The Break Up

She Found in Sketch What She Hadn’t in Photoshop

*knock* *knock* *knock* Were the sounds that could be heard as I tapped on the white door of a second floor bedroom. I heard a light greeting, proceeded to open the door and enter the room. The occupant of the bedroom was standing in front of a long mirror. She was pressing dresses in front of herself switching between outfits, clearly stuck on a choice. As I sprawled myself across the bed I glanced at my friend’s laptop.

“What’s that?” I asked gesturing towards her Midget Mac. A nickname we dubbed her MacBook Air. “Oh a layout concept,” She replied. “No, not the design. The program,” I clarified. “Oh, Sketch,” she answered.

I pulled her laptop closer to myself to further examine her work.

“What happened to Photoshop?” I questioned. “Well, you know how I’ve decided I want to be a UX and UI designer. Sketch is more useful for that,” she answered. “How so?” I pressed.

I was fully aware of the affair she’d been having with Sketch. It wasn’t that she tossed away Photoshop. Just last week I saw the program open on her laptop. But I also knew she was spending more time with Sketch than I had. After all, she discovered the program before me and my episode of clarity. But what I did want to know was whether she’d already formed a relationship, and what was to become of her other lover.

She let out a sigh as she turned to look at me.

“Workflow is easier on Sketch, like with the shortcuts,” she started.

“Yeah, they’re intuitive,” I added.

“And there are a lot more shortcuts out there,” she retorted.

“Between the techniques and shortcuts, it helps create a faster workflow,” she continued as she slid her laptop from my hand. She pressed the ‘A’ button on her laptop creating an additional artboard and pulled over a preexisting mockup.

“Take text styles. You can define a text style, like how we create classes in css, and apply them to the layers. And updating the styles will update everywhere it’s used in the document,” she explained as she demonstrated the action on her Sketch project.

“And the plugins,” she said clicking on the window tab displaying the plugins she had installed. “The plugins!” she repeated more excitedly. “There’s a content generator plugin for dummy info like text, avatars, names, location, you know all that filler information we’ve been making up,” she continued, “And there are plugins that go hand in hand with tools we already use.”

“Did you know the input fields, like the position and size fields, can take in simple math operations? Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are possible with the plus, minus, asterisk and forward slash. When I need to reduce the width of an object let say by half I can just divide by two rather than manually dragging,” she gushed.

“And I’m just scratching the surface. Symbols…,” she dragged on getting lost in her world.

I felt a sting of guilt as I remembered my involvement. I was there the day she talked about buying the license. I personally won mines, thanks to Dribbble. When she brought up purchasing a license, I spent the night talking it through with her on the phone. It was a quick conversation. She seemed pressed for time and frankly speaking a little erratic yet rational.

As she explained her stories. The mockups she’s made. The nights spent designing. My mind began to drift.

“So what about Photoshop?” I asked. “What about Photoshop?” she retorted. “Well…,” I began averting eye contact. “Well, you know I do photography so it’s cool. It’s not like I’ll stop using the program,” she said casually. “So you’re keeping both programs around,” I inquired. “Haven’t you,” she remarked. I could feel a hint of disdain in her voice.

Well folks, she got me there.

That night I opened up Sketch. “Let’s get reacquainted,” I whispered to the welcome screen.

To the friend who’ll eventually realize I wrote this about her. Please don’t hate me, you are the inspiration that keeps me going.
-My inner thoughts: “Those are pretty enough of words to keep complaints away, right?”.

Hope you loved this dramatization as much as I loved writing it.

I’m curious to know about the first time you stumbled on Sketch App. Tell us your own over the top story in the comments.