Lilit Balagyozyan

Product Designer at Kickstarter

Issue #276 March 29, 2023

About

Lilit Balagyozyan is a Product Designer at Kickstarter, working on the payments team.

Photos

8 images

Gear

20 items

Computer M1 MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) 32GB RAM, 1TB — Personal laptop. I went all out on this machine with the intention to practice 3D modeling/rendering with Blender later this year.

Computer MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) 1TB — Work laptop

Mouse Apple Magic Trackpad — I have one for each laptop Buy

Keyboard Apple Magic Keyboard — I have one for each laptop. For my work keyboard I designed DIY stickers to label my Zoom hotkeys. Buy

Headphones Apple AirPods Pro — My preferred headphones. I just wish the battery life was longer. Buy

Hub / Dock Apple Lighting Dock — To charge my Apple AirPods Pros and iPhone Buy

Headphones Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones — I used to share an office with my partner so we both wore these to prevent our microphones from picking up each other’s voices during overlapping meetings. Fantastic battery life. Buy

Monitor Dell UltraSharp 27 4K USB-C Monitor - U2720Q — Work monitor Buy

Monitor Philips 4K Ultra HD LCD Monitor — Personal monitor. I love it, but no VESA mount means I needed to buy an arm mount to hold it up.

Webcam Logitech HD Pro Webcam Buy

Desk Butcher Block tabletop from Homedepot — which we stained lightly Buy

Monitor Arm Fully Jarvis White Monitor Arms (2x) — These are so utterly beautiful. They have a dual monitor arm, but I bought 2 separate ones so I have the freedom to modify my set up in the future. Buy

Desk Fully Jarvis White Frame/Legs — The legs on these are set back rather than centered, which I really like the look of. It works like a charm. Buy

Accessories IKEA HELMER Drawer Unit Buy

Chair BenchPro Chair — These were the chairs we used in our design studio and I immediately hunted them down upon graduating from my design program. I intentionally looked for a chair that was made for counter to bar height, which I prefer for focused work. This also means I almost always have my desk between bar and standing height. Buy

Accessories Rubber Office Chair Casters — I love these. They are very gentle on the floor and make no sound. My only issue with them is that I set my chair to bar stool height so feet are dangling, and so I need to anchor myself in place with my elbows otherwise I occasionally roll away

Accessories Analog retro clock — I find analog clocks help me visualize (and thus, manage) time better. I always keep one within eye view of my work stations.

Accessories Marble Coasters — I’m terrified of coffee staining my beautiful butcher block table Buy

Laptop Stand Upright laptop stand — High on my requirements list was finding a stand without a logo stamped somewhere on the front, somehow a surprisingly rare feature. Buy

Hub / Dock Twelve South StayGo USBC hub — Love this thing Buy

Software

16 apps

Figma — For product design work and collaboration. It’s also where I make my habit tracker each week, build brand elements, prepare to print stickers, etc.

Adobe Creative Cloud — I use a good mix of Illustrator, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Indesign for high fidelity graphic design work.

Adobe fonts — Essential for exploring logos and branding and works together with Webflow

Webflow — for my portfolio, and for building websites in general

Coda — For documenting & organizing my life and projects

Miro — For flowcharts and diagrams

Apple Mail — For an aggregation of all my emails. I find the interface much smoother than gmail.

Pinterest — For mood-boarding and inspiration. It’s the best visual search engine in the world, I’m constantly amazed by it.

Slack — For collaboration and communication

Freepik — For vectors/illustrations

Behance and Dribbble — For visual design inspiration

Noun Project — For icons

Google Chrome — Inspect and extensions are a must have, though the interface could be more minimal.

Twitter — For design community and design news

Concepts App (on iPad) — For sketching ideas when erasing and copy/pasting is preferred. Otherwise I use a roll of butter paper to sketch on

Unsplash — For stock images

Interview

3 questions

› What is your favorite item in your workspace?

My favorite item in my workspace is my little clock. It helps me visualize my day when I planning.

› How do you spark creativity?

I explore Pinterest daily for inspiration and when I have a spark of creativity, I usually start by moving over to the studio desks and rolling out some butcher paper to scribble my chaotic ideas down on. I find butcher paper to be a low pressure medium to let go on. I take a photo of the good ideas to move over to other tools to bring it to higher fidelity.

› How do you manage work-life balance?

I’m lucky to work at a company that fiercely protects work-life balance and we are piloting a 4-day-work-week starting in April. But as a general practice, to protect my work-life balance by I planing religiously. I block out time to focus, as well as time to step away and relax; exercise, meditate, read, draw, etc.