How to setup a proper Web Designer’s Home Office

By Jim on September 29th, 2008 | Posted in Web Design Help & Tutorials | 6 Comments
Tags: setup a home office, Web Designers Home Office

As a 13-year professional web veteran, I’m constantly being grilled with questions by young, budding, aspiring wannabe web designers.  Some are very skilled, some are not. Time and time again, I am asked about my office and computer setup. Apparently it seems that all new web designers think you need a downtown penthouse office and the latest 8-processor Mac Pro and 30″ monitors to produce a professional website.

I figured I would give you aspiring web designers a nice tutorial on the proper way to setup a web designers home office. Hopefully with this tutorial, any misguided souls will realize that you don’t need anything fancy or expensive.

The beautiful and appealing aspect of being a web designer is the relatively low overhead involved in setting up your business. All you need is a small spot to work at, a somewhat recent computer, a few pieces of software, a handful of other miscelaneous shit, and a shit load of proper, sound advice. For my demonstration purposes, I’m picking the couch in our living room for our new web designer office.

Nothing beats working on the couch. All web designers can, and should, work from the couch.

Personally, I’m picking the couch because it’s my favorite place in the house to be and it’s comfortable. My TV is here, the kitchen is over there, and this here coffee table will work perfectly well for a desk.  As a web designer, you need to pick a good comfy location from which to work at, because you’ll be spending a bazillion frustrating hours parked in that spot trying to fix something stupid.

Once you find the perfect spot to conduct your business, you can begin piecing together your desk. One of greatest things about being a web designer though, is the lack of equipment and fancy shit you actually need.

Being a web designer doesn't require a large, fancy office. All you need is a computer, coffee table, and bottle of booze.

As you can see, I’ve kept my tools-of-choice down to a minimum:

A Reliable Computer

The one thing you’ll want to have as a web designer is a decent computer. You don’t need the latest and greatest. You don’t need a huge monitor. All you need is something that runs Photoshop decently. For our office, I’m using an older 24″ iMac we had laying around. Frankly though, the little 14″ iBook is more than adequate.

While we’re talking about computers though, I’d like to lay to bed one of the most repeated web designer newbie questions, “Which is better, PC or Mac?” Listen, I’ve been a web developer now for 15 years. During that time I’ve probably built half a million websites. I can tell you from experience, that you can build successful websites on a Mac, and you can build successful websites on PCs. It doesn’t really matter which one you have. It doesn’t matter if you are a nerdy ass PC dweeb or a cool young punk Mac hipster dipshit.  Whatever computer you have now is probably just fine. It just doesn’t matter. Both of them are going to crash, and the other platform will always have the piece of software that you can’t get. Fortunately, every possible piece of software pretty much exists for both platforms.

Adequate Diet & Hydration

As I mentioned earlier, web design sometimes requires really long ass days. Generally, I work 12 hour days… up at noon, done with work by midnight. Building websites can be tedious work. Mentally, the day-to-day challenges of web design can drain you. You’ll find you do your most productive web work if you maintain a proper diet, and keep your body hydrated. Personally, I start off my workday with a few shots of rum, and maintain hydration via Diet Mountain Dew. I’ve found this combination to be optimal for internet work conditions. I do diet Dew specifically because it has a high concentration of caffeine, yet still sugar free.

Desk Nick Nacks

Everyone on earth seems to put cool stuff on their desk, and there’s no valid reason a web designer shouldn’t join the herd on this one. Keep as much cool and useless shit on your desk as possible. Often times, a web designer will become frustrated with various tasks during the day-email quit working, password doesn’t match, GoDaddy won’t fucking load, wifi internet is down, etc. During these stressful, frustrating times, the prepared web designer who maintains a desk load of misc. shit, will have plenty to fidget and fumble with, while clients inundate your inbox with irrelevant troubles.

Telephone System & Communication

New web designers always seem to think that you need a fancy phone system, cell phones, fax machines, toll-free numbers and all this other expensive jazz. The truth? A cell phone, chat program, and email is all you will ever need. We’re in a digital age now. Faxes from clients always come out shitty, and generally leave you more confused about what you need to build than you were pre-fax. My advice: Take a sledge hammer to that fax machine and tell that landline company to eat shit. Get a cell phone with email and AIM on it, and you are one connected mother fucker.

As for internet. For our demonstration office, we’re fortunate enough to have wireless internet in our living room, which cuts down on running cable. It may go without saying in this day and age, but I would definitely recommend cable modem or DSL for your web designer office. Try uploading a Photoshop file to a client on dialup… JFC!!!

Stationery

For you old souls out there like myself, you may want to pick up a notebook and a pen. You don’t need to spend endless dollars at Staples. Personally, I do all my conceptualizing and intitial design work using a good old-fashioned pen and paper. You could be really fancy and keep it all on the computer, but I often come up with ideas while I’m away from (and have no desire to be near) my computer.

Many fancy web designers like to lay out websites and complex-looking shit on big ass, wall-mounted whiteboards. Generally, all of that is for show, so the client ‘thinks’ you are doing a shitton of work for them, when you actually aren’t.

Peripherals and Other Bullshit Equipment

While mouse and keyboard are not make-or-break items, a web designer could benefit well from a really nice keyboard and mouse. Personally, I swear by the Logitech VX Revolution mouse, since it is ball bearing and just all kinds of manly badassness. If you are a chick web designer, it may still quite possibly work. I also dig Apple’s latest line of keyboards, as they generally have the same feel as a laptop keyboard. My advice, make family or friends buy this shit for you for Christmas or your birthday or something. Don’t waste your money on this kind of crap.

The only other real bullshit I would recommend is a digital camera, and maybe a flat bed scanner if you’ll be doing a lot of Photoshop work. Any cheapo, USB-connectable digital camera will probably be more than adequate to get shit from real life to the computer. You could get a printer or something, but if you’re smart, you’ll save money on ink and keep all of your invoicing and bill paying electronic.

No office is complete without your name. Thanks Mom for my name thing.

My office is setup, now what?

Alright! Now that your web design kitchen is all set, it’s time to start cooking! Over the next couple of hours and the rest of this bottle of rum, I’m going to show you how you can easily build a functional, professional website, right from your spanking new couch office.

So folks, that pretty much covers it. Bottom line is, as a web designer, you just don’t need that much shit, and you don’t need that much room. Having a beautiful office is nice and all, but in the end, your clients in Singapore probably won’t give much of a shit, and your booze stash will most certainly feel the sqeeze of all that heavy overhead. The best thing you can do, is save your money and spend it on advertising your services. Take it from those that know.