Things I Use 2026
[ Author ]
Alejandro Tercero
[ Date Published ]
Design
UI/UX: Figma, I don't use Sketch anymore unless it's opening an older project file but, I've been playing with Pencil and Paper and they do have potential.
- Prototyping: Figma, ProtoPie, Origami Studio
- Vector/Logo Design: Figma, Affinity or Illustrator if I need very specific controls or am working on older files
- Raster: Photoshop, Affinity
- Typography: FontBase, Adobe Fonts
- Icons: Phosphor, Lucide
- Animation: Rive, After Effects only if i need motion blur or any other fancy thing
- Collaboration: FigJam
- Handoff: Figma MCP, it used to be Figma DevMode but not so much anymore
- Inspiration: X,Mobbin, I try to login into Dribbble and Behance at least one time every month
- Image Generation: MidJourney,Google Image Gen
Development
- Editor: Zed (just keeps getting better)
- Editor Theme: Vesper
- Terminal: Ghostty
- Coding Agent: Claude Code, Droid
- Frameworks: Next.js, Astro
- Styling: Tailwind 4
- Design System: shadcn, Relume
- CMS: PayloadCMS, Sanity
- Auth: Clerk,Better Auth
- Git: Github Dektop
- Animation: Motion, Rive
- Storage: S3, Cloudflare R2
- CDN: Cloudfront, Cloudflare R2
- Db: MongoDb, Postgres
- Hosting: Vercel, Coolify
- Analytics: Posthog
Coffee
- Hario V60 dripper
- Origami Dripper
- Chemex
- Bodum Gooseneck Kettle
- Timemore Chestnut C2 hand grinder
- Fellow Opus Grinder
- Trade Coldbrew bags
- Beans: Alma Coffee, Trade Coffee, De La Finca Speciality Coffee
App defaults
- Launcher: Raycast
- Calendar: Apple Calendar
- To-Do: TaskHero (Custom Made)
- Clipboard Manager: Paste, Dropover
- Mail Client: Apple Mail
- Mail Server: iCloud+
- Photo Management: iCloud+
- Cloud File Storage: Dropbox, Amazon S3
- Browser: Brave
- Presentations: Figma Slides, Keynote
- News: X, Reddit
- Music: Spotify
- Password Manager: ProtonPass
- VPN: Proton VPN
- AI: Claude Desktop, NV2 (Custom)
On my desk
- M1 Mac mini 16GB 500GB
- ASUS PB278Q 27" WQHD
- Keychron K1
- Apple Magic Mouse 2
- 2TB Samsung 980 PRO SSD
- KRK 5" Classic Studio Monitor
- Linsoul KZ ZSX Earphones
On my backpack (working on the go)
- M4 Macbook Air 13"
- iPad Pro 12.9" 2018 + Apple Pencil 2nd Gen
- AirPods Pro 2nd Gen
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
Sketching
- Fabriano EcoQua Notebook A4
- rOtring Rapid Pro 0.7
- SAKURA Pigma Micron Fineliner Pens
- Tombow Mono Zero Eraser
- Alumicolor 6-in Pocket Architect Scale