Sketch tools and plugins [updated for 2020] 🚀🌈✨
[DISCLAIMER — This past year has seen design becoming increasingly modular and systematic with Design systems introduced as a feature in the latest sketch update. This article was originally written a year ago but as times change (hello 👋 Sketch 60) and the industry evolves I’ve revamped this article to bring it up-to-date.]
I’ve been using Sketch for a while now so I thought it’d be a good idea to write about the plugins and tools that I’ve found particularly helpful in speeding up my workflow. Maybe you’re already using some of these tools, or maybe they’re brand new to you. Either way, I’d love to hear from you so feel free to comment (maybe you know some more!) and hopefully, you’ll find this helpful ✌
A bit of background from me — I’ve been working as a digital designer (www.suzannah.design) and front end developer for the past few years and I’m particularly interested in exploring ways to increase efficiency and collaboration between design and development and the evermore blurred dynamic between them.
Abstract
I’ve been using Abstract for a few years now and honestly can’t imagine life without it (a bold claim, I know). I’ve come from a background in development so the concept of abstract makes perfect sense. It’s essentially versioning control like how developers use git — but for designers. If you’re not so familiar — source control means that you can have a centralized location of your Sketch files to version, manage and collaborate on. No more saving new files with each iteration, just revert to a previous ‘commit’ and away you go! It’s also just a super convenient place to store and organise all your projects with a lovely GUI to boot. The paid version ($9 and $15 per collaborator, per month) gives you the ability to collaborate and review each other’s work. If you’re solo, you’ll get by on the free version but the option is there if you’re part of a team. Developers can also benefit in these paid tiers by being able to see CSS snippets through an inspect functionality but I use another tool for that called…
Zeplin
Zeplin is a tool that I first came across as a developer which really empowered me to build a pixel-perfect design without having to second-guess the designer’s intentions. I still use it as a designer but from the other side — to enable developers to be able to confidently build my designs with the accurate specs alongside code snippets. You can also integrate it with Slack so that the team can be notified when there’s a design update or change. As I’ve always worked between design and development teams this is a godsend. It’s the ultimate collaboration tool and speaking first-hand with developers they agree. You only get one project on the free plan which is great if you’ve only one project on the go but if you have multiple projects — you’ll need to pay for a subscription. Zeplin integrates not only with Sketch but Adobe Photoshop, XD and Figma. If you’re working with websites or apps, Zeplin could be an ideal choice.
Stark
Stark is a plugin I use for every project for checking that my designs are accessible and inclusive to all. It works by checking accessibility and contrast levels in line with AA and AAA WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines). Another cool feature is that you can imitate different types of colour blindness within your document allowing you to imagine your design through another perspective. I even tried this on a colleague of mine who is colourblind and it’s surprisingly accurate! I think it’s every designer’s responsibility to have their work accessible to all so this tool is a must for me.
Angle
Angle is a super cool plugin for showcasing your design work. You can place your screens into various perspective mockups across many different devices. This looks great for presenting your work in your portfolio or for those Behance case studies. The plugin is free alongside fifty free mockups but you get over two hundred devices to add to your global sketch library in the paid version.
Map generator
I’ve used the Map Generator frequently in recent projects. It allows you to design beautiful custom map interfaces with Google Maps & Mapbox simply and easily inside of sketch. It’s very useful and I’d highly recommend. It adds that personal touch to designs if you need to include the client’s location or store location. You can customize anything from colours to markers using the Google Maps API which is then translated into a JSON file which you can copy and paste to generate your map within Sketch.
Suitcase Fusion
If you and your team are working with a multitude of text styles, you’ll probably be familiar with problems arising when colleagues don’t have access to the correct fonts or even end up using different versions of the same font and it can really impede your workflow.
The Suitcase Fusion sketch plugin is a professional font manager that lets you preview, manage, and activate, all your fonts in one place. It has a 15-day free trial, then after that its $89 annual subscription for the year but this works not only across sketch but adobe too.
Fontily
Fontily is a free plugin that can come in useful if you’ve been handed over a large and messy sketch file without text styles. It allows you to quickly find and replace fonts — as you would a variable in code. It lists all the fonts in the document and allows you to change selected ones. Change a font-type and font-weight and it will propagate out across your whole file. Magical. Great for experimenting quickly with different font sets across your entire designs and I think we’ve all been there where we’ve had to suddenly change a font stack.
Artboard manager
If you want to keep your artboards positioned neatly without having to think about it too much then this is the plugin for you. Artboard manager automatically arranges the position of all your Artboards in your document, snapping them to rows & columns. Neat huh?
Runner
If you’re a keyboard shortcut fiend like me, Runner is an amazing plugin that allows you to run, install and manage plugins inside Sketch and run other Sketch commands from your keyboard. Essentially it’s Spotlight for Sketch and a must-have. Runner used to be free but now has a tiered pricing system. The basic functionality is still free though but they also have some more advanced features and a team version that you pay for per user.
Looper
Create beautiful tessellations and geometric patterns from duplicating shapes and groups in endless variations. Looper is so much fun and I could spend hours making these. Think spirograph for adults.
Pixel Perfector
If you’re a bit OCD when it comes to pixel dimensions being consistent and rounded up to integer points then Pixel Perfect is a lifesaver. It helps you find pixel imperfect layers in your document and then select them and round them up to the nearest integer (or whatever you prescribe). It’ll help keep your documents cleaner and keep your design specs uniform.
Sketch2AE
For those of you that use After Effects and want a way to bring your sketch artboards to life then this plugin is the one for you. After Effects is arguably one of the industry standards for motion design as Sketch is to Digital Design. Traditionally, working between the two was a nightmare as you’d have to recreate your sketch designs in Adobe but the good folks at Google created the Skecth2AE plugin to supercharge the transition between the two programmes. It works by parsing artboards from Sketch to After Effects as shape layers and editable text without the need for external files. Groups and symbols are preserved while simple shapes are imported as parametric shapes for easy animating.
Then voilà ! All your sketch assets are recreated and nicely organised inside of AE within seconds.
Timelapse
Timelapse is a tool you can get for $12 that gives you the ability to record yourself working within sketch so that you can then share your progress for presentations or with colleagues in a cool high-speed video.
So that’s all from me for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and any questions just give me a holla!
