Surface and the Business of Creation
If you put a Surface Book in the hands of a digital artist for a week, chances are you won’t get it back – or at least not without protest. Simply put, artists love to create with Surface. Take visual artist Roz Hall, for example. He loves the mobility and freedom of his Surface, along with the natural feel of the Surface Pen: “you really feel connected to it. Just like you were painting in real life.” To him, Surface gives him fantastic portable control of his artwork.
And it’s not just visual artists who use Surface. For musical artists such as MØ, Surface provide a way to connect and collaborate with her fans. For classical composers such as David William Hearn, the Surface provides a platform to create new music. Actually, for folks like David, it also provides the platform to create the platform (not only is he a composer, he’s also the creator of the revolutionary music notation app StaffPad).
While its natural interface and mobility make the Surface Book an ideal device for creative artists, its performance specs allow professionals in a variety of businesses to tap into (and get the most out of) their own creative pursuits.
Bringing CAD to life with Surface:
Computer-aided design (CAD) professionals require a lot of computing power to effectively iterate and improve on their designs. Increasingly, though, the engineers who rely on CAD also need to have mobility to be able to design in the field or on a manufacturing floor. Until recently there really was a trade-off with performance vs mobility. With Surface Book they don’t have to choose: they get both. It’s probably the reason that Surface is the fastest-growing mobile device platform with the user base of leading CAD program Solid Edge by Siemens.
A great example of this is with Philip Normand, Director of R&D for Ross Robotics. Because Ross Robotics create modular robotic technology, Surface’s combination of power and mobility are essential to Philip. One moment, he might be explaining detailed and complex technical drawings to a supplier, and the next, he could be out in the field showing rendered images and videos to potential partners. Although he works in a highly technical role, Philip is really an artist at heart. It comes through when he describes his Surface as a blank canvas on which other people can paint their ideas.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yZ55XNWuyUw
Mobile power in the hands of developers
Another set of highly demanding professionals are software and game developers. Creating engaging new digital worlds often means that they’re out and about finding inspiration from their interactions in the real world. But to bring these worlds to life requires a lot of processing power. Developers like Kelvin McDaniel are sharing their performance stories online, answering the question of whether or not the Surface Book is good for developers with a “solid YES” – even going so far as posting his Surface Book’s real-time performance online while he was writing and debugging code: all while running a host of other programs (VS 2015, SSMS 2014, SQL Server Express, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Groove, Skype) simultaneously in the background.
Other programmers, such as Joseph Woodward from Somerset, are also sharing stories of their real-time Surface performance, showing that even while running “memory gobbling” programs such as Visual Studio he’s got “more than enough memory and CPU remaining to ensure build times are fast and the system remains responsive.” But he also highlights his Surface’s mobility, and the fact that he’s able to take it anywhere he goes.[i]
Where Art Meets Business (Graphic Artists and Surface)
While a lot of developers are drawn to the Surface because of its combination of performance and mobility, many others love Surface because of a very different type of flexibility, being able to shift between being an artistic canvas and a work machine seamlessly.
Take Ryan Spoering, PhD, for example. As the founder of Lab Machinist Solutions, Ryan uses the Surface’s computing power and portability to create customised apparatuses and research tools for scientists. But he’s also an artist, and the sophisticated interface of the Surface pen has allowed him to get back in touch with his love of creating art. Watch Ryan’s story here. Or there’s artist and designer Justina Blakeny, who’s using the artistic functionality of her Surface to experiment with and create new designs, but also using the technical capability to help distribute these ideas and designs to a whole new audience of potential clients and fans.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z6lrd4WTNlQ
What will you build with Surface?
Regardless of whether you work in a creative field, want to unlock your inner creativity in your current role, or just want the freedom that comes from the Surface Book’s unprecedented combination of mobility and processing power, we encourage you to start by attending our on-demand webinar: Getting the Most out of Your Surface Book.
Register for our free Surface Book on-demand webinar now
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[i] Both of these stories have come from real developers posting their un-solicited experiences with their Surface devices online.
