Positioning itself in the world of web design and development, Sketch is a perfect pick for designers and techies looking to speed up the design workflow. A well-acknowledged name in the web design industry, Sketch is constantly attracting designers with it’s features.
Overview
With the latest released versions, Sketch 2 and 3 which bring along an added simplicity and intuitiveness as compared to Photoshop, more and more designers have been switching to it. Sketch, as a graphic designing application, features a pixel preview which allows designing interfaces and icons with the usage of Multiple Pages, Artboards, Symbols and Shared Styles to quicken and simplify the overall designing process
Designed especially for modern designers, Sketch is being loved because of its multifarious tricks. In order to strengthen the overall process, Sketch is featured with some outstanding features that not only save time but give a real competition and threat to Photoshop. Let’s see how Sketch has dominated the market with its compelling features-
Artboards
The creation of multiple artboards has become a piece of cake with Sketch designing application. If you are planning to design a responsive site, Sketch’s Infinite Canvas. By default, Sketch offers Canvas that is fruitful to take the advantage of Artboard presets. The presets can be chosen directly from the sub-toolbar by clicking on Artboard button. Using these presets, designers can easily organize their work via a predefined dimension. Artboards are perfect for designing views on mobile and can automatically be resized to accommodate the height and width of layers.
Exporting
Exporting is one amongst the appealing features of Sketch, which makes exporting all the files in an easier way. All users need to click the “Export” button situated at the bottom-right corner for exporting the icon buttons in mobile navigation. These icons can further be saved for the web either in SVG or PNG format. This incorporates almost everything in relation to displaying the assets on varied screen sizes.
Pixel Precision
When designing for mobile, Pixel perfection plays a critical role. With Sketch, you automatically get to shape your Pixel edges and prepare assets for different screen sizes and pixel densities. Sketch allows you to easily position the pixels in your design with Pixel Precision functionalities. It is an easy to implement feature which produces sharp outcomes exact to your business needs. It also offers the ability to edit and preview each Pixel.
Sketch-Easy Grids
The grid method is the easiest to design images in a clean, precise and straightforward way. “Create Grid” requires you to click on the four boxes given in the sub-tool bar. Doing so will display a pop-up menu where you can specify the total number of rows and columns you want to arrange the selected objects into. Next step is about selecting “Boxed Option” for defining the areas encompassed with every object and spacing into them. Composing an image in the easiest ways is possible using this approach. Sketch supports- “Regular Grid” and “Layout Grid”.
Templates
Sketch allows users easily creating a new file using the feature “template”.
Here’s how
Go to menu item file and choose new from the template.
The current file can also be saved as a template to start each project from the initial stage.
This process yields beneficial results, especially when designing for iOS. Any file with a status bar and navigation bar can be created easily and saved as a template.
Shortcuts
The advanced Sketch shortcuts will massively help you enhance your UI design process. One can also create their own shortcuts via OS X System Preferences.
Vector-Based
Surviving in the age of Mobilegeddon, it becomes important to have a vector-based design. When coming up with innovative ways to display content on the screen, designers should look forward to high-definition versus normal definition display, narrow screen vs wide screen and many other things. It is equally important to have a design which restyles all the formats; however, coming up with a different picture for each device range is a painstaking process. With Sketch, the problem gets solved easily as it allows you to freely resize objects.
Smart Guides
Smart Guides is one of keyboard shortcuts available with Sketch. They allow you to snap-align all the layers. The “ALT” key can be used to easily see the guides and spacing between objects.
Color Picker
Sketch requires pressing CTRL+C to quickly choose a color of your choice from anywhere. Simple and virtuous. Isn’t it?
To summarize
Sketch is all about offering the power, flexibility, and speed which you would have always dreamt of in an easy-to-use designing package. Made specially for modern graphic designers, Sketch incorporates plenteous workflow, extensions, and features that are focused on producing better results, thereby producing high-quality artwork from the start till the end.