Uses This

A collection of nerdy interviews asking people from all walks of life what they use to get the job done.

A picture of Paige Saez

Paige Saez

Visual artist, interaction designer, Makerlab founder

Posted in artist, designer, mac

Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Paige Saez and I'm a visual artist, interaction designer and teacher presently living in San Francisco where I run a small design company called Little Cities. I used to work as a strategic planner and creative technologist for Wieden + Kennedy in Portlandia, where I spent 11 years of my life. In 2007 I founded the Makerlab, a creatively focused collaborative space. We host weekly skill-share workshops, hold concerts and events.

What hardware do you use?

I spend most of my time attached to my sweet one year old 15" MacBook Pro. And, because I'm always on my bike running from client to client it's usually snug inside of my Chrome Backpack. Two moleskines -- one for notes and sketches, one for quickly sketching interface ideas -- are with me as well. For documenting events I rely on my lovely Canon G10, and for communicating with the known universe (often, sadly, by text message only) I have my iPhone 4.

At home, I rely on pen, pencil and paper for obscene amounts of paper-prototyping and the Cult of Done to keep projects going while I rock out to beats on my A30 Headset.

And what software?

As a user experience designer I try to spend a lot of time exploring, trying out lots of different software products and experiences depending on the client project. But when it comes down to getting work done I spend the majority of my time in Coda, Omnigraffle, Photoshop and Skitch.

I use Google Docs and BlinkSale for all my wordsmithing and businessey needs. For browsers, I straddle Firefox and Chrome depending on how many things I'm working on at one time. For chatting with friends I use Adium and I cannot live without Quicksilver. I'm a huge fan of Open Frameworks and Processing.

What would be your dream setup?

Ideally? To never have to sit at a desk ever again. Basically a fully interactive environment where I can manipulate things digitally with my hands and body - something I worked on with @anselm (bodycode). For now I'd settle for a Primer.