Meet multi-disciplinary designer Thorsten Beeck. At his full-time agency job, Thorsten designs and codes User Interfaces while in his spare time, he loves to create illustrations and continue to expand his skill sets as a designer. With a full-time gig during the work week and making time for personal projects, you can tell Thorsten is passionate about creating, and we are big fans of his diverse set of work! Check out his different workspaces below and get a glimpse of Thorsten’s life in Germany.
Where do you work? Tell us about your space.
By day, I work full-time as a User Interface Designer for wigital, a small agency based in Kiel, Germany. There I have a chair, table, and computer in an open space office. When I do freelance work, personal projects, or just want to explore and adopt new skills, I don’t have a steady workplace. I just take my MacBook Pro and work from any place I find comfortable at that moment. That can be the couch, kitchen table, or on the train.
What hardware and software do you use to create your designs?
Right now I’m walking between two worlds. At work, I have a Windows laptop with an external monitor. At home, I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro. I had an external monitor at home too but sold it over a year ago as I used it less and less. In both worlds, I carry my small notebook with me that I use to sketch whenever I can. Many of my illustrations are digitalized sketches I drew in meetings. Some tools I use every day, whether it’s when I’m at work or at home, are Sublime Text, Photoshop, and Figma.
Tell us about your routine (or lack of one.) How do you structure your days to get things done?
I get up around 6:00 am, jump in the shower, leave the house around 6:30 am, jump in the car, take the train at 7:00 am and arrive at the office at 7:45 am. On my commute, I try to use my time as best as I can. Depending on my mood I design, develop, illustrate, sketch, or simply read a book or watch a show or a movie on Netflix. At my day job, I design and build websites by writing HTML and CSS and dabbling with JavaScript, PHP, and content management systems most of the time. I usually take the train home at 4:30 pm and arrive at home around 5:30 pm. Then I spend some quality time with my wife and little son. Later in the evening, I either chill with my wife and watch a show or movie, or I dive into personal projects, client work, or try to improve my skill sets.
How do your space, tools, and habits benefit you? What about those things do you think needs improvement?
Spending most of the day writing code and building websites, I reached the point where I came home from work and didn’t want to write more code. At the same time, Figma was released and I immediately tried it out. I first used it for UI designs but quickly started to use it to work on my illustration skills. I never made the connection to Illustrator. So Figma came out at the right time and was an extremely helpful tool to visualize my sketches. Over time, I managed to find a good mix of spending time writing code in Sublime Text and designing and illustrating stuff in Figma. That’s why I barely use Photoshop at home anymore. Comparing my office space with the spaces I use working at home, I noticed that I’m way more productive when I can choose my workspace. Hopefully, in the future, more and more companies in Germany will realize that remote workspaces are a good thing.
Want to keep up with Thorsten? Find him on Dribbble, Instagram, Twitter and at thorstenbeeck.com.
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