Designey Tool Kits: A Trend with Legs

A few years ago, we spotted a trend: Designey tools aimed at the DIY crowd. A far cry from what you'd find in a contractor's toolbox, these tools appear to have been designed with CMF input, in a studio whose walls are covered in mood boards. Players in the space include at least one established brand in Bosch, as well as newcomers including Hoto and, on the hand tool side, Character (with an assist from industrial design firm Doris Dev). Now there's another entrant in the space: A startup called TINKR, launched by influencer Lainy Hedaya Hoffstein, has scored distribution through Target and launches this week. They sell a variety of kits featuring basic hand tools done up with rubber grips and Instagrammable colorways. Their spirit level even contains blue fluid rather than the standard yellow, apparently for the sake of aesthetics. The compartment you see in the top left of the lid is an interesting add-on I've not seen before. It's specifically to hold a smartphone, assuming the tool wielder will be following a video tutorial for the project they're working on. We can assume this trend is here to stay: Depending on which market research firm you believe, the market for household/DIY hand tools runs anywhere from $5 billion to $21 billion and is projected to grow. Established tool brands do not seem interested in stepping down to meet the DIY demand, perhaps for fear of losing credibility from the professional crowd. TINKR, Character and the others will probably thrive.

Jun 12, 2025 - 14:55

A few years ago, we spotted a trend: Designey tools aimed at the DIY crowd. A far cry from what you'd find in a contractor's toolbox, these tools appear to have been designed with CMF input, in a studio whose walls are covered in mood boards. Players in the space include at least one established brand in Bosch, as well as newcomers including Hoto and, on the hand tool side, Character (with an assist from industrial design firm Doris Dev).

Now there's another entrant in the space: A startup called TINKR, launched by influencer Lainy Hedaya Hoffstein, has scored distribution through Target and launches this week. They sell a variety of kits featuring basic hand tools done up with rubber grips and Instagrammable colorways.

Their spirit level even contains blue fluid rather than the standard yellow, apparently for the sake of aesthetics.

The compartment you see in the top left of the lid is an interesting add-on I've not seen before. It's specifically to hold a smartphone, assuming the tool wielder will be following a video tutorial for the project they're working on.

We can assume this trend is here to stay: Depending on which market research firm you believe, the market for household/DIY hand tools runs anywhere from $5 billion to $21 billion and is projected to grow. Established tool brands do not seem interested in stepping down to meet the DIY demand, perhaps for fear of losing credibility from the professional crowd. TINKR, Character and the others will probably thrive.