Tools

Personal Stack

People ask me about my tools and setup more than I expected. So here it is. Not because my tools are special, but because how you set up your environment says something about how you think. This is mine.

↗ The Regulars

MacBook Pro 14" (M3 Pro, Silver ) My main machine. Fast enough that I never wait. Quiet enough that I forget it's running. The sliver scratches easily but I stopped caring. Tools should be used, not preserved.

MacBook Air 13" (M2, Midnight) Travel machine. Coffee shop machine. Couch machine. Light enough that I forget it's in my bag. I've written entire brand strategies on this thing at 2am in airports. It doesn't need to be powerful. It needs to be there when ideas show up.

iPhone 18 Pro Max ( Orange ) Phones are tools, not artifacts. I use it mostly for voice memos, quick notes, and capturing things I'll forget. The camera is good enough that I stopped carrying a separate one for everyday moments.

iPad Pro 12.9" + Apple Pencil This is where early thinking happens. Sketches, flows, messy diagrams that would embarrass me if anyone saw them. The Apple Pencil changed how I think through problems. There's something about drawing that typing can't replace. I use it almost every day.

↗ Workspace

Custom standing desk (oak top, black frame) I had this built when I moved to Dubai. Nothing fancy. Just big enough to spread out, sturdy enough to last. I stand about 60% of the day. Not for health reasons. I just think better on my feet.

Herman Miller Aeron (graphite) The chair I sit in when I do sit. I bought this used from a company that was shutting down years ago. It's outlasted three apartments, two companies, and more projects than I can count. Still perfect. Buy things that last.

LG 27" 5K Monitor Single monitor. Always. I've tried dual setups and they scatter my focus. One screen forces decisions about what matters right now. The 5K is sharp enough that typography looks real. That matters when you're designing.

Keychron K3 (low profile, brown switches) Quiet enough for calls. Tactile enough for long writing sessions. I've spilled coffee on it twice and it still works. That's the test.

Apple Magic Trackpad I haven't used a mouse in years. The trackpad gives me more control for design work. Gestures become muscle memory. I can move through Figma without thinking about navigation.

Muji desk lamp (black) Simple. Adjustable. Doesn't try to be smart. I've had it for eight years. Sometimes the best tools are the ones you forget are there.

Blank notebook (unbranded, dot grid) Always on the desk. Ideas start here before they touch any screen. I go through about one every two months. I don't save them. Once something moves to digital, the notebook's job is done.

Pilot G2 0.5 (black) The pen I've used since university. Nothing better for the price. I buy them in bulk and keep them everywhere. In bags, drawers, pockets. When an idea hits, the pen needs to be within reach.

↗ Design Stack

Figma Where the real work happens. I've been using it since 2017 when everyone thought Sketch would win. Figma understood that design is collaborative. That insight built an empire. I spend more time here than anywhere else.

Variant The anti-blank-canvas tool. You type an idea, and it generates an endless scroll of UI directions without needing to craft the perfect prompt. Most AI design tools make you explain what you want. Variant just keeps showing you options until something clicks. I use it when I need to see twenty possible directions before my brain locks onto one. It's not where I refine anything, it's where I figure out what I'm even going for. Exploration at the speed of scrolling, not the speed of prompting.

Paper The tool I've been waiting for someone to build. A design canvas built on actual web standards, so what you design is what ships. No translation layer, no handoff drama. It connects directly to AI agents and your codebase, which means the loop between designing and coding finally feels like one continuous thing. Still early, but the vision is right. This is what design tools look like when they're built for how we actually work now.

Framer For shipping ideas fast. I've built entire landing pages in a day with Framer. When clients need to see something real, not a mockup, Framer closes that gap. It's changed how I present work.

Whimsical Flows and diagrams. When I need to map how something works before designing how it looks. Clean, fast, no learning curve. I use it in almost every strategy engagement.

Mobbin Reference hunting. When I need to see how others solved similar problems. Not to copy. To understand the landscape before I break it.

Savee Where I collect things that move me. Not just design. Architecture, photography, typography, random textures. Taste is built from exposure. This is where exposure accumulates.

Cosmos My visual brain dump. It's where I organize inspiration into collections that actually make sense later. Moodboards, references, visual threads, all living in one place. Most bookmarking tools feel like graveyards. Cosmos keeps things alive and connected. I use it when a project needs a visual direction before a single pixel gets pushed.

↗ AI Stack

This is where things get interesting. I don't just use AI. I've built my entire workflow around it. Not because it's trendy. Because it fundamentally changes what's possible when you're building alone or with small teams.

Claude My thinking partner. The sharpest mind in my workflow that isn't mine. I use Claude for everything that needs depth. Writing, strategy, working through complex problems, critiquing my own ideas before I share them with anyone else. I feed it chaos and it helps me find structure. But I never let it lead. I lead. It assists. That balance is everything. Claude doesn't replace my taste. It helps me articulate it faster.

ChatGPT Voice mode mostly. When I'm walking and need to think out loud. When I'm driving and an idea won't wait. The memory feature is useful for ongoing projects. It knows my context without me explaining every time. I've trained it on how I think, how I work, what I'm building. Now it's like talking to someone who already knows the backstory.

Perplexity Research without the noise. When I need facts, not opinions. When I need sources, not summaries. Faster than Google for most queries now. That shift happened quietly but it's real. I use it multiple times a day.

Midjourney Visual exploration. When I need to see something that doesn't exist yet. When I'm explaining a direction and words aren't enough. Brand explorations, mood boards, concept art for pitches. It's not replacing creativity. It's extending it into places I couldn't reach alone.

Grammarly Junior editor. Catches what my brain skips when I'm moving fast. Not for style. For clarity. I want my thoughts to land without friction. Grammarly removes the friction I'm too impatient to notice.

Google Stitch I use it for rapid ideation when I need to explore ten directions before committing to one. It won't replace design thinking, but it compresses the distance between idea and something you can react to. That speed changes how you make decisions.

↗ Vibe Coding

This is the part most designers don't talk about yet. But it's changed everything for me. I'm not an engineer. I never was. But I ship code now. Real products. Real tools. Things that work in the world, not just in Figma.

Vibe coding isn't about becoming a developer. It's about removing the wall between ideas and reality. You describe what you want. AI builds it. You refine, iterate, push. The feedback loop is instant. That changes what's possible for founders and designers who think in systems.

Cursor My IDE. But calling it an IDE undersells it. Cursor is where I have conversations with code. I describe what I want, it writes it. I see something wrong, I describe the fix, it implements. I've built entire projects in Cursor without writing a single line manually. The AI integration isn't a feature. It's the foundation. This is what coding looks like now.

Claude Code Agentic coding at its best. When I need to build something more complex, I let Claude Code take the wheel. I give it context, direction, and constraints. It figures out the rest. I built impactful internal tools with Claude Code. Not by writing code. By directing it. That's the shift. From writing to directing.

v0 by Vercel For UI generation. I describe a component, v0 builds it. I describe a page, v0 scaffolds it. Then I pull it into Cursor and refine. It's become the starting point for almost every interface I build. The speed is absurd. What used to take days takes minutes.

Bolt Full-stack prototypes from a prompt. When I need to test an idea fast, Bolt gets me there. Not production-ready but real enough to feel, to test, to share. I've validated concepts in hours that would have taken weeks before. That compression of time changes how you think about risk.

Replit For quick experiments and deployments. When I want something live in minutes, Replit handles it. The AI features have gotten good enough that I can spin up working tools without context switching. Everything in one place. Idea to deployment in a single session.

Lovable Another AI builder in the rotation. Good for different things than Bolt. I use both depending on what I'm building. The landscape of vibe coding tools is moving fast. I try everything. I keep what works.

GitHub Where everything lives. Version control, collaboration, deployment pipelines. When AI is writing most of your code, you need solid systems to track what's changing. GitHub is the backbone.

Netlify Deployment without thinking. Connected to GitHub, auto-deploys on every push. I make a change, it's live. No servers to manage, no infrastructure to babysit. Just ship.

Vercel For projects that need more power. Edge functions, serverless, preview deployments. When the project outgrows Netlify's simplicity, Vercel handles the complexity without making me become a DevOps person.

Supabase Backend when I need one. Database, auth, storage. All in one place. The dashboard is clean enough that I can manage it without feeling lost. For a designer building products, Supabase is the missing piece that makes full-stack possible.

Railway For deploying things that don't fit elsewhere. APIs, background jobs, databases. Simple interface, fair pricing, scales when needed. Another tool that stays out of the way.

↗ The AI-Native Philosophy

Here's what most people miss. It's not about the tools. It's about the mindset.

I approach every project now assuming AI will be part of the process. Not as an afterthought. As a foundation. What would this look like if I could build it in a day instead of a month? What would I try if the cost of failure was almost zero? What becomes possible when the gap between idea and prototype is measured in hours?

That's the shift. Not learning to code. Learning to direct. Learning to see AI as a collaborator that amplifies your taste, your judgment, your vision. The people who figure this out first will build things that seem impossible to everyone else.

I'm not waiting for permission to be technical. I'm not waiting for engineers to validate my ideas. I think it, I describe it, I build it. That loop used to be broken for designers. Now it's not.

This is what AI-native means. Not using AI occasionally. Building your entire practice around what it makes possible.

↗ Productivity

Notion Where my brain lives outside my head. Projects, notes, meeting records, personal systems. I've tried every alternative. I keep coming back. It's not perfect but it's flexible enough to match how I think.

Things 3 Tasks only. No notes, no projects, just what needs to get done today. The simplicity is the feature. When I open it, there's nothing to figure out. Just a list. Do the list.

Fantastical Calendar. The natural language input changed how I schedule. I just type what I want and it figures out the rest. Small friction removed daily adds up over years.

Raycast Replaced Spotlight entirely. App switching, clipboard history, window management, quick calculations. I live in Raycast. It's the connective tissue between everything else. The AI features are getting good too. Another place where AI just shows up and helps.

CleanShot X Screenshots that actually help. Annotation, scrolling capture, quick sharing. I review products constantly. This makes documenting what I see effortless.

1Password Everything secure in one place. Passwords, documents, IDs, keys. The first app I set up on any new device. Non-negotiable.

Arc Browser that thinks differently. Spaces for different contexts. Clean interface. Little AI features sprinkled throughout. I moved from Safari and haven't looked back. It matches how my brain organizes work.

↗ Audio

AirPods Pro (3rd gen) Daily drivers. Transparency mode for walking. Noise cancellation for deep work. Not audiophile quality but always in my pocket when I need them.

Sony WH-1000XM5 For long sessions. Flights, focus blocks, days when the AirPods aren't enough. I resisted over-ear headphones for years. These changed my mind. The noise cancellation is absurd.

Sonos Move In the home office. Music while I work. Podcasts while I cook. Good sound without complexity. It just works.

↗ Reading & Learning

Kindle Paperwhite Books only. No notifications, no apps, no distractions. I read every night before sleep. The Paperwhite disappears in your hands. You just read.

Readwise Where highlights go to become useful. Connected to Kindle, articles, podcasts. Surfaces old highlights when I've forgotten them. Knowledge compounds when you revisit it.

Pocket Articles I'll read later. Most I never do. But the ones I return to tend to matter. It's become a filter for what actually deserves attention.

YouTube Premium No ads. Background play. Worth every dirham. I learn more from YouTube than most courses. Interviews, breakdowns, deep dives into topics no course covers. Education looks different now.

NotebookLM Google's sleeper hit. I feed it documents, research, transcripts. It synthesizes and lets me have conversations with the material. For deep research projects, it's becoming essential. The audio overview feature is wild. Turns any document into a podcast discussion. The future of learning looks like this.

↗ Everyday Carry

Bellroy Tech Kit Cables, adapters, dongles, AirPods. All in one pouch. I grab it and go. Nothing to remember because everything's already there.

Bellroy Slim Sleeve Minimal wallet. Few cards, some cash. I barely use it anymore. Apple Pay handles most things. But when I need it, it's thin enough to forget.

Apple Watch Ultra 5 Controversial choice. I resisted smartwatches for years. But the health tracking won me over. Sleep, activity, heart rate. Data that actually changes behavior. The regular watch face keeps it feeling like a watch, not a tiny phone.

Field Notes (kraft, ruled) Always in my back pocket. For moments when the phone feels wrong. Quick sketches, phone numbers, things I need to remember. Analog has its place.

↗ Travel

Aer Travel Pack 3 One bag travel changed how I move. This fits everything I need for a week. Carry-on always. No checked bags. No waiting. It's built for people who travel often and hate friction.

Peak Design Tech Pouch Larger kit for longer trips. Extra cables, hard drives, international adapters. Organized chaos that actually stays organized.

Roam luggage (carry-on, black) When the backpack isn't right. Hard case, minimal design, built to last. I've dragged this through airports on four continents. Still looks new.

↗ Home

LG C3 65" OLED For movies, sports, and occasional gaming. OLED blacks are real. Once you see them, regular TVs look broken.

Apple TV 4K Runs everything. Fast, clean interface, no ads in the menu. The best streaming device I've used. Remote is still mid though.

Sonos Arc Sound for the living room. Movies feel different with good sound. This delivers without the complexity of a full system.

Philips Hue (throughout) Lighting that adapts. Bright white for working. Warm dim for evenings. It sounds unnecessary until you experience how much light affects mood.

Unifi Dream Machine Network that doesn't disappoint. Fast, stable, handles everything I throw at it. I set it up once and forgot about it. That's the goal.

↗ Philosophy

I don't chase new tools. But I also don't ignore what's changing. The line between designer and builder is disappearing. The people who see that early and adapt will have an unfair advantage for years.

My setup isn't about having the best of everything. It's about removing every barrier between having an idea and making it real. That used to require teams, budgets, timelines. Now it requires taste, judgment, and knowing how to work with AI.

Everything here earned its place by being reliable, lasting, and staying out of my way. The AI tools earned their place by expanding what I can do alone. That combination is the new leverage.

Build things that matter. Think clearly. Ship work I'm proud of. Move faster than should be possible.The tools are just tools. But the right tools in the right hands change what's possible. That's the game now. And I'm playing it.