Here are some notes about my setup: the things I use to make things.

Although I'm not in the tech industry anymore, I still love recommending things and think the idea of /uses pages is fun — find other people's /uses pages at uses.tech. For a throwback, you can read my June 2014 interview on usesthis. And related to things and recommendations, I also have a list of things I’m /looking-for.

Hardware

  • Laptop: MacBook Air M2. With 16gb RAM
  • Desktop: iMac
  • Tablet: iPad Pro 13" with Apple Pencil 2
  • Headphones: AirPods Pro 2
  • Microphone / Headphones for recording : The built in microphone in wired Apple earbuds
  • Printer: Brother HL-L2390DW, and a Risograph MF-9450 (see more printmaking below)
  • Label Printer: Rollo, mostly used for shipping with PirateShip
  • Reading: Kindle Paperwhite, in airplane mode

Mac Software

  • Writing: Obsidian
  • Collaborative Writing: Google Docs
  • Spreadsheets: Google Sheets, sometimes Airtable
  • Editor: VS Code
  • Browser: Chrome, Brave, Safari and DuckDuckGo
  • Terminal: plain Mac OS Terminal
  • Reading: Calibre for managing ebooks to Kindle
  • Hosting: Netlify
  • VPN: Nord
  • Riso Color Separation and Imposition: Spectrolite (so fun to use an app we make!)
  • Text Recognition: TextSniper

There’s a bit about the tech stack for this site here.

iOS Apps

  • Procreate: For drawing on the iPad
  • Birds: Merlin Bird ID
  • Meditation: Pranayama by Saagara
  • Translation: Google Translate with languages downloaded offline
  • Maps: Google Maps, with city or regional maps downloaded offline
  • Podcasts: Apple's podcasts app
  • Lightroom: Free mobile app for editing photos
  • Mooncast: I have it set to give me an alert on full and new moons
  • PeakFinder: for climbing nerds, to identify what that mountain is on the horizon
  • Peakbagger: Lists of mountains, with descriptions and downloadable maps and GPS tracks
  • Topo Maps US: For saving custom GPX tracks (usually downloaded from CalTopo) and other offline maps
  • FarOut: Thru hiking maps and commentary on water sources, places to get food
  • Mountain Project: For climbing routes
  • Watch Duty: for fire maps; also see my post about wildfire smoke resources and maps

Notebooks and Pens

Favorite notebooks and pens are very important to me! Here are some links to specific ones that have been my friends for a decade-plus:

  1. Midori MD Notebook, A5, Grid Ruled
  2. Pentel Arts Hybrid Technica 0.3 mm Pen
  3. Tombow Dual Brush Pens — I really love color N89 for bullet journal
  4. Moleskine Cahier Journal, Soft Cover, Large (5" x 8.25") Ruled/Lined, Kraft Brown, 80 Pages (Set of 3)
  5. Moleskine Cahier Journal, Soft Cover, XL (7.5" x 9.5") Ruled/Lined, Black, 120 Pages (Set of 3)
  6. Muji Gel Ink Cap Type Ballpoint Pen 0.38mm
  7. Muji notebooks (usually grid), depending on the project

Printmaking and Bindery

This is what we use to make our books, zines and pamphlets at ANEMONE. Lots more about our studio process in the newsletter, and also in our Notes on Artist Publishing series.

Printing and Alignment

  • Risograph: MF-9450 that prints with two color drums at once (more here)
  • Paper Jogger: It just vibrates a big stack of paper until it's all neatly into a ream again. A riso essential, for removing static from pages and aligning them neatly before loading into the printer.
  • Light Box: another thrift store find, love that it perfectly fits an 11x17" page.
  • Loupes: — for lining up the center mark with the center, and the back of the page. And for doing risograph alignment accurately without wasting your time. Just measure directly how much to move the print alignment.
  • Rulers: Westcott clear plastic 18" rulers — for marking where cut zine pages apart with the stack cutter, and ruling on top of the trim marks for trimming.

Cutting

  • Stack Cutter: Guillo Max with 17" cut capacity
  • Guillotine Cutter: from thrift store, the kind you'd see in a primary school. 20"+ blade

Folding

  • Bone Folders: Some bone, some plastic-y, of various shapes.
  • Paper Folder: Martin Yale CV-7. For folding single sheets of paper: in half, tri-fold, etc. Really nice for making pamphlets.

Binding and Stapling

  • Booklet Maker: Stitch-n-Fold B2000. Ahh, BEST THING EVER, this machine folds and staples books all in one go. And the staples are actually stitches made out of huge rolls of wire, so you don't have to reload staples.
  • Electric Staplers: Rapid 106. Love these. Used mostly for small runs, dummy books and mockups. For any production level assembly we'd use the booklet maker.
  • Long arm booklet stapler: Bostitch, not necessarily recommended.

Other Printshop Essentials

  • Hearing Protection: Bose over-ear noise canceling headphones, or foam ear plugs like Hearos Ultimate Softness, NRR 32. Big fan of wearing hearing protection when running printing equipment like the risograph, booklet maker, or stapler especially.
  • Swingline Finger Tips: for collating.
  • Tall bar-height table for collating (we have one that’s 75” long). Super important for Adam and I since we’re both tall people.
  • Anti-fatigue mats below anywhere we’re standing to work a lot: standing desk, in front of the riso or binding machine, around the collating table.

Cleaning Supplies and Maintenance

  • Gloves
  • Apron
  • Odorless Mineral Spirits
  • Workspace protection: a clear shower curtain from IKEA does the job, is easy to clean, and folds up small when not in use.
  • Simple Green

Sewing Equipment

Here’s the most essential equipment I use for sewing clothes and making all well zines and PDF sewing patterns, and making the book How to Sew Clothes. (The book has a huge run-down of sewing supplies in general, too.)

Amy and I also wrote about how we develop sewing patterns and the tools we use for that process.

  • Brother CS-6000_i_ machine
  • Pfaff Hobbylock 788 serger
  • Ironing ham and sleeve roll
  • Rotary cutter
  • Cutting mat