The Best of 2017

Our 10 most-loved design and development articles.

Learning and growth were driving forces at Black Pixel in 2017. We launched two new apps, Kaleidoscope 2 for iPad and Pixelboard. We continued to improve our beloved Mac apps, Kaleidoscope and Versions. And we built beautiful apps for flagship brands.

Each project brought fresh challenges and opportunities to expand our expertise. And, as always, we enjoyed sharing what we learned with you.

As we head into 2018, let’s look back on this year of learning with the top 10 articles you loved most in 2017.

1. Rolling Your Own Framer Animations
   Learn how to animate a layer along a motion path in Framer with this tutorial by Staff Designer John Marstall.
2. 6 Framer Modules for Building Better Prototypes
   Create beautiful prototypes in Framer with help from these modules and resources from our design team.
3. iOS Accessibility: Lessons We’ve Learned on Building Apps for a Wider Community
   Accessibility is everyone’s responsibility. Build more accessible iOS apps with these tips from our developers.
4. Building a Peer-to-Peer Whiteboarding App for iPad
   Senior iOS Developer Jared Sinclair discusses the technical challenges we overcame while building Pixelboard, our peer-to-peer whiteboarding app with real-time collaboration.
5. Working With Large Files in an iOS App
   Performance is paramount with mobile apps, since users touch the UI and expect an immediate response. See how we made Kaleidoscope for iPad as responsive as possible while working with large files.
6. Our Favorite Xcode Shortcuts
   Did you know ⇧+⌘+o lets you quickly open Xcode files and functions? Or that ⌘+⇧+J comes in handy when you lose track of the file you’re editing? Make your workflow faster with these and other favorite keyboard shortcuts.
7. How to Make VoiceOver More Friendly in Your iOS App
   Group accessibility items in complex views for a better VoiceOver experience with this tutorial from Senior iOS Developer Kellen Styler.
8. How to Design Responsive Layouts in Framer
   Staff Designer John Marstall shows us how to simultaneously design for multiple screens and create responsive layouts in Framer.
9. The Value is the Boundary
   Take a look at how we reduced view controller complexity on a recent iOS and tvOS project. While there is more than one way to approach this problem, our solution scaled well across design revisions and changing expectations.
10. Designing for the Nintendo Switch
    Dive deep into Nintendo Switch design with some popular app explorations and a free Sketch UI kit for designing your own app concepts.

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