What makes Sketch so great?

Let me give you a little insight on how a certain application gave me back my enjoyment of designing again.

My design mojo had been feeling low for quite some time, and I was becoming a little disengaged from my role as a UI designer. Not a ‘Network’ style “I‘m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”, more of a Rolling Stones “I can’t get no satisfaction…. with the current design application I’m using” moment.

After many years of creating for the web, both in a designer, and developer role, and working through the spectrum of small, to big name clients, I started to question my design output with the software I was using (Photoshop in my case).

It wasn’t an overnight feeling that the work I was producing was becoming a little stale (hey we’re our own worst critics aren’t we?), but a more gradual one over the course of about 6 or 7 months.

There were other elements also that started chipping away at my design, and development processes. One of those was the speed at which I could produce the next project, due to the fact that the projects I was working on at that particular time needed to have a quick turnaround for my cashflow to remain healthy. I was up against it in terms of the quality of the work I could produce in the small window that I had.

I road-tested various products out there, including a couple of all-in-one, ‘design, and we’ll spit out the code for you’ applications (shudder). I can see the hardcore developers readying their pitchforks, and burning torches with that last sentence.

But none were suited to me. It went against everything I had taught myself over the years. To create your best work, you design in a program like Photoshop, you develop in a code editor. That was the done thing. Hardcore developers you may now lower your pitchforks. Normal service has now resumed.

The one golden nugget I took away from those applications was the cleanliness of their UIs, and their way of concentrating on only the important elements you needed to produce great work, and increase your productivity at the same time.

And so, via a few Tweets that I’d stumbled across, brought me to Sketch. Huzzah!

The key things that switched me onto Sketch were what I’d seen in the products I had come across previously on my travels. The focus, the simplicity, the stripping back of the superfluous from the UI.

An application that was much more suited for the modern day UI designer, and one that could help me get back to creating my best work, and give me a much needed kick up my bezier curved butt in the process.

Sketch has helped improve my design output, and increase my efficiency at the same time. And I’m sure, by following the steps in this guide, it will do the same for you.

Thanks for reading the article,

Marc

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