Design Better With More Real Estate
Well, maybe not better design, but certainly more efficient. I recently purchased a shiny new 22″ display to compliment my current set up (gotta love Black Friday’s prices). It is a much larger display than that of my laptop; I can use it side by side with my 13″ MacBook. Not only has it aided my gaming habit but also my efficient use of several simultaneous applications. This sort of upgrade may be more valuable to designers than a more powerful machine or the greatest software. Already, my workflow has changed and I have learned to be a better designer with more screen space.
Dual Display Goodness
Just like gamers everywhere designers can prosper from a few million more pixels. No more app swapping or minimizing and maximizing. I can run several applications side by side on two displays. For me it is nearly twice as fast to glance to my style sheet from a live HTML preview than switching windows or even using a tabbed editor. I can see several variations of a piece of print media I am working on across my large monitor and color match with a client’s web site on the other. So, stop flipping through programs, use a dual display set up and get to done faster.
Afraid of set up and logistics? Don’t be. It took little to no effort on my Mac; and as I understand it, using a Windows machine with an advanced video card is just as easy. Operation is just as intuitive. The system lends itself to the idea that the monitors are one and users can mouse, drag and drop, and move windows from one to the other.
Inches Make All The Difference
We would all love to have a couple huge 30″ HD displays mounted behind our keyboards, but most of the time it’s just not practical. Simply replacing your old CRT 4:3 monitor with a newer 20″ widescreen LCD can make an enormous difference. Govern your productivity with the ability to code and design side by side. The extra few inches add several thousand more pixels for designers to work with. With today’s prices being relatively reasonable, now is as good a time as any to pick up a new display. Two or three may be best, but bigger is always better.
Conclusions
From my experience with increased screen real estate, I have learned to work smarter, not harder. My work has been completed faster and turned out better results since my monitor addition. Using an additional, much larger display has been liberating and allowed me to rapidly boost my productivity. Don’t believe me? Give it a shot; you will never go back… I guarantee it.
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Wow! Few pics of your workspace would be great to watch.
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I used to work for a development studio where every employee was given dual 19″ setups to work with. I agree, that once you try the setup, you simply won’t be able to go back. The boost in productivity is enormous. I can write code and read through documentation and/or render the content all in one glance… no more [alt]+[tab]! I’m a student on a student budget and at home went from an old 17″ CRT to a 19″ widescreen. I couldn’t be happier. Happy new year fellow designers.
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Yep, I agree. It is straightforward to set up from a Windows laptop (when I last used this setup in Win XP).
A larger widescreen has productivity benefits outside of just the programming and design apps. Working with lengthy proposals and specifications side-by-side can be a real boost.