Adding Sketch To Our Toolbox

As Digital design is becoming more complex, we need new tools that can handle the complexity and increasing number of deliverables. For whatever reason-technical inertia maybe-Adobe Photoshop became the de-facto design tool used in the majority of agencies. Photoshop was never meant to be used as a layout tool; it was designed twenty-seven years ago to digitally manipulate photos. We needed something more up to the task, and decided to give Sketch a try.

Sketch was created about five years ago, and it is a layout tool. It hit the market with great new features for layout, artboard breakpoints, and asset exporting. For years, those were major bottlenecks in the digital asset production process.

Here is where Sketch excels:

• Symbols are a core feature and big timesaver
• Single Document can handle all screen layouts for a project
• Less file bloat
• Great export options
• Layout grids
• Easy specification generation
• Awesome plugin community

We don’t have much bad to say, but it’s worth mentioning that Sketch is:

• Mac OS only
• Some auto layout and constraint features are cool, but only work for the simplest use cases

Sketch has quickly become the primary design tool at Electric Enjin. It helps us design more precise layouts, create more deliverables, all much faster than before. It has made the design to developer handoff process more efficient. This means delivering more value to clients, because we can focus more time designing, not on tedious production tasks.