The Clean Desk of Cocoia's Sebastiaan de With

There's something amazing about a nice, clean desk that allows you to get more work down. This office setup belongs to Sebastiaan de With from Cocoia, who designs icons for a living. All in all, it's spartan, techy, and clean, things that we always enjoy.

Sebastiaan not only does icons, but he also designs interfaces. From a 30" monitor, to his iPad, Sebastiaan's desk looks nice to work at and very clean. It's hard to imagine that so much programming can happen in such a pristine home office.

The Rain Design mStand docks his MacBook Pro. It fits in perfectly with the rest of his desk, on which he docks his iPhone and iPad as well. Sebastiaan doesn't like multi-monitor setups, which is why he decided to go with a large monitor.

His latest home office is a contrast to his previous ones, which were a bit more cluttered with anime statues and decorations. He uses the Mac Pro as his main computer while the MacBook Pro is used as a second machine to tweet, chat, and for other uses. Essentially, it's a multi-monitor setup, but instead of using a second screen, he just uses the one from his MacBook Pro.

Sebastiaan doesn't like the new Magic Mouse and uses a wired mouse for added precision. That's a good option if you're trying to make very small adjustments using your mouse in design programs. His usual setup includes a Wacom graphics tablet. He reports that the glare from the Wacom doesn't interfere much with his 30-inch monitor. All in all, it's a nice, clean setup, that looks good and has a nice spin on using multi-monitors at home.

[all photos by Sebastiaan de With]

Comments (3)

Using a female figurine to hold the pen for the Wacom is creative...... but also somewhat unsettling.

They're not just female figurines, you might want to check out something like http://www.dannychoo.com/ or http://www.figure.fm/ there's a lot of work and art that goes into them, they might not be your kind of thing but don't just think somethings a bit distasteful without know anything about it.

Great setup. I wonder if he's using Synergy to really turn his Macbook Pro into a pseudo-secondary monitor. I'm a bit surprised that Sebastiaan sticks with an Apple Mouse for ease of use. I've always found Logitech mice to be far more practical (for both Macs & PCs). Also, is the photo series taken over a relatively long stretch of time? I ask because the first photo doesn't have an Apple Mouse in it.

The placement of the task lamp is interesting -- seems like it would throw a lot of glare on the main monitor.

As for the figurines, I wouldn't say dannychoo.com is the best place for dispelling notions of the dolls being distasteful, noting the choice of dolls (and their choice of attire) he sometimes showcases in his Dollfie photoshoot series. High-quality and well-made? Of course. Somewhat unsettling? In the typical sense, most probably (esp. when wrapped around the guy's stylus/pen, and with a monitor flanked by dolls in classic anime upskirt poses. :-P).