Sketch is a great design tool. It was the first app I used when starting out in my UX Design program and it stayed my primary design tool today. It is can be used to create amazing web pages and mobile app screens. I’ve even used it to make a Mother’s Day card. The design possibilities are endless.
Sketch is a vector-based program, meaning that it uses geometry and math to create high resolution designs. Vector graphics allows for generally infinite scalability up or down without loss of quality. It makes for some very beautiful designs without having to spend umpteen hours to finesse. You can draw basic shapes (like circles and rectangles), add text, import images and so on. Every element you design becomes a layer, which you can manipulate in a million ways by adding color or altering axis points. Don’t worry about making a mistake. Any change can be undone by using the standard undo edit function.
While Sketch cannot compare to the vaster array of options that Adobe Photoshop offers, it does provide its own plethora of tools and techniques that create some impressive work. I personally have found that I enjoy creating icons and cartoonish artwork with it. I also love being able to import whatever thousands of different font types to get just the right effect out of my readable content.
While I have learned a great deal about the world according to Sketch, I still have more to discover. Currently, I am trying to make more realistic imagery and eliminating harsh borders like you see in a stick man drawing. I recently discovered making shadows and wrinkles in clothing using the vector pen and shades of gray. Wow did that discovery take my designs up a notch!
The one downfall to Sketch is that you will only find it available on macs. It was created and relies on iOS features to perform. Although there are some alternatives/extensions out there can give you similar experience for a Windows platform. Check out the Figma or Lunacy apps to learn more.
So let’s get out there and create some stuff.
After being forced to do some design work using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, I had a new appreciation for Sketch: It is easy to use and has a short learning curve. Now I understand why Photoshop is so exacting and takes a lot of practice. It can create beautiful photos and art too, but it relies on
