Q&A with Niklas Bivald

My name is Niklas Bivald. I'm a tech guy at heart. My passion is the belief that teach and creativity are like milk and cookies - not opposites. I currently work as a Technical Director for the swedish agency The World Loves. I also lecture at Hyper Islands Executive Programs which are intensive three-day courses for creative industry professionals. If I have any spare time left after that, I do technical concept development together with the Hyper Island Digital Media students, helping them to bring their solutions even further. That part is complemented nicely with the 2 AM Skype calls from panicking students wondering why their application won’t compile - the day before their major exhibition.

Hardware

I am a simple guy. A Macbook air, an iPhone (or other smartphone) and I am good to go.

Software

Software is quite the list. Client side I'm on a Macbook Air (or similar), using sublime text and git for coding. Server-side I use Xen for virtual servers. Basically I have 1 virtual server per project. Keeps everything nice and separated.

Dream setup

I think my dream setup is more dependent on task and the people around me then hardware and software. Hardware is cheap these days (OK, maybe not the Mac Pro - but otherwise).

Inspiration

My main inspiration is almost paradoxal. I get inspiration from two main sources: personal projects (of which I have a ton) and simply not working. It's easy to work too much but it comes with a price, once you pass a threshold your creativity, productivity and happiness decrease with additional load. Make sure you have enough time to do personal projects that inspires you (regardless is that project is lecturing, programming or photographing).