22 comments

  • David McGillivrayDavid McGillivray, 10 years ago

    Holy crap, Sketch parallels CSS properties, I downloaded it last week but havent' tried it yet.

    This will change my life. I already design in vector using Illustrator for obvious reasons, but something that can accurately mimic letter-spacing and other CSS properties 1:1 would be so helpful to my workflow.

    2 points
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      Illustrator is for illustration, imo. I think Sketch is exactly what you need if you love merging design with CSS. I'm not sure if the 1:1 is exact -- I need to verify that.

      0 points
      • David McGillivrayDavid McGillivray, 10 years ago

        Disagree, Illustrator is solid with the recent upgrades to be honest, it's certainly not just for illustration!! I know a lot of designers that made the switch over the last year. I've been using it professionally for a while, but will indeed be checking out sketch.

        0 points
        • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

          That's interesting. I guess what puts me off in Illustrator is the fact that everything is in pt and not everything is exactly the equivalent to Photoshop (styles, gradients, properties), like Sketch does.

          Sketch operates in px as a ruler even though it's completely vector based. It makes things simpler for me to have one universal unit.

          0 points
  • Karl DanningerKarl Danninger, 10 years ago

    As a developer/designer, I still feel that I would need to stay current with tools that are relavent to the industry. If I'm getting a design from a studio, I expect to break into it with ease.

    How would sketch play into design handoffs to the dev/designer who implements that design?

    2 points
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      I think Sketch is a much easier tool to learn than Photoshop. It's completely code-friendly which means that as a dev/designer, you can quickly look at the properties and apply them on your CSS files.

      From experience, our Web front-end person really likes Sketch and prefer it from PS, and our iOS developer even went ahead and sometimes do his own assets from my Sketch files, which is always encouraging. :)

      1 point
  • John MauroJohn Mauro, 10 years ago

    Nice post. I've heard a lot of great things about Sketch. Haven't had too much time to play around with it but it looks promising. I think Sketch's biggest hurdle for adoption is the pervasiveness of Photoshop unfortunately. It seems that other functions of companies, e.g. marketing, are used to receiving editable PSDs to make tweaks to copy etc.

    1 point
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      Yes, but then again I heard many times from non-designers that just don't want to open Photoshop because it's a very complicated application to learn and do basic stuff. It doesn't make sense to pay hundreds for people who won't use Photoshop daily. I think the main hurdle is from designers who have built their PSD libraries over the years.

      There's something magical about starting from scratch and re-evaluating your design process for today's standards. I'm sure that if enough great designers hop on and share their Sketch files, that legacy won't be as much of a problem anymore. :)

      0 points
  • Benjamin FritzBenjamin Fritz, 10 years ago

    "Photoshop forces you to use Drop Shadow, Inner shadow, Gradient, etc once." Not true as you can kinda "nest" them with smart objects or apply effects on groups now but still, I'm in between a shift of tools now, too. Good read.

    1 point
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      Smart object is an interesting technique, although not the most straightforward since you have to "Edit Contents" and edit the original shapes. I'm sure there are many workarounds. :)

      0 points
  • Florian PnnFlorian Pnn, 10 years ago

    If Sketch could export to Photoshop format i would be awesome, better to exchange files between designers!

    0 points
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      It's a good thought! What's interesting is that both applications understand SVG files. That's enough for me. :)

      0 points
      • Florian PnnFlorian Pnn, 10 years ago

        Yes but when one of your designer want to change the color into the shadow, he can't !

        0 points
  • Nathan ManousosNathan Manousos, 10 years ago

    I'm trying to get into Sketch. Some things that are bugging me as a Photoshop user are below. Anyone have any tips for dealing?

    • No easy zoom shortcut (cmd + space) in photoshop
    • No dot grid or color customization for grid lines
    • No ability to switch between layout grid and square grid, or to show both.
    • Difficult to manipulate layered/grouped objects. command+ click lets me select things, but when I go to resize, it often selects items behind.
    0 points
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      Needless to say that Sketch isn't a perfect application. There will be things that you are really used to in Photoshop that you won't find in Sketch. :)

      1) Not sure but Command & + or - works. 2) Never thought that grid dots were particularly better than grid lines. 3) You can switch between grid types. Sketch does miss the blue ruler lines though. Never used multiple grids at once. 4) This one is slightly buggy but I learned to work with it. It's the same as Photoshop to be honest.

      0 points
      • Nathan ManousosNathan Manousos, 10 years ago

        Just found out option + scroll works to zoom but it doesn't center in on your cursor and the sensitivity is all off.

        I work sooo fast in Photoshop, I understand that I'll be slower using this at first, but it seems like for many things, there isn't a fast way to learn/practice.

        1 point
        • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

          Nice find! I personally just use Comment & + / - I worked really fast with Photoshop too. But I work a lot faster on Sketch!

          At some point, my PSD files had hundreds of layers and things started to slow down, e.g. it took sometimes 15 secs to open a file (I had a non-SSD drive and a lot of PSD files open). On Sketch, everything is just instant-fast regardless of the number of files open. The zoom can be slow though but I think they're working to fix that.

          0 points
  • Kyro Beshay, 10 years ago

    I played with Sketch before and found it to be a bit too dumbed down for me, but after reading this, I think I'll give it another try. I won't use it as an outright replacement for Photoshop just yet, but it'll serve as my wireframing tool now.

    0 points
    • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

      They improved a lot since the last version. When you really take the time to use it, you'll find that it's definitely not a dumbed down version of Photoshop. :)

      0 points
  • Nicola RushtonNicola Rushton, 10 years ago

    I wish I could use Mac at work.

    0 points
  • Meng ToMeng To, 10 years ago

    What made me switch to Sketch after 12 years of using Photoshop.

    0 points