Your desk setups, part 1: a peek at the Community’s work- and gaming spaces

Week by week, our Editorial Team have been showing off their working-from-home setups in a series of articles. By popular demand, we’re now making the Community a part of it. More than 70 people responded to our call for submissions, sending details of their desk setups by e-mail. Thank you! Each submission we received was every bit as exciting as our own workspaces and deserving of its own article. But there were simply too many.

I’ve noticed specific trends among the many submissions we received. They’re summarised here in this article, and we’ll publish another piece highlighting a particular aspect later on.

Mission: keep this boatload of hardware in shipshape

The average person to respond to our call for desk setups is male and works as a software developer or IT professional. They attach great importance to orderliness and go to considerable lengths to achieve it.

The easiest path to a tidy desk is keeping your equipment to a minimum. However, that’s a no-no for most tech nuts. They usually have more than one computer and often have several monitors. On top of that, they have a variety of gadgets and special devices such as microphones. Despite this bounty of hardware, they want the number of cables on show to be minimal.

Nicolas is representative of many of our respondents. He has three monitors, a gigantic PC, a sound system and a Wacom tablet, but doesn’t want to see any cables. And he’s got his wish. As long as he doesn’t look under the desk, that is. According to him, there’s cable chaos under there.

Cable management’s important to you

Having both a love of orderliness and loads of devices is only possible with cable management. Some people attach their cables to the underside of their desk. They usually have several connector strips and cable rails installed there. That way, you only see the cables if you want to see them. As Raphael’s submission proves, this also works with a height-adjustable L-shaped desk.

Leo and Tamino, who’ve set up similar workstations next to each other, have submitted another example. The two work in photo and video production, each using a Macbook and a stationary Windows PC. They also have monitor speakers, a docking station for their notebooks, a microphone for video calls and more. But despite all this hardware, there’s hardly a cable in sight.

Barbara doesn’t just stand out as a result of being the only woman to show us her workspace. Her submission also made its mark because it shows she hides her cables in a box. Incidentally, her screen is a 43-inch TV, so the perspective’s a little deceptive.

And the Messy Award for 2024 goes to...

I’m suspicious of perfectly tidy desks. As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Even if we are only talking about digital omelettes. There should at least be a brown, ring-shaped coffee stain somewhere on the tabletop. Do people really work at such immaculate desks? Or have they just set them up like this for the photo?

To avoid risking our photos getting too sterile, let’s take a look at Dominik’s desk. This, by the way, is the tidy version of it. «You don’t want to know what it looks like untidy,» he noted in his submission. «That’s why I’m applying for the 2024 Messy Award.» Since there were no other entrants in that category, we’re more than happy to give the prize to you, Dominik.

Rather than being a workspace, Dominik’s setup is purely for his hobbies and gaming.

The feel-good factor

When it comes to a good working-from-home setup, feeling comfortable is of particular importance. In addition to order – or creative chaos – numerous other aspects factor into this. Ergonomics being the prime example. Many of our readers have an electric height-adjustable desk. These days, desks like this are so common that the feature’s rarely even mentioned. However, I’m able to recognise it by the control buttons.

Lighting is also crucial for desk-users’ well-being. People often install lights on the wall behind their screens. Philips Hue Play is popular, as is RGB in general – especially among gamers. We’ll be publishing a separate article relating to gaming later. There are also people out there who expressly don’t want RGB.

Applications for video calls can artificially blur the background so that it doesn’t look too unsettling. However, these settings often only make things worse, which is even more annoying. Jöel, on the other hand, doesn’t have this issue. He’s hung up a photographic bokeh as a background. He wrote in his submission: «The image in the background creates a sense of depth of field. Above it, there’s an original MTA New York Subway stop map in a light frame. Underneath, I have an LED light organ that takes some of the rigidity out of the background by moving slowly during webinars.»

How much nature do you want?

Modern office furniture often looks cold and uninviting. Jan combines his high-end equipment with furnishings that wouldn’t look out of place in an old English manor. There are family heirlooms on the left and right of the photograph. His audio setup comes from luxury brand Burmester.

The light-coloured wood gives Jeremy’s office a warm, inviting atmosphere. He works in a coworking space in a shared flat. The custom-made table top with a hole for cable routing is placed on an electrical height-adjustable Ikea frame.

Sacha’s fitted his wall with wooden acoustic elements. Mostly for his neighbours’ benefit. He keeps his gaming and work desks separate. The four-metre-long desk, as you might have guessed, is height-adjustable. There are Philips Hue lights on the wall.

People who like wooden elements often have a penchant for greenery too. Louis likes houseplants, but doesn’t have green fingers. The result? A ton of artificial plants, including an entire wall.

Instead of bringing nature into his home, Alain has taken the opposite approach by moving his workspace into the forest. I guess taking a laptop outside would’ve been too easy; his setup includes a desktop PC and an uninterruptible power supply.

That was just a taster of what’s to come. We’ll be publishing additional articles on individual setups in more detail in the future.