Whether it’s music production, graphic design, animation or even live-streaming, there’s never been a more accessible time to delve into a new creative skill. While building up your expertise and knowledge in the area might take a while (the 10,000 hours theory does ring true), ensuring you’ve got the right gear set up and ready to go first is essential.
Luckily, for most creative pursuits, this usually means having some kind of specialty software at your disposal and having two or three pieces of equipment on hand — one being a high-performing laptop.
Given the average creative endeavour requires a little more fiddling than your average office job, here’s how to get the most performance out of your laptop, so you can focus on creating rather than troubleshooting tech issues all day.
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Understand Your Workflow
While multiple parallels can be drawn between the process that entails creative pursuits, the workflow required to carry different skills out varies. For example, the workflow set up for a music producer using ProTools to record a session will look entirely different for someone live-streaming a Twitch session, that’ll then get edited down for a YouTube cut.
The laptop pick will be primarily influenced by the type of creative work you do. For example, video and photo editing software will have significant GPU acceleration. On the other hand, if you’re looking into podcasting, finding a laptop with a long battery life could be helpful while recording segments on the go.
Buying a laptop that’s not built for these tasks will probably end in a lot of frustration (and could even kill your motivation along the way too). If you’re unsure, look into models built for creative activity — like, ASUS’ VivoBook series, tailor-made for various content creators. While each laptop in the range comes fitted out with up to an AMD Ryzen 9 or an Intel Core i7 processor and a dedicated graphic card , there are features specific to models in the range that’d benefit different kinds of creatives.
For example, the Vivobook M7600’s touchpad with dial gesture control would largely benefit music producers working within fiddly DAWs, while the OLED display and Thunderbolt connectivity on the M3500 and K3500 would be largely beneficial to graphic designers looking to get bright, high-quality imagery.
Having used them recently, I can wholly attest to their graphic abilities, lightweight build and easy connectivity to OneDrive, making file saving super easy. They’re also designed for Adobe Suite use (you can actually score a complimentary Adobe Creative Cloud membership with the purchase of a Vivobook right now), have ScreenDial capabilities, an inbuilt Nividia Studio driver and reduced blue sensitivity, making them optimal for all creatives if you’ve yet to decide on a discipline.
The VivoBook fits right in with our podcast studio setup.
Keep Track Of Your Hardware & Organise A File-Saving System
While most of your creative work will probably happen within the software you use, keeping on top of the hardware required to carry out your endeavours is essential. Considering how many ports your laptop has, whether you’re using the correct keyboard and mouse and whether your creative work needs another custom piece (like an audio interface or a digital drawing pad) will help get the most out of your device.
On top of this, maintaining the storage within your laptop is essential too. Unfortunately, creatives aren’t known to be the world’s most organised people — alas, you’ll need to put aside the stereotype and figure out a system that works for you and your files because running out of storage on a laptop is a sure-fire way to have things slow down.
Lastly, it’s crucial to continually run operating system updates and remove any bloatware on the device once you start using it to ensure storage space.
Keep It Clean
It seems obvious but keeping your laptop free from the perils of food crumbs and drink spillage is a must — it’s probably the easiest way to get the longevity you want out of your tech. Regularly cleaning out the keyboard and various crevices will help reduce any potential overheating and keep your laptop working at optimal performance. If you’re carrying your device while travelling, invest in some sort of laptop bag or case that’ll reduce the chance of any hardware damage too.