All novelty brands
Every brand in the directory. Filter by category or search by name.
Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop
A candy shop chain across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, West Virginia and Minnesota stocking nostalgic sweets, novelty sodas and oddball confectionery. The stores are built as an experience rather than a counter.
Hammacher Schlemmer
In business since 1848 and still selling what it calls the best, the unique and the unexpected. It is the catalogue famous for oversized, faintly ridiculous luxury gadgets, backed by a lifetime guarantee.
Happy Socks
The Swedish brand that made bright, patterned socks a gift category of their own, selling crazy prints and colour-blocked designs plus underwear and gift boxes. Frequent collaborations with artists and musicians.
Hello!Lucky
An award-winning letterpress greeting card and design studio founded in San Francisco in 2003 by sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle. The work is bright, character-led and built around spreading fun and kindness.
Hog Wild Toys
Makes deliberately absurd toys for kids who like a laugh, best known for its squeezable poppers that launch soft foam projectiles out of an animal's mouth. The catalogue is built on silly physical gags.
IWOOT (I Want One Of Those)
A long-running British gift site built around quirky gadgets, licensed merchandise and unusual presents. It is one of the original UK homes for the sort of gift that exists mainly to be shown to people.
John's Crazy Socks
A sock company founded by John Cronin, a young man with Down syndrome, and his father, selling a huge range of loud novelty socks. A share of revenue goes to disability charities and much of the staff has a disability.
Kawaii Box
A monthly box of cute Japanese and Korean items: plushies, squishies, stationery and accessories, often featuring Sanrio characters. Everything is selected for maximum cuteness rather than usefulness.
Kikkerland Design
A New York design company that licenses work from independent designers worldwide and turns it into affordable, playful objects. Its catalogue spans wind-up toys, solar-powered novelties, quirky tools and desk curiosities.
Knock Knock
Makes clever desk and office stuff: fill-in-the-blank books, pads, affirmation cards and gifts built on a single well-executed joke. Everything is designed to sit on a desk and be read by someone else.
Loot Crate
A pop-culture subscription box that ships exclusive figures, apparel and collectibles made with licensed partners, aiming to deliver the convention-floor experience by post. It largely defined the geek-box category.
MEL Science
A science-experiment subscription that ships real chemistry, physics and medicine kits with illustrated instructions, plus a VR component for some sets. Aimed at kids but the chemistry sets are unusually serious.
Mighty Jaxx
A Singapore art-toy studio producing limited-edition figures and blind boxes, often in collaboration with artists like Jason Freeny whose signature move is dissecting familiar characters. Licences include One Piece and Hello Kitty.
Monkey Business
An Israeli design studio making playful kitchen gadgets and everyday objects that add an extra twist to ordinary tools, like character-shaped tea infusers and bottle stoppers. Sold worldwide through its US arm.
Paladone
A licensed consumer-goods maker that turns gaming and entertainment properties into lamps, mugs, desk gadgets and novelty homeware. If a franchise has a glowing icon, Paladone has probably made a lamp of it.
Playdate (Panic)
A small bright-yellow handheld game console from software company Panic, with a black-and-white screen and a physical crank on the side. It ships with two dozen games delivered season-by-season over Wi-Fi.
Potato Parcel
Prints your photo or message directly onto a real potato and mails it, anonymously if you like. The one-joke business famously took an investment on Shark Tank and now offers potato-shaped cards and gift boxes too.
Ridley's Games
A games and gift publisher with a heavily illustrated house style, producing party games, trivia sets, light card games and jigsaw puzzles. Much of the range is built around a visual gag or a retro-print look.
Rocket Fizz
Sells thousands of bottled sodas in deliberately ridiculous flavours alongside nostalgic and novelty candy, through independently owned shops across the US. Bacon soda and pickle soda are house specialities.
Rubies
One of the biggest costume manufacturers in the world, making licensed character costumes, wigs and accessories for Halloween and year-round dress-up. It holds licences across most major film and game franchises.
Sakuraco
A monthly box of traditional Japanese sweets, snacks and tea sourced from local and often centuries-old makers, built around a seasonal theme. It is the more refined sibling to the candy-heavy snack boxes.
Sea-Monkeys
The official home of Sea-Monkeys, the brine shrimp sold since the 1960s as instant pets you hatch in a plastic tank. The comic-book advertising made it one of the most famous novelty products ever sold.
Seletti
An Italian design house known for surreal, deliberately provocative objects: monkey lamps, banana lights and tableware that looks like something else entirely. Products sit between home decor and art object.
Sharper Image
The long-running gadget brand behind massage chairs, air purifiers and an endless run of slightly unnecessary consumer electronics. It is the other half, with Hammacher Schlemmer, of the classic airline-catalogue gadget genre.
Smiffys
A British fancy-dress manufacturer with over five thousand costumes and accessories, covering everything from historical outfits to deliberately terrible inflatable suits. Supplies both retail and trade.
Solarbotics
A Calgary electronics outfit selling DIY kits and robot parts, including the Useless Machine kit whose only function is to switch itself off. The catalogue mixes serious components with deliberately pointless builds.
Speks
Calls itself the premium sensory brand and sells magnetic balls, putty-like Gumps and other desk fidgets pitched as small resets for an overstimulated world. Deliberately positioned as tools rather than toys.
SUCK UK
A London design studio making original gifts and novelty products since 1999, from the pencil-sharpening desk tidy to books that double as lamps. Everything is designed in-house and leans on a single clever idea per product.
Super7
Founded in 2001 in San Francisco, Super7 makes collectible action figures and toys in deliberately retro formats, including ReAction figures styled after late-1970s packaging. Licences span horror, music and cartoons.
teenage engineering
A Swedish design company making unusually styled electronic instruments and audio gadgets, including the calculator-sized Pocket Operator synths. Its products look like toys and work like serious instruments.
TeeTurtle
An in-house art studio turned brand best known for Reversible Plushies, the mood-flipping octopus toys that became a phenomenon, alongside thousands of original graphic tees. Everything is drawn by its own artists rather than licensed in.
The Curiosity Box
A seasonal box from Vsauce's Michael Stevens packed with science toys, puzzles and desk curiosities, each with an explanation of the principle behind it. It is where a lot of internet-famous physics toys end up.
TinyCircuits
An Ohio maker of absurdly small open-source electronics, including working TinyTVs, miniature arcade cabinets and thumb-sized game consoles. The products are functional gadgets that are mostly funny because of their scale.
tokidoki
Simone Legno's character-driven lifestyle brand, built on a cast of cartoon characters that appear across bags, apparel, blind-box figures and collaborations. The aesthetic is bright, Japanese-influenced and slightly deranged.
Uncommon Goods
A Brooklyn-based marketplace that sells unusual gifts sourced from independent artists and small makers, with a stated focus on handmade and recycled materials. It is a common first stop for the sort of gift you cannot find in a chain store.
Unnecessary Inventions
Designer Matty Benedetto builds and sells products that solve problems nobody has, then posts the demos. It is modern Chindogu with a shop attached, and a handful of the running gags get produced as real, buyable objects.