Visualize Your Ideas with Sketch
Graphic designing is an artistic avenue that many of us do not try. Aside from having a talent for art, you should also know how to use your tools. But with the emergence of various easy-to-use tools nowadays, having extensive knowledge of the workings of the design tool is not a requirement anymore. The Sketch app is among the graphic design apps available today that does not just cater to the professionals—tt is an app for all kinds of creators.
Sketch at a Glance
The Sketch app is a vector-based design tool. But don’t let that name intimidate you into starting your project. The app is so user-friendly that you won’t have a hard time using it, even if you have never seen it before. The first thing that you will notice upon launching the app is the infinite canvas. That is right—the majority of the app’s window is your canvas giving you more space to work with. But more than the seemingly limitless workspace, the app lets you use a hierarchal system of organization, like other applications. With this, you can create a workspace on groups of artboards. Think about working with layers that you can place anywhere in your canvas and move content between them.
Aside from a large workspace, Sketch also offers a completely customizable toolbar. You only need to right-click on the toolbar and start setting up your favorite tools by dragging them. With this, all your frequently-used tools are within your reach. The app also comes with a Pages function, which lets you create pages for various platforms. And as with most screen design tools, clicking on a layer will open an inspector to the right, where you can change your design’s properties.
If you are a beginner, you can start working with a UI template, which is preloaded with iOS material design and responsive web templates. And since this is a vector design tool, you can create scalable designs. Moreover, you can export multiple variations of your files at the same time. This saves you time if you wish to export at multiple resolutions.
More Benefits, Some Drawbacks
If you are familiar with Adobe Photoshop, you might find some similarities between the two. In fact, Sketch functions just like Photoshop but at a lower price—and it takes less disk space, too. Moreover, Sketch may be more adept at screen design, as it was specifically designed for it. It was a younger and more modern tool that was purpose-built.
Besides its large workspace and customizable toolbar, the app offers many of the basic features you’d expect in a designing program. These include the drawing, shape, and text tools, as well as the shape-editing points and Bezier curves. You can also make use of the alignment operation and the Boolean tools. However, the Sketch app is not made for drawing but more for prototyping—though you can import images or text to populate the prototype with more realistic data than placeholders. The app is also useful when it comes to high-precision designing.
There is a myriad of great features within Sketch that makes it a front-runner when it comes to screen designing and prototyping. However, users must note that this app is for Mac computers only. Moreover, you can only use it on one device per license. Also, if you are creating several complex files with multiple pages, make sure that you have a powerful Mac to handle it all.
Start the Sketch
To wrap it up, Sketch is a great UI and prototyping tool for both experts and beginners. While it shares some similar functions with Photoshop, it can hold its own with its various helpful features. Moreover, these functions are flexible thanks to the app’s support for plugins. As a purpose-built software with an emphasis on precision, this app can be a leader in the industry soon.
