The best swag at this year’s South By Southwest festival

Here is a look at some of the items I grabbed:

Word cloud self portrait

The New York Times had one of the most inventive pieces of swag out there. A rep took your picture and then asked for your favorite section from the Times. This was used to transform your portrait into a word cloud with the most popular words from that section; it was then printed and matted. The result was awesome.

Glasses, glasses, glasses

You would think it was a Buddy Holly revival with all the retro glasses handed out this year. They were often bright colors (orange, green, purple and blue) and the side of the glasses had the company’s logo on the side. I was partial to this pair from Volusion. Rave on!

Cotton candy

While cotton candy may not be exciting, the way that data visualization company Visual.ly handed it out was pretty cool. A translucent sticker was placed on the clear container showing the emotion that resulted by the corresponding level of cotton candy. As a person that sometimes enjoy making graphs, Visual.ly hit home what they do in a fun way.