Q&A with Jake Bresnehan

I am Jake Bresnehan. I am the one behind Web Design Weekly.

Every day seems to be a blur. Maybe due to the massive Chemex I pour down my throat each morning. Once the caffeine has got into my blood stream, I head off to work on my bike to my day job at Yahoo!7. There I’m a front-end developer working with a very talented team. When the clock strikes 12, the foosball starts. A couple more coffees and bugs fixed and it’s time to call it a day (of normal work).

When the clock strikes 12, the foosball starts. A couple more coffees and bugs fixed and it’s time to call it a day (of normal work).

Most evenings are spent working on something Web Design Weekly related, the occasional freelance job, tweaking my ‘old fashioned’ recipe or exploring Sydney’s many restaurants and bars.

What hardware do you use?

I roll with a 15 inch retina MacBook Pro, iPhone 5 and a 3rd generation iPad. At work I use an external 23 inch Dell monitor stacked on top of the laptop and some trusty Sennheiser PX 360s.

Whilst commuting the laptop is stashed in an old school puffy jacket style Targus case, bought some years ago in Japan, and the iPad sits in a one-of-a-kind felt case that my partner made for me.

And what software?

Chrome and Sublime Text are my main weapons of choice, with iTerm2 a close runner up. My iTerm2 setup is very similar to Remy Sharp’s, which makes it super awesome when working inside Git repositories. I also use Photoshop for all the usual jazz.

Alfred has become irreplaceable, especially with a few custom workflows like Jonnie Hallman’s Gif Workflow and Alfredlytics. Things by Cultured Code handle all my tasks. Email is managed with Apple’s Mail app. I’m not a big fan, but it offers a consistence experience across the iPad and iPhone, which is a big win for me. Simplenote holds all my thoughts. It’s probably one of my favourite apps at the moment. It only tries to do one thing and it does it perfectly. When writing anything of length I tend to jump around between various markdown apps but Editorially is currently my go to.

A few other notable apps that get a work out everyday are Rdio for awesome beats, Droplr for quick screenshots and annotations, Bartender to make the menu bar more attractive and Adium for handling multiple IRC channels. Oh and Dropbox for everything!

What would be your dream setup?

The 15 inch MacBook Pro feels like the perfect machine at the moment but a soundproof room with an OS that is completely in the cloud that is synced perfectly to all my devices wouldn’t go astray.

Where does your work inspiration come from?

When away from the desk, I need to be outside, fuelling my body with adrenaline. This brings out the best in me and gets me inspired. Most weekends I tend to go rock climbing or wingsuiting with like-minded adrenaline-seeking friends.

When away from the desk, I need to be outside, fuelling my body with adrenaline. This brings out the best in me and gets me inspired.