Reasons to Love Sketch (as an Art Director)
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In Praise of Simple Language
Oct 03, 2017
I will say that I was a bit reluctant to leave my most beloved Adobe in favor of Sketch. I have been extremely loyal to the Adobe suite for all my design needs. However, over this past year and a half I have become quite the fan of Sketch. While I haven’t completely replaced Adobe with Sketch, I have definitely carved out a space in my life for Sketch. If you haven’t yet tried Sketch and are considering it, here are some helpful observations and hacks while you’re getting acquainted.
Benefits Over Photoshop
Direct Selection
Sketch has direct selection as a default. After using Photoshop for so long, this was a huge win for me. While you’re able to do this in Photoshop, it has to be turned on—which most people are unaware of. In turn, you don’t have to spend time searching through layers.
Calculations
The calculations in the inspector field save you a trip to the OS calculator. This is great for those who are in need of those pixel-perfect comps—well, I mean, who isn’t?
Symbols and Overrides
Similar to Photoshop’s smart object, but with symbols, Sketch allows for overrides. With an override, you can now change text and bitmap images within a symbol for each instance without affecting the content of your symbols overall.
Share Styles
Share styles are also a huge win for Sketch, in that you can set up design styles similar to those of CSS.Also, you decide whether you want changes to these styles to affect all layers using them.
Exporting
Finally, one of the best things about Sketch is the exporting feature. Being able to export at different resolutions is what pretty much sold me on Sketch. Whether they’re PNGs, JPGs, or groups, Sketch will do 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, and so on.
Hacks
Sketch Palettes
Keeping to brand is key, and having brand colors readily available is even better. Setting up your files with project-approved colors saves tons of time. Make sure to download and install this plugin.
Icon Fonts
While you’re at it, you might as well embed any icons you will be using into a easy menu. With this plugin, you can use thousands of icons from Font Awesome, Ionicons, and Material.
Segmented Circles
Need to create some charts with circle graphs? This plugin is almost mandatory. Even if you’ve gotten pretty good at creating graphics in Sketch, without this tool you’re wasting time.
Dynamic Button
If you do a lot of localizations, as we do at Firewood, the dynamic button is also a huge time-saver. With this plugin, your buttons will autowrap text when the time comes for translations.
Flinto for Mac
And finally, this plugin is amazing if you’re doing any prototyping. Now you can easily export all your layers and animate them without having to code one thing! Thank you, Flinto, thank you.
The sources below have a bit more information that will help you on your new Sketch adventure, if you choose to take it!