
The 50+ tools that I use as an independent designer
A designer's stack of tech
by Darian Rosebrook
May 02, 2017
by Darian Rosebrook
May 02, 2017
The past two years have been crazy busy in my development as a designer. I wanted to run through all of the equipment, services, and other tech I am using to create all of my work. You would think that the role of a designer was just creating small mockups or sketches and editing them in Adobe software to make it look pretty.
If you’re already a designer, you are laughing pretty hard right now.
When we talk about our roles, we talk about more than just design because we have to learn much more than just the basic skills to make it by in the real world. I won’t lie; in order to make it out there you either have to be really good at selling your craft, or your craft has to be so good it practically sells itself.
There is a large blooming need for designers in business. This has created a habit where we started fitting them anyway that we could into startups and positions where their skills and workload are stretched very thin. Even the solo-preneurs have found that you don’t just have to learn design, you will have to eventually learn a lot of other stuff too.
Things I thought a designer did:
— Charli Marie - #AdobeMAX Insider (@charliprangley) April 26, 2017
• Designing
Things I actually do:
• Designing
• Writing
• Coding
• Planning…
(gonna make a vid bout this)
I had plans on being in business for myself so that I could be doing something at home and be around my son more often. I found that the best route to learn was some type of design job that I could do remotely. I chose web design. I built several websites over my first year. I bootstrapped my education by sneaking some college syllabus’ from college sites, spending thousands of hours reading articles, distilling information so that I could improve my skills.
I moved into Brand Identity design because I feel that was my strong suit. Along the journey there are plenty of things I had to learn how to do.
Below is the list of all of the things I currently use to do what I do. Only one of these links is an affiliate link. Even then, I feel that someone wanting to use these to do more or try how another designer is doing things is now important than getting paid by it.
So Magnetic (rescinded the site during construction period)
Compass of Design (for the self-starter design community)
My personal portfolio (for my current client work)
Hosted with Github Pages (until it outshines it’s usefulness)
Coded with Jekyll, Sass, HTML, Javascript, jQuery, masonry.js and lots of sweat and tears.
Cloudflare SSL because the Let’s Encrypt SSL is out of my skillset right now
My forms are done with Formspree (paid account to get multiple forms and no exposed email addresses)
mailchimp.com for subscription information (May change to convertkit, not sure yet.)
Google’s email client for custom domains
Bitly for custom branded short links like mgntc.co and cmps.co
Medium to host the Compass of Design writing publication
Google… because… Google.
Quickbooks for doing easier accounting
Atom for my code editor
Upscribe for my newsletter sign up on medium
Trello for keeping ideas organized
Medium for republishing my articles
Coach for my online store (digital downloads and future course material)
Slack for communication with the Compass of Design community
Zapier for connecting some of my services together for time saving tasks
Adobe CC suite:
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe After Effects, and TypeKit
I use GifCam for recording short gifs of my desktop screen
Dribbble.com for being around great design
Briefbox.me for when I get bored and need some design briefs to tackle
Designer News for finding things about and discussing design
Writing program is just Microsoft Word for first drafts of articles.
I use several pieces of tech to keep me going or keep me sane
My computer (bought it new almost 2 years ago)
Upgraded to Samsung 1tb SSD memory
Upgraded RAM to Crucial 8gb DDR3
And lots of stickers
Tripod by AmazonBasics
Everything from home depot in this post from Wistia
“Shoulder Pod” a Smartphone mount for tripod
A small Mophie Juicepack for extending phone battery during video
Samsung Galaxy s7 (the nonexplodeable kind)
All sketchbooks are from Baron Fig (I use the Confidant)
An assortment of Pigma pens, Staedtler instruments and a large ruler, and blend tools and malleable erasers from the art store down the street.
June 18, 2018
by Darian Rosebrook
Sharing our work publicly can be a scary thought. It gets even scarier when you consider sharing your behind-the-scenes process of how you completed your work.
December 04, 2016
by Darian Rosebrook
This is a post for the beginner, the fresh meat, and the starry eyed out there who are getting their hands dirty with design as a self taught designer. *Fist Bump to You!* (I’m packaging up the resources that helped me get where I am towards the end)
February 06, 2017
by Darian Rosebrook
Strong communication stems from brevity. Brevity is a concise and exact use of words in writing or speech. With the art of language, having the exact choice of words to say more with less is a sincere form of mastery. Though you may never scrub your verbal dictionary perfectly clean of filler words, you can make a serious change in improving how you communicate your ideas to other people.
April 03, 2017
by Darian Rosebrook
We all love clickbait. There’s some sort of unsatisfying feeling where the shot of dopamine hits us before we even open the article. What we get in return is a let down or repurposed garbled content that spew out from the community faucet.