Coming up with the latest in truly off-beat items? It's a gift.

Fred Roses of Fred & Friends, and some of the company's wares. (Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

CUMBERLAND, R.I. - Not many house and giftware companies would pass out business cards featuring a picture of three dogs sniffing each other. Then again, not many house and giftware companies would design magnets that look like chewed-up gum or ice cube trays that produce mini frozen icebergs and Titanics (naturally, the ships sink to the bottom of your glass).

But Fred & Friends has found a balance between novelty and function with their chuckle-inducing products. Boutiques here and abroad scoop up each new season of Fred & Friends' whipsmart home, kitchen, and office items, and their designs have been featured everywhere from "Martha Stewart Living" to "O," "Every Day With Rachael Ray" to "Today." Their manhole-cover doormats are scattered throughout Google's offices.

But, really, Fred Roses and his team of four in-house designers (plus hired hands from as far away as Israel and Russia) are just having fun. "We design for ourselves and hope someone shares our sense of humor," design director Jason Amendolara said. "We think this stuff is funny as hell."

"Part of humor is walking on edge," Roses said. "What's the point in being vanilla?"

Amendolara and Roses are sitting in a cluttered, if under-used, conference room - the idea of staff meetings prompts laughter - in Fred & Friends' offices in an old factory building. Roses holds up products like props to explain what's funny and the conversation dips and swerves. Roses slides the ring attached to a Finger Food mini-plate onto his finger. Partygoers can balance a canape on the tiny tray and hold a Chardonnay in the same hand. Discussion ensues about whether these favors are the latest, greatest innovation in portion control.

Then there's the Dust Bunny, a wide-eyed, micro-fiber rabbit hand puppet for - you guessed it - dusting. "There's no one who doesn't think this is cute," Roses said.

It's not surprising that Fred & Friends started as a toy company. Roses had been creating enamel pins and selling retro jewelry, mugs, and ashtrays since 1977, when he turned his attention to toys in the early 1980s. He called his company Easy Aces and specialized in funky seasonal and holiday toys and wares. In 1990, he created Club Earth, a spinoff dedicated solely to wildlife-themed toys.

"All of our toys had an Easter egg, something that appealed to parents, grandparents, and practical-joking uncles," he said. "We did everything with a smirk on our face and a wink."

But by the late 1990s, the toy market was beginning to sour as small mom-and-pop toy stores shuttered and video games and DVDs started to replace more traditional playthings. So, in 2005, the company started creating quirky housewares and gifts - essentially, toys for adults.

Just as the business model changed, the way Fred & Friends does business has also changed. Roses and his designers and staff are always traveling - to trade shows and retailers in Asia, Europe, and beyond, and online, checking blogs to see what designers are doing around the globe.

Modern communication has led to several collaborations with far-away designers. Ken Goldman is an American ex-pat who lives in a kibbutz in Israel. He contacted Fred & Friends by e-mail with his ideas. Goldman is responsible for the Feet First: Finish Line doormat, which celebrates the weary office drone's triumphant return from a long day.

"Fred's products caught my eye because they push the border of modern product design - [they] are not afraid to provoke a smile - and still do not become novelty items," Goldman wrote in an email.

Designers sell their ideas to Fred & Friends, which is responsible for producing, packaging, and marketing the products. Attractive packaging is key, Amendolara said; the company is juggling different options for sustainable, earth-friendly packaging.

What else is in the works? For starters: A design contest with the nearby Rhode Island School of Design, in which students would submit ideas for possible inclusion in the new line of Fred products. Also, because demand is high, Roses wants to change the current twice-a-year product launch schedule to a monthly launch schedule.

Even in a rough economy, Fred & Friends think they have the right formula.

"Something can have a funny concept, but once you get past the concept, do you still want to buy the product?" Amendolara said. "People laugh at our stuff when they see it at the register, but they also buy it. Why? Because the joke's not over."