Setup

I always find it interesting to see what other people use, so I thought I would share my own setup.

Hardware

A 13 inch retina MacBook Pro is my daily driver, since I prefer its format and weight to its bigger brother. Performance-wise it does everything I need it to, as long as I’m not running Chrome, VM’s, and Sketch at the same time.

Most of the time the MacBook is connected to a Dell 3415w ultra-wide monitor, the discovery of which was a realy eye-opener for me. While it’s 21:9 aspect-ratio might be something to get used to, it’s actually the first time I can comfortably run my editor and browser side by side.

Keyboard

My keyboard of the wireless Apple keyboard, mainly so I can have the exact same key layout on all my devices. Meaning always a function key in the bottom left corner no matter if I’m mobile or at a desk.

Mouse

The Logitech MX Master is my go to mouse. I used Apple’s Magic Mouse for the longest time, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back. The MX Master offers proper hand support, and its customisable buttons are absolutely fantastic. I’m also a big fan of what Logitech calls ‘SmartShift’. A function that allows the scroll-wheel to go into a free running mode if you spin it hard enough, great for scrolling through long pages. Last but not least the battery life is superb—especially coming from a Magic Mouse—and it’s rechargeable over micro USB.

Pencil & Paper

Technically also hardware: pencil and paper. While I’m awful at drawing, I do a lot of simple interface sketching so I always keep a sketch book and pencil nearby. The brand doesn’t matter to me. But in terms of size I prefer something close to A5, small enough to carry around while still allowing me to work coarsely.

Software

At the moment I’m completely ‘Adobe free’ and use none of their products. I find independent studios to be more flexible and better at listening to their customers. Flexibility is super important to me. I want to be able to switch tools whenever I feel like it, therefore I’m a big advocate of relatively cheap software.

Sketch

My static designs all come out of Sketch, which is hardly surprising these days. It’s definitely the best tool for digital design I’ve ever used. And like me, it’s Dutch. So big up to them for making awesome software. One of the strongest selling points for me is that a lot of other tools offer Sketch integration. This is important because I don’t believe Sketch should do everything. I’d much rather see it focus on being the best static digital design tool out there.

Prototyping

For prototyping I’m absolutely all over the place. I’ve tried out Invision, Framer, Marvel, Origami, Pixate, Principle. Speed is the key here, I need to be able to get results faster than I was coding it by hand. If I had to choose, Invision, Framer, and maybe Principle are the tools I would stick with.

Vector work

When handling vector files such as icons or logo’s, I use Affinity Designer. It’s powerful, easy to use, can handle lots of file formats, and is cheap enough to easily replace if needed.

Text editor

All my code I written Vim, or MacVim more specifically. Kalisi is my current colorscheme, and the font I use is CamingoCode. I won’t get into the whole ‘You should use Vim’ thing here. But if you are interested, I recommend you to read this article by Harry Roberts.

Command line

iTerm 2 handles command line duties, and it’s running Fish shell. Fish’s auto-complete functionality is a special sort of magic, and never having to type cd again is great as well.

Dotfiles

If you want to get your nerd on, my (super minimal) dotfiles are on Github.