Setting up a work account for graphic designers in 2026

This is my quick and dirty list for putting together a work account on whichever system you use, for doing graphic design work.

My work account is for graphic design work only.

It contains:

Design software
Creative coding tools
Fonts and assets
Color-management tools
Tablet/input-device setup
Work documents
Website/publishing tools, if directly related to design work
Research tools, because research is part of the work

So, no:

Games
Discord
Social media as entertainment
Admin tools, local or server

If you are working on a laptop, like me, please do not install random NVIDIA/Intel driver updates directly from GPU vendors. Use OEM laptop drivers published by your laptop’s manufacturer.

Your software says that your drivers are out of date? Too bad. You are a graphic designer. Your laptop’s stability matters more than chasing the newest driver.

Make the nag-modal go away.

Looking at you, After Effects, you big dumb idiot. What do you care if newer vendor drivers mess with my laptop fans?

Also, try to install software versions reasonably close to the release period of your laptop. Keep those installers as backups. You might, and you will, need them when suddenly you have to nuke and re-Gaia your laptop.

Do not auto-update your software, especially if you are a professional graphic designer.

If you are not a pro, act like one, and use software versions which make your laptop feel fast. Trust me. @ me if you disagree. I am curious to hear about how much slower your Photoshop has become over the years because your laptop is “old.”

Get Processing, as well as Python. Find great tutorials for using either for generative, parametric, and programmatic design. Ask me; I have a few I am currently working through myself. (see note at the bottom below this post!)

Calibrate your display. Really, do that.

But calibrate it for RGB, and let your OS handle the color profile. Do this at least every three months.

Do not set your calibrated monitor profile as your Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign working RGB profile.

Use these:

sRGB / Adobe RGB / ProPhoto RGB, if you are that person
→ RGB document spaces

PSO / FOGRA / printer profile
→ CMYK output spaces

Your calibrated monitor/screen profile
→ monitor only, handled by your OS

Use soft-proof CMYK through the correct print profile.

Set up your tablet.

Never use Bluetooth if you can avoid it. Avoid display tablets unless you truly know why you want one. Ask around why they suck.

Turn off gestures at first. Make it boring and reliable first. You can go nuts in three years from now.

And you will. You will become desperate for someone to ask you about your settings.

Get a lightweight code editor. Don’t use VS Code.

Or do. Your call.

Name your files in a good way.

Despite earlier ideas I have been kicking around, the following is a solid basis:

Use a date, then a descriptor of what it is, and let the file type speak for itself.

Underscores, dashes, or some mix of these: that is up to you. I will experiment with a few of these, most likely by looking at fake UIs from games or films and taking the one which looks coolest to me.

I am currently using something like:

YYYY-MM-DD_descriptor.filetype

But I need to read another book about naming conventions for file types in URLs first before editing that into something stable.

Code and canvas, you see.

Install Zotero. This is my work account, so research is part of it.

Set up a browser profile for your work. I did. I called it Work. I am never confused.

Optional: use dark mode, as well as #606060 as a solid background color.

Go visually neutral.

Maybe you are a different kind of freak than me and need color and chaos. I don’t know you.

You do you.

And always use some weird software nobody else uses. Use Alchemy. Use Mischief. Use Painter. Use Grafx2.

Note:

When I say parametric design, I mean that you build something with knobs. Knobs can change stuff like spacing, size, angle, number of iterations/repetitions, stroke width, grid density, whatever you can think a knob can do. You change the knobs at the pattern or layout in Illustrator changes, because you have defined the underlying rules as editable. Maybe a number controls a whole grid in Processing? That is parametric design.

Next is programmatic design. It, like its other sibling generative design do not mean that some AI made it, or that a machine did the designing for you, either. Programmatic design is you writing the instructions which the computer followed (good computer). Processing is obviously that. Python can do that too. Adobe software can do it through scripts, expressions, actions, batches, and a bunch of other things in other software.

Generative design is when you build a system which produces images. Plural, images. You are the designer designing the conditions under which many possible images then appear. Maybe you use randomness. Maybe data. Maybe you use your microphone to influence shape size and color of a brush, or an element. The rules are strict but the outcome is not fully known, not even to you.

Quelle: Code & Canvas