the kitchen table. Most…