372 - Peter Baker

Peter Baker is the co-founder of FinalFinal, a brand and product design studio in Ann Arbor & Detroit.

Before that, he was head of design for companies like Cisco, Superlunar, and Duo Security, and has been a designer and commercial photographer for loads of other companies like Tesla, Rolling Stone, Bloomberg, Clif Bar, Popular Mechanics, and Sony.

He is also opening a bar and cafe on Ann Arbor’s northside.

Twitter (X) → twitter.com/ptrbkr
Instagram → instagram.com/peterbaker

Inside Peter's Workspace

Workspace Items

• Jarvis standing desk (in bamboo)
• Macbook Pro (14” M1 Max)
• Apple Studio Display
• Opal C1 webcam
• Yeti Blue mic
• Fuji GFX 100S medium format camera (and various amazing lenses)
• Logitech MX Master 3S mouse
• M1 Mac Mini as Plex and photo server
• 24TB Thunderbolt RAID array for primary photo storage
• 48TB OWC Hard drive enclosure for Plex and backups
• 10gbps ethernet switch and Thunderbolt-to-10gb-ethernet adapter
• Apple Magic Keyboard (with Touch ID, amazing)
• Doxie Go wifi document scanner for that paperless lifestyle
• Oculus 2 collecting dust
• Pretty much every Peak Design backpack they’ve made
• Peak Design travel tripod
• Ugmonk Analog productivity kit
• Mini Materials 1:12 scale mini cinder block pallet
• Ceramic Shipping Container by Daniel Ballou
• Hue light bulbs with daylight timed temperature transition
• Homemade wooden trebuchet
• Loads of books, 80% of which I’ve actually read

What is the most useful item in your workspace?

Having the Mac Mini as a separate always-on file server for all of these big hard drives makes the laptop life way more feasible than if I had to keep it tethered to a bunch of drive arrays to access all the big files. And I wired the place with 10gb ethernet a couple of years ago, so I can keep the Mini and all the drives in a separate room and keep the office nice and quiet, but still access everything as quick as if they were plugged directly in.

But really, its all of these shelves that hold all of this stuff. So it’s gotta be the shelves.

How do you spark creativity?

I’m lucky to have acres of woods and nature right outside the window, so whenever I’m finding myself losing the thread or getting distracted by things I’m not supposed to be doing, I head out into the woods and space out while walking or find a quiet spot to meditate. Never fails to get me out of a rut.

How do you manage work-life balance?

I don’t, not well at least. But I have some very distracting roommates (ie. children) that don’t let me work too much. But I’m a big believer in working around your energy, and I’m a night owl, so I don’t mind getting some more work in later in the evening at all.

What do you think is the main benefit of remote work?

Stepping outside and taking care of our garden and being home when my kids get home from school. It can break up the days in sometimes really unproductive ways, but it’s hard to beat.