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Q&A with Sacha Greif

Coder and entrepreneur from Osaka | User interfaces & mobile

I'm a designer / developer / writer, originally from Paris, France but now living in Osaka, Japan. I spent most of my career as a freelance designer, but I now focus on my own projects. Basically, I try to come up with good ideas and then implement them.

My current main focus is an open-source app called Telescope, which lets anybody run their own community or social news site. I use that app to run Sidebar, a collaborative design newsletter.

I also used what I learned building Telescope to write Discover Meteor, a book about the Meteor JavaScript framework. So although many people know me as a designer, 90% of my time over the past year has been spent writing and coding.

Hardware

I use a Retina MacBook Pro. I'm a big believer in minimalism and not getting too attached to possessions, so this is the only piece of hardware I really care about. Sorry, I guess that doesn't make me the best guest for this type of interview!

I do also have a Teenage Engineering OP-1, which is an amazing piece of hardware, but I've yet to find the time to actually learn how to use it properly so it's sitting in its case most of the time. Hopefully I'll get to that soon!

Software

I mostly use the same stuff as everybody else (Photoshop, Sublime Text, etc.), but here are a few utilities that make my life a little bit better: Frank DeLoupe is a great color picker, SnapnDrag Pro is awesome for screenshots, and Clocks is perfect for keeping track of different timezones.

Dream

Whatever the latest 15 inch MacBook Pro happens to be at the moment. That's all I need, really.

Inspiration

I actually try to avoid "getting inspired" as much as I can. I already have an endless to-do list of things that need to be taken care of, so I can't afford to get distracted… But if you're looking for inspiration, I would definitely recommend signing up for Sidebar!