What’s on your desk, Vjeran Pavic?

Video is an important part of The Verge, and Vjeran Pavic is an important part of our video team. His official title is senior video director; for the most part, he’s the one behind the lens creating videos and photos for our site. He is also (unofficially) our in-house drone expert. His workspace at home is deceptively simple; we asked him for a tour.

Tell me a little about yourself. How did you get to The Verge?

I have a Master’s and BS in journalism, but I have always found it easier to tell stories through visual media, hence my love for photos and videos. Before joining The Verge, I was part of the small but mighty Re/Code team, which was bought by Vox Media, and I was transferred over to the incredible video team here.

Let’s start with your desk. Where is it located, and where did you get it?

My desk is located in a busy neighborhood in San Francisco in a very small room where I work, eat, sleep… I need to move out… After days and weeks of researching, I decided to get the Blue Lounge StudioDesk mostly because of its size, looks, sturdiness, and the built-in storage compartment.

That’s an interesting setup it’s got, with the sunken areas.

I try really hard to keep my area organized. I used to have a much larger desk from Ikea, but since I moved to a smaller room, I also had to also look for a smaller desk. So the next logical thing was to find something that has some built-in storage. That’s where I keep my emergency trackpad and shove all the ugly cables out the way. The wooden shelf on top of the desk also helps with storing things like SD cards, hard drives, hubs, and this cool toolkit, which I use to tear down gadgets for fun.

Tell me about your chair.

As most video / photo people will tell you, back problems are common, and I spend too much time sitting in front of monitors. Once I moved to San Francisco out of college, the only thing I was ready to spend money on was a good, solid, reliable chair. I waited for a black Friday sale, hoping that I’d see a discount for a solid chair somewhere, and I was right. A very random furniture store had an online sale, so I was able to snag this Herman Miller Aeron. The only thing that drives me crazy is that the lumbar support attachment keeps popping out of place, and I have no idea how to fix it. So if anyone has any tips, talk to me in the comments.

Tell us about the tech that you’re using.

I used to be an avid two-monitor person (horizontal + vertical), but I didn’t want my desk to be too cluttered, so right now, I’m back to a single monitor — the Dell U2718Q 4K 27-inch. I decided to tuck it underneath this desk shelf as I don’t like seeing its base, and I think it looks much better this way. I do have a Wacom tablet, which doubles as a monitor, but in all honesty, it is rarely turned on. I usually use it for Photoshop, and that’s about it.

I’m currently using my own MacBook M1 Pro, and I’m hoping that one of these days, I’ll be able to have a separate desktop computer. It feels wrong to have this laptop and not take advantage of its XDR display.

There’s also a lot of tech I’m missing. You might’ve noticed that I don’t actually have a webcam with this setup, which is something that I’ll eventually fix. But for now, I use my iPad Pro as a dedicated Slack and Zoom machine. I still haven’t updated to iPadOS beta, but I’m hoping Universal Control makes switching between the two easier.

Lastly, every gadget I own is hard wired to the ethernet. That includes my laptop, Apple TV, PS5, Xbox Series X, and one of my favorite gadgets — the Synology DiskStation DS620slim NAS, which I use for backup and storage of my private work and also as my Plex server.

I see you’ve created quite a lot of storage in the room: the shelves in the closet, in an alcove, and under the TV. And it looks like the closet storage has a lot of gaming tech.

Oh yeah, I’m all about shelves, and I constantly keep rearranging them. I keep moving my personal camera gear, drones, books, collectibles, accessories, tripods… It might not seem like much, but I swear most of my closet space is just stacked to the gills. That’s where I keep my own drones, drones I’m currently testing, camera accessories, GoPros, even more hard drives, and many, many cables.

To the left of your computer display, it looks like you have a number of interesting items. Could you tell us about them?

Some of you might know this, but I’m a massive FromSoftware fan, primarily Bloodborne. Even my wallpaper is Bloodborne fan art made by a great artist Anato Finnstark. The hammer-looking thing is a hand-painted collectible from the game, which I ordered from Japan right before the pandemic hit. It took a very long time to get here, but it’s finally here, and I just think it looks cool as hell.

The glass bowl is a little decoration I made myself, which represents, you guessed it, more Dark Souls lore. The gray sand represents Ash Lake, an area of the game. The purple sea moss represents purple moss, which, in the game, is used to cure poison. And the sword, well, I used to have a scimitar from Dark Souls 3 but have replaced it with the kusabimaru from Sekiro. So, yeah, I told you I was a fan.

Lastly, there are some candles and extra-long matchsticks, which are placed on a postcard made out of precious rock from the island of Brač (in Croatia) by a local sculptor, Jakšić. Which serves as a subtle reminder to call my parents every now and then. Hi, mom and dad!

Is there anything else about your workspace that we haven’t covered?

Really can’t think of anything. I have many plans to upgrade my workspace, but right now, my priority is to keep it neatly organized. I was very close to getting a 43-inch monitor, but after all the CES announcements this year, I think I’ll wait a bit before making that decision. There are so many cool monitors coming out.

And last (but certainly not least), could you introduce us to your beautiful cat?

Ahh, yes, my favorite question! Meet Aspi, my pandemic pet. I’m not entirely sure what kind of breed he is, but Siri seems to be adamant that he’s a Turkish Angora, so let’s go with that. He’s a big sleeper and my best friend who made WFH life a whole lot better. Also, it’s his third birthday in two weeks, so be sure to wish him a happy birthday.