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Rob Simpson

Self-Employed Designer and Developer

Cotswolds, UK Issue #547
A walnut desk under a window, with an LG monitor showing a Figma file, a MacBook Pro on a stand and a brown leather chair, lit warm against a dark brown wall.

Rob Simpson's home desk setup.

About

Rob Simpson is a designer and developer with over 15 years of experience. Now self-employed, he embeds closely with a small number of clients at a time — going deep with one or two rather than juggling many.

Based in the Cotswolds, UK, he’s also a father and an early riser who believes in doing fewer things well. That same sense of intention runs through everything — morning walks, cooking, and the way he designs and builds.

Alongside client work, he runs Stryve, a recipe site, as a slow-burn side project.

Photos

7 images
The desk head-on in daylight, with a brand guidelines file on the monitor, a felt desk mat, Magic Keyboard and Mouse, and the wooden to-do stand holding a paper list upright.
The Oakywood To-Do Desk Kit, the most recent addition to the desk.
The same desk after dark, lit by a warm glow behind the monitor, with the leather chair pulled out and keys hanging at the edge of the frame.
The IKEA ALEFJÄLL chair, bought seven years ago and due for an upgrade.
The white drawer unit against the brown wall, with an abstract painting leaning on top and afternoon light raking across the fronts.
The white drawer behind the desk, left over from his daughter’s bedroom.
A closer view of the white drawer unit, with the painting above it, anthurium plants on a shelf alongside and the desk leg in the foreground.
Rob plans to replace it with built-in shelving or a wooden drawer.
A MacBook Pro catching morning sun, showing a color palette of earth and fire tokens next to a client homepage, with a brass toggle switch on the wall behind.
A client design system on the MacBook Pro, with a brass Corston switch behind.
Rob at his desk mid-sentence, in a green jacket with a lapel mic, a painting and a large plant behind him.
Rob at his desk in his Cotswolds home office.

Gear

18 items
Desk Oakywood Classic Desk — Walnut Buy
Computer MacBook Pro M4 — Space Black
Monitor LG UltraFine 27″ — Black Buy
Accessories Oakywood Felt & Cork Desk Mat — Stone Grey Buy
Accessories Oakywood To-Do Desk Kit — Walnut Buy
Laptop Stand Twelve South Laptop Stand — Black Buy
Keyboard Apple Magic Keyboard — White Buy
Mouse Apple Magic Mouse — White Buy
Speakers Sonos One — Black Buy
Chair IKEA ALEFJÄLL — Brown Buy
Miscellaneous Little Greene Paint — Ganache, the wall color
Lamp Corston Brookfield Large Pendant Light — Antique Brass
Miscellaneous Corston Toggle Switch — Antique Brass
Phone Apple iPhone 17 Pro — Silver
Accessories Bellroy Leather Phone Case — Rust Buy
Accessories Bellroy Premium Classic Backpack — Lichen Buy
Accessories Bellroy Notebook Cover — Caramel Buy
Accessories Bellroy Pen — Black/Orange Buy

The census

Only 2% of the desks we’ve published have Rob’s Sonos One.

Ranked across all 520 setups that list their gear.

MacBook Pro 64%
Apple Magic Keyboard 26%
Apple Magic Mouse 13%
Sonos One 2%
See top 50 gear items ›

Software

9 apps
Figma — Design
Notion — Everything
Claude — Research & coding
Cursor — Code editor
Jitter — Animation
Prismic & Sanity — CMS
Next.js & Astro — Frameworks
Vercel — Hosting
Tailwind — Styling

Interview

5 questions

› What is the most recent item that you’ve added to your workspace?

That would be the Oakywood To-Do Desk Kit. I’m trying to bring more intention to what I focus on each day, and having a short list in front of me definitely helps.

› What is one change you’d like to make to your current workspace?

That’s a tough one. The change I most want to make is also the one I’m least sure about — replacing the white drawer behind me. It’s a leftover from my daughter’s bedroom when we moved house. It’ll definitely go, swapped for some sort of storage — either built-in units with shelving or a real wooden drawer.

› What chair is in your setup? Why was this the one you settled on?

I currently have the ALEFJÄLL Ikea office chair — and it’s one of the items in my office I want to upgrade. I bought it 7+ years ago for two reasons: I liked the way it looked, and I didn’t have a chair. At the time I was working full-time at an agency but only from home one day a week. Now that I’m self-employed and at my desk every day, a chair with better support is on the cards.

› Walk us through your morning routine—what’s the first thing you do at your desk?

I start my day at 6am with a walk — it’s very rare I’ll skip it, even if it’s raining. I’m definitely a morning person, and I like being outside when most people are still asleep. When I get back, I fill in my morning journal in Notion — it helps me manage my thoughts and reflect on them.

After that it’s straight into getting the kids ready for school and dropping them off. Once I’m back, it’s to my desk, where I plan out my tasks for the day — I typically work on a single project each day. Planning everything out first, rather than after each task, is just way more productive.

› What’s the most underrated app or tool you use every day?

Honestly, I don’t really have anything obscure — nothing most people reading this won’t have heard of or used. If anything, it’s my brain and my own thinking. But if we’re talking apps, Notion is the one I’ve been using almost daily for the past 9+ years.

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