292 - Logan Liffick

Logan Liffick is a designer and creative engineer helping to build brands, products, and systems.

He is currently the Director of Product and Design at Makelog, helping transform product updates into a powerful asset.

He was previously a Senior Digital Experience Designer at DigitalOcean.

He was also previously featured in edition 209 of Workspaces.

Twitter → twitter.com/logan_liffick

Inside Logan's Workspace

Items:‍

• Monitor: Apple Studio Display, VESA mount, standard glass
• Monitor arm: Vivo
• Desk (frame): Fully Jarvis
• Desk (top): Baltic birch butcher's block 72"x25"
• Desk shelf: Acacia tray (customized)
• Laptop: Apple 16" Macbook Pro (Intel model)
• Keyboard: Apple Magic Keyboard
• Mouse: Apple Magic Trackpad
• Headphones: Apple AirPods
• Chair (not pictured): Fully Luna stool
• Filing cabinet: Stockpile 3 curve

Software:

• Figma
• VS Code
• Slack
  
• Notion
• Spotify

What does your typical design process look like?

I like to start on paper —cliche, I know. It gives me the freedom to really explore and helps me avoid the realm of "the expected". Additionally, I steer clear of inspiration sites like Dribbble and Pinterest in the early phases for similar reasons.

Post-freestyle riff, I work to anchor myself back to reality and dive into specificity and requirements, writing down everything in its most basic, semantic form (typically HTML).

At this point, I begin working in a relatively high-fidelity format (I find non-technical stakeholders rarely grasp anything less) and begin technical experiments in unison. These experiments could range from testing layout sizing and responsiveness in-browser to crafting specific interactions.

Once stakeholders are brought back into the loop, I begin to iterate and dial everything in. By this step, stakeholders should have a pretty good visual of what will ship.

With feedback addressed and everything buttoned up, I either enter a designer/developer handoff or start to build depending on my involvement.

What does your daily routine/schedule look like?

In 2020, my wife and I scooped up our "covid puppy" Ollie. He's a beautiful golden retriever who's now 2 years old. As a lifelong nightowl, I was ecstatic thinking he would help me break the curse and transition into a morning person. I miscalculated entirely, he enjoys sleeping in just as much as I do (we're working on it). Once he and I do eventually get up, we grab breakfast —kibble for him, pour-over coffee and oatmeal for me, and make a list of what to tackle for the day. I like to work between 9-5pm, with time set aside for lunch. Most important to my routine is how I end my day, which involves shutting off entirely when the clock hits 5. I step away from my computer and either go for a run or workout in our gym, followed by a daily walk with Ollie before dinner. This end-of-day routine has had an incredible impact on my wellbeing, especially as someone who freelances and might need to hop back on to work in the late evening.

What did you change in your setup since your last feature and why did you make those changes?

Upgrading to the Studio Display was everything I could have wished for but something felt off about my setup. Apple ships the display with a meesely 0.8m Thunderbolt 4 cord and it couldn't accommodate the layout I had in mind. This year, I bit the bullet, snagged a longer Thunderbolt 4 cord, and shuffled the layout around. It's now far more ergonomic for my needs with the Macbook Pro located to the right of the display. Additionally, I've added some ambient light to the space and made room to display some canvas art (that I still need to paint, yikes).