There's a particular kind of object that earns a permanent spot on your desk: machined from solid metal, shaped like a small sculpture, useful daily. Craighill has built its whole catalog on that idea since 2015, when designer Hunter Craighill founded the Brooklyn studio to make keyrings and desk tools that treat utility as a design problem worth solving beautifully. The Wilson Keyring ($15) alone has a 4.9-star rating across 119 reviews on the brand's site.
The catch? Craighill keeps its catalog intentionally small. Once you own a Wilson and a Desk Knife ($70), you start wondering who else designs with that same restraint.
The 23 brands below share Craighill's brief of honest materials and clean geometry across four territories: desk objects, everyday carry, home accessories, and the gear behind your daily coffee ritual.
What Counts as a Brand Like Craighill?
A brand like Craighill is one that designs small, functional objects (keychains, desk tools, wallets, drinkware) with sculptural simplicity and materials that age well: machined brass, stainless steel, walnut, and vegetable-tanned leather. The 23 brands below range from a two-person Austin studio to a Japanese glassmaker founded in 1921, and all of them sell to US shoppers.
Grovemade
Grovemade is the desk-object brand our editors mention most often in the same breath as Craighill. The Portland, Oregon company has been designing and building wood-and-metal desk gear since 2009, and its Walnut Desk Shelf ($290 in the large size) has become the centerpiece of a thousand carefully photographed home offices. Where Craighill leans into cool machined metal, Grovemade adds warmth with hardwood and wool felt.
The felt isn't an afterthought, either. A Wool Felt Desk Pad ($180 in extra large) gives even a plain laptop setup a soft, matte landing surface that reads considered. If this scratches an itch, we went deep on the category in our guide to brands like Grovemade.
Walnut Desk Shelf
A solid walnut shelf that lifts your monitor and turns desk clutter into an organized under-story.
Shop NowBest for: Turning a desk into a workspace you want to photograph.
Ugmonk
Ugmonk proves a side project can out-design an industry. Designer Jeff Sheldon started the brand in 2008, and its Analog system (a walnut card holder plus a deck of task cards) became a Kickstarter hit before growing into a full product line. It's the anti-app, a deck on your desk with one visible priority and zero notifications.
The Gather collection extends the same thinking to desk organization, with modular walnut and maple organizers that arrange around whatever your desk collects. Craighill fans will recognize the philosophy immediately: fewer, better objects.
Best for: Anyone whose to-do app has failed them.
Studio Neat
Studio Neat is a two-person design studio in Austin, Texas, run by Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, and its catalog is even more edited than Craighill's. The Mark One retractable pen is the signature piece: machined aluminum with a grippy Cerakote ceramic coating and a custom click mechanism, shipping with the well-loved Schmidt P8126 rollerball refill.
This is the brand for people who want one great pen instead of a drawer of mediocre ones. The studio's simple product photography undersells how solid everything feels in hand, which customers tend to mention in reviews.
Best for: Owning one great pen instead of ten forgettable ones.
Areaware
Areaware brings the playfulness most minimalist brands are too serious for. The American design company produces objects with independent designers, and two have become modern classics: David Weeks' Cubebot, a wooden folding robot inspired by Japanese kumi-ki puzzles, and Bryce Wilner's Gradient Puzzle, a jigsaw where you assemble color instead of a picture.
Craighill sells brain teasers alongside its keyrings, and Areaware occupies that same intersection of desk toy and design object. Gift shopping for a design-minded friend starts here.
Best for: Design-minded gifts under $50.
Yamazaki Home
Yamazaki Home applies Japanese restraint to the most mundane home problems: where keys land, where the remote lives, where pens go to die. Its formula rarely changes (powder-coated steel plus natural wood) and it works everywhere from a desk organizer to an entryway key tray.
Prices stay accessible, and the official US webshop at theyamazakihome.com ships domestically. One caution from our research: lookalike ".shop" domains impersonate the brand in search results, so stick to the official site. We rounded up more of this aesthetic in our guide to brands like Yamazaki Home.
Best for: Bringing order to every flat surface in the house.
MoMA Design Store
MoMA Design Store is the one retailer on this list, and it earns the spot. The Museum of Modern Art's retail arm curates desk objects, home goods, and accessories with the same eye that stocks the museum upstairs, including exclusives you won't find elsewhere.
For Craighill fans, it works as a discovery engine. Browse the desk accessories section and you'll surface small-batch designers years before they hit the mainstream.
Best for: Discovering small-batch designers early.
Bellroy
Bellroy has spent more than a decade solving one problem extremely well: the overstuffed wallet. The Australian brand makes slim wallets, phone cases, and carry goods from environmentally certified leather, and its Note Sleeve ($95) is the classic. It's a full-size bifold that stays remarkably flat thanks to smart internal architecture, with RFID protection built in.
Where Craighill perfects the keyring, Bellroy perfects everything else in your pockets. Start with the Note Sleeve, then try not to browse the phone cases.
Note Sleeve Wallet
The slim leather bifold that made Bellroy famous, with RFID protection in a pocket-flat profile.
Shop NowBest for: Slimming down an overstuffed wallet.
The James Brand
The James Brand makes the knife you can pull out in a design meeting. The Portland, Oregon company strips pocket knives and everyday tools of their tactical baggage and rebuilds them with premium steels, clean lines, and honest colorways.
The Carter, its flagship folding knife with a slide lock, looks more like a Craighill object than a camping tool. The keychain-sized Elko goes one step further and lives right next to your Wilson Keyring.
Best for: Everyday tools with design-studio looks.
Orbitkey
Orbitkey exists because two Melbourne designers, Charles Ng and Rex Kuo, got tired of jangling keys. The brand's leather Key Organiser defined its category: keys fold silently into a leather sleeve, pocketknife-style, instead of rattling on a ring.
The catalog has since grown into desk mats and tech organizers that share the same tidy DNA. If Craighill's appeal is making everyday objects feel resolved, Orbitkey is a natural next stop.
Best for: Ending key jangle for good.
Tactile Turn
Tactile Turn machines every pen it sells in its own Texas shop, a detail that puts it closer to Craighill's manufacturing ethos than almost anyone else here. The signature Bolt Action pen comes in titanium, copper, brass, and zirconium, each with the brand's distinctive ridged grip texture cut directly into the metal.
There's no plastic anywhere in the lineup, and the copper version develops a patina that logs every year you carry it.
Best for: Machined metal you can feel working.
Frost River
Frost River builds waxed-canvas and leather gear by hand in Duluth, Minnesota, and it's the heritage counterweight to Craighill's modernism. The materials list reads like a supply-chain love letter: Martexin Original Wax canvas (a fabric made since 1838), full-grain leather from the SB Foot Tannery in Red Wing, Minnesota, and hardware in 100% solid brass rather than plated metal.
The look is utilitarian rather than sleek, but the philosophy matches: buy one good object, use it for decades. Small pieces like the Accessory Bag ($27) make an easy entry point before you graduate to a pack.
Best for: Heritage carry gear that outlives trends.
Corkor
Corkor makes wallets and small goods from cork oak bark, handmade in Portugal. Cork leather sounds like a compromise until you hold it: light, water-resistant, and textured somewhere between suede and paper, with a unique pattern on every piece.
For vegans (or anyone curious about materials beyond metal and hide), it's the most distinctive take on minimalist carry here. Orders ship to the US from Portugal, so plan for international delivery times.
Best for: Vegan wallets with real texture.
Mujjo
Mujjo is a Dutch leather-goods brand that treats an iPhone case as seriously as Craighill treats a keyring. Its cases are cut from full-grain vegetable-tanned leather that darkens with use, built around cases and sleeves for Apple devices.
The catalog stays deliberately narrow, offering a handful of leathers on a handful of devices with no logo shouting for attention. If your pocket already carries machined metal, this is what should wrap your phone.
Best for: Leather that makes a phone feel finished.
Native Union
Native Union designs tech accessories you don't feel obligated to hide. The brand pairs charging gear with materials borrowed from fashion and furniture, and its fabric-topped Drop wireless charger is the rare charging pad that belongs on a walnut desk shelf.
Its Stow organizers do for cables what Bellroy does for wallets: everything in its place, nothing bulging. Consider it the bridge between your Craighill desk objects and the electronics they sit beside.
Best for: Tech accessories that belong on a nice desk.
HAY
HAY brings Craighill's design-first thinking to the whole home. Rolf and Mette Hay founded the Copenhagen brand in 2002 to make sharp Scandinavian design accessible, and its accessories line (trays, vases, and desk objects in confident colors) is the easiest way in.
One US shopping note: HAY's American e-commerce now runs through Design Within Reach, so that's where the USD checkout lives. We put together a full guide to brands like HAY if the Danish direction is your direction.
Best for: Extending minimalist taste across the whole home.
Audo Copenhagen
Audo Copenhagen is what became of Menu, a name longtime design shoppers will recognize. In 2023, Danish brands Menu and by Lassen merged under the Audo name, uniting Menu's modern catalog with by Lassen icons like the steel-grid Kubus Candleholder.
The US webshop at us.audocph.com sells in USD, and the accessories bestsellers page is dangerous browsing for anyone who liked Craighill's sculptural side. Start with the Kubus or the JWDA table lamp.
Best for: Danish icons with decades of history.
Normann Copenhagen
Normann Copenhagen has been challenging conventional Danish design since Jan Andersen and Poul Madsen founded it in 1999, with accessories running from sober trays to playful stationery. Its first product, the Norm 69 pendant lamp, still ships flat-packed as 69 pieces you assemble without tools.
The US caveat: Normann no longer sells directly to American shoppers online, so stateside buyers go through retailers like Finnish Design Shop. Worth the extra click for the right piece.
Best for: Statement accessories worth an extra click.
Ferm Living
Ferm Living rounds out the Danish contingent with softer edges: sculptural vases, organic curves, and earthy palettes that warm up a minimalist shelf. The Copenhagen brand runs a dedicated US webshop at fermliving.us, so there's no currency roulette at checkout.
Its small objects (bookends, trays, and desk organizers) are the Craighill-adjacent zone, adding texture where machined metal can read cold. We covered the aesthetic fully in our guide to brands like Ferm Living.
Best for: Softening a minimal room with sculptural objects.
Rains
Rains applies Danish minimalism to the objects that get wet. Founded in 2012, the Aarhus brand made its name on modern rubberized raincoats and now runs a full line of waterproof bags, wash bags, and laptop cases in the same matte, monochrome finish.
The small goods are the sleeper picks here. A Rains wash bag or crossbody has the same quiet-object quality as a Craighill tray, and it shrugs off a rainstorm. The US store at us.rains.com ships domestically.
Best for: Quiet objects that survive the weather.
Kinto
Kinto designs the drinkware equivalent of a Craighill object: Japanese tumblers, mugs, and brewers with proportions you notice and branding you don't. The company started in Shiga, Japan in 1972 as a tableware wholesaler and now runs its own US shop with stores in Los Angeles and New York.
The Travel Tumbler ($34.20 for the 350ml size) is the icon: vacuum-insulated stainless steel with a cap you can drink from at any angle. We took a longer look in our Kinto deep-dive, and the short version holds. This is the daily-ritual brand for design people.
Travel Tumbler 350ml
A vacuum-insulated stainless tumbler with a drink-from-any-angle cap and a matte, logo-quiet finish.
Shop NowBest for: Drinkware with proportions you notice.
Fellow
Fellow is what happens when industrial designers take over coffee gear. Founded in San Francisco in 2013 by Jake Miller, the brand's counterweighted Stagg EKG kettle ($179.95) became the default pour-over kettle of design-conscious kitchens, and the Carter Move Mug ($29.95 for the 12 oz) brought the same precision to the commute.
Everything Fellow makes shares Craighill's trick of making a functional object feel collectible, and one purchase rarely stays one purchase.
Carter Move Mug
A leakproof ceramic-coated travel mug in a dozen colors, built for coffee people who notice design.
Shop NowBest for: Coffee gear that feels collectible.
Hario
Hario has been working glass in Tokyo since 1921 (the name translates to "King of Glass"), and its V60 pour-over dripper may be the most influential coffee object of this century. The company's brewers, kettles, and servers embody the same functional elegance Craighill chases in metal, executed in heatproof glass.
The famous cone is also the cheapest design icon on this list. The V60 Plastic Dripper costs $12, and the ceramic version ($35) is handmade in Arita, a Japanese town with 400 years of porcelain history.
Best for: A $12 entry into design-icon territory.
Muji
Muji is minimalism at scale: the Japanese retailer's no-brand philosophy covers thousands of products, from gel pens and acrylic organizers to aroma diffusers. Founded in 1980 as Mujirushi Ryōhin ("no-brand quality goods"), it sells in the US through muji.us and about a dozen stores.
Muji takes the opposite approach to Craighill's tight catalog, and the two work together: stock the basics here so the special objects stand out. According to the Harvard Square Business Association, Muji opened its twelfth US store there in early 2026, part of a steady American rebuild. We compared it to the competition in our guide to brands like MUJI.
Best for: Stocking minimalist basics without overthinking.
How These 23 Brands Compare
| Brand | Known For | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Grovemade | Wood + metal desk systems | Upgrading a whole desk setup |
| Ugmonk | Analog productivity system | Paper-based focus rituals |
| Studio Neat | Mark One pen | One perfect pen |
| Areaware | Cubebot, Gradient Puzzle | Playful design gifts |
| Yamazaki Home | Steel + wood organizers | Affordable whole-home order |
| MoMA Design Store | Curated design objects | Discovering new designers |
| Bellroy | Slim leather wallets | Decluttering your pockets |
| The James Brand | Design-first knives | Modern EDC tools |
| Orbitkey | Leather Key Organiser | Silencing a key ring |
| Tactile Turn | Machined pens | Metal you can feel |
| Frost River | Waxed canvas packs | Heritage carry goods |
| Corkor | Cork wallets | Vegan materials |
| Mujjo | Leather iPhone cases | Dressing your phone |
| Native Union | Design-led chargers | Desk-worthy tech |
| HAY | Colorful Danish accessories | Whole-home minimalism |
| Audo Copenhagen | Kubus Candleholder | Danish icons |
| Normann Copenhagen | Norm 69 lamp, accessories | Statement Danish design |
| Ferm Living | Sculptural home objects | Softening a minimal room |
| Rains | Waterproof bags | Weatherproof carry |
| Kinto | Travel Tumbler | Daily drink rituals |
| Fellow | Stagg EKG kettle | Coffee gear |
| Hario | V60 dripper | Pour-over on a budget |
| Muji | No-brand essentials | Stocking the basics |
Bottom line: Start with Grovemade or Ugmonk if Craighill's desk objects hooked you, Bellroy or The James Brand if it was the carry goods, and Audo Copenhagen or HAY if you want the same design standards at room scale.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's Craighill known for?
Craighill is a Brooklyn design studio founded in 2015 by designer Hunter Craighill, known for machined-metal everyday objects: the Wilson Keyring ($15), the Desk Knife ($70), and brain-teaser puzzles. Its products carry a "For Life Guarantee" (the brand repairs or replaces items that break), and its catalog stays small on purpose. That's exactly why fans go looking for similar brands.
What brands are most similar to Craighill?
The closest matches are Grovemade, Ugmonk, and Studio Neat for desk objects, Tactile Turn and The James Brand for machined everyday carry, and Areaware for design-forward puzzles and gifts. Each designs a tight catalog of functional objects in durable materials rather than chasing trends.
Are brands like Craighill expensive?
The range is wide. A Hario V60 plastic dripper costs $12 and a Kinto Travel Tumbler runs $34.20, while a Grovemade Walnut Desk Shelf is $290 because it's built from solid hardwood in Portland, Oregon. Handmade or domestically manufactured pieces (Tactile Turn, Frost River) cost more than mass-produced basics from Muji or Yamazaki Home.
Where can US shoppers buy Danish brands like HAY and Normann Copenhagen?
HAY's US e-commerce runs through Design Within Reach, while Audo Copenhagen and Ferm Living operate their own US webshops (us.audocph.com and fermliving.us). Normann Copenhagen no longer sells directly to US customers online, so stateside buyers use retailers like Finnish Design Shop.
Where to Start
If you only add one object, make it the one you'll touch every day. For most people that's a Bellroy Note Sleeve ($95) in your pocket or a Kinto Travel Tumbler ($34.20) in the cupholder. From there, this list has a habit of furnishing your pockets, your shelves, and your morning coffee one deliberate object at a time. Us too.
