A Mac window setup for designers
The design tool wants the whole screen, and so do references, feedback and the browser. How to give the canvas room and keep the rest a swipe away.
Design work needs one huge window, the canvas, and several small ones: references, the brief, feedback threads, the live site. They fight for the same screen.
Give the canvas the screen
Keep the design tool full width or close to it. Everything else goes beside it, out of view, rather than on top of it.
A row that works
- Brief and references at a third, on the left.
- Design tool, full width, in the middle.
- Browser with the live page, then chat and feedback, on the right.
In ClutterFreeMac, ⌃ ⌥ F makes the canvas full width; swipe left for the references, right for the browser. Stack a colour picker or image viewer under the brief with ⌃ ⌥ ].
Small panels that should float
Some tools open small palette windows. Windows that cannot be resized already float above the row on their own, and any app can be set to always float in Settings, Apps. ⌃ ⌥ T floats or tiles the window in front.
Questions
How do designers arrange windows on a Mac?
Most keep the canvas as large as possible and put references beside it. A scrolling layout lets the canvas stay full width without hiding the rest.
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