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#sorry for the dedicated dark project fans. if you know what the general series tag is. please let me know
katabay · 3 months
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original thief series basso & garrett :)
ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels
there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.
anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.
⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app
#if i had a laptop and the skillset i would attempt a story mod because the thief modders who create whole mission stories#are GENIUS and also somewhat terrifying. love them! xoxox#anyway im actually kind of obsessed with parts of thi4f but its also like. not at that sweet spot of almost good enough to be fun#to talk about. which. for the record. has not stopped me from talking about it at length to people#the city itself actually fucking fascinates me. its almost alive and im SO mad that not a single part of that game is actually terrifying#it should be gnarlier and instead it feels a bit like it doesn't quite want to be trapped in the story it has to tell?#but between the level that has the bodies on the meathooks#and the scene with the bodies hanging from the rafters or whatever that was and garrett living in a clock tower#because the game is very much ALMOST about changing times and authoritarian violence and capitalism#(like. by virtue of how the story sort of spins out i think it misses it's mark on a lot of stuff here#in the sense that i dont feel like it actually wants to tell that story. it wants to. go in a different direction. or at least walk on top#of those themes instead of through it)#ANYWAY between all of those things. it does kind of live in my head rent free. they did create a compelling setting#SHAME THEY DIDNT WANT TO ACTUALLY EAT ANY OF IT#unrelated but i would've given thi4f a 10/10 if they kept garrett's fucking nail polish from the concept art. cowards. unforgivable#thief the dark project#i still have no idea how to tag the game series as a whole RIP#sorry for the dedicated dark project fans. if you know what the general series tag is. please let me know#garrett thief#basso thief
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2wnikiangel · 5 years
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Ask game
Rules: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people. Because I always feel I little bit nervous, when I need to tag people I like or follow, I would like to see answers of everyone who found this game interesting!
Tagged by @kasielartist. If you don’t know her, just go to check her awesome arts. She’s very talented and I think we will hear about her more in the future. And she’s very kind and modest. Just a precious. :)
Warning: I love writing, so everything you’ll read by me is pretty long. Not Sorry.
Nickname(s): My father started to call me “Niki” when I was 4 years old and I’m so used to it, that I practically like it more that my real name. Some of my friends likes to call me “Angel”, because I like to help people. That’s why my full nickname is Niki Angel. And yes, my older sister calls me “špunt”, that’s a czech slang for “very small person”.
Zodiac: Acording to Horoscope, I am -- creative (yes), passionate (kind of), generous (yes!), warm-hearted (yes!!), cheerful (yes!!!), humorous (trying but failing), arrogant (well, yes), stubborn (more than anyone around me), self-centered (nope), lazy (ooooh), inflexible (yes, and I hate it) -- a summer and Sun child, Leo.
Height: Something between dwarf, human and elf -- 1.55 cm.
Hogwarts house: Traits: dedication, hardworking, fairness, patience, kindness, tolerance, modesty, loyalty and produced the fewest Dark wizards of all the four Houses. Who I am? I’m Jean Valjean Hufflepuff! I remember how sad I was like a kid when everyone thinked about me like a stupid person, just because I was in the Hufflepuff. But, after some time, I wear our colors just proud as other houses. Because we have nothing to be ashamed of! Just look at the traits! That’s something what can change the world in the most positive way!
Last thing I googled: Keanu Reeves. It was because in Czech republic he isn’t so popular and everyone around tumblr and youtube are just so crazy about him that I wanted to know why. Now I know and I watched two films yesterday with him in lead role.
Fave musician(s): I FREAKING LOVE MUSIC. My taste it’s pretty diverse. I wrote only favorite of every gender of music I listen mostly everyday, because otherwise we would be there for more than a week. When you click at the name of the artist(s) you can hear my favorite song made by them.
Kpop: Ultimate favorite is “TVXQ”. It was my first Kpop band back in 2007, when I started to listening Kpop. Then I love “VIXX” (+ “Leo” / “Ravi” / “LR)”, “4Minute” (+ “HyunA” / “TripleH” / “Troublemaker”) and “KARD”. Others I like to listen everyday:
Girlband: “2NE1″ (+ “CL”), “AOA” (+ “Jimin”), “BLACKPINK”, “Brown Eyed Girls” (+ “GaIn”), “CLC”, “EXID”, “Girl’s Day”, “Girl’s Generation” (+ “Taeyeon”), “Miss A”, “Red Velvet”, “Secret” (+ “Hyoseong” / “Jieun”), “SISTAR” (+ “Hyolyn”), “Stellar”, “T-ARA”
Boyband: “100%”, “B.A.P” (+ “Yongguk & Zelo”), “B1A4″, “BEAST”, “Big Bang” (+ “G-dragon”), “Block B”, “BTOB”, “BTS” (+ “Rapmoster” / “Agust D”), “EXO”, “GOT7″, “iKON”, “INFINITE”, “JJCC”, “MBLAQ”, “MONSTA X”, “Nu’est”, “SHINee”, “SS501″, “Super Junior”, “U-Kiss”
Solo: “Ailee”, “BoA”, “DEAN”, “HOLAND”, “Hyoshin”, “Jessi”, “Sunmi”, “YEZI”
Rock / Alternative: Tie between “Panic! At the Disco” and “The Score”. Their music helped me on every exam on university and inspireted one of my biggest Les Mis fanfic project (I think it will be done next spring). Others: “8 graves”, “30 Second to the Mars”, “Billie Eilish”, “Against The Current”, “Coldplay”, “Disturbed”, “Evanescence”, “Fall Out Boy”, “Five Finger Death Punch”, “Get Scared”, “grandson”, “Hurts”, “Imagine Dragons”, “Linkin Park”, “MISSIO”, “Nine Inch Nails”, “One Republic”, “Set It Off”, “SIAMÉS”, “Starset”, “The Cab”, “Thousand Foot Krutch”, “The Neighbourhood”, “Twenty One Pilots“, “Digital Daggers”
Classic: Favorite is our composer “Bedřich Smetana” His Moldau is still one of my favorite piece of work. Then “Beethoven”, “Mozart”, “Vivaldi” and “Wagner”.
Cover: Because this talented people matters too! “Chase Holfelder”, “Nick Pitera”, “Peter Hollens” and “ZEK”.
And many, many, MANY soundtracks and instrumental music for games, films, series, original works, etc.
Following: Les Misérables and Ao no exorcist artists, writers and fans. Some psychology blogs too.
Followers: 10! And I really appreciate it. I’m still new to tumblr, not so active and my fanfiction writing is still on start. Hope, maybe after some years, I will have more thank to my works.
Song stuck in your head: “Imagine Dragons songs battle - Peter Hollens vs. Chase Holfelder”.
Amount of sleep: 2-4 hours per day. I’m so used to live under pressure, stress and lack of sleep, that’s is weird to sleep more than 4 hours. That sometimes happens on holidays, 1-2 times in year. And I seriously don’t remember how much sleep I’m getting. Maybe 8 or 9. Irony -- I love sleeping, but we have some love-hate relationship.
Lucky number: 13. Stuck with me from my middle school years.
Do you get asks: Actually - no. And I need you to know, that I’m absolutely okay with them. So if you want to ask something or just chat or you have problem and want to help, just messege me. I’m open to everyone.
What are you wearing: Red summer dress. (And, yes, I’m not one of the fashionable person you want to know.)
Dream job: Soldier! But... Well, I’m too small and not 100 % healthy so I must give up this dream when I was 14 years old and my doctor told me that I will never be a soldier. It was pretty hard for me back then, but I decided to work for police in Special Victims Unit with focus on sexual abuse on children. I’m slowly getting there thank to studying and hard work!
Instrument(s): I played piano profesionally for 10 years. I stopped after some time on highschool because I could no longer attend courses in my town. I can still play it, but don’t have piano or keyboard at home, so I sometimes play on train stations just for the nostalgy. BUT! I want to buy my favorite piano for 30. birthday. Hope I will save the money, I have 7 years for it. OH, and I can play some songs on quitar.
Language(s): Motherlanguage is czech, so is absolutely normal for me to understand slovak. I speak english, even thoughs I have C1 certificate, I’m nervous and can’t speak or write without shaking, sweating and making stupid mistakes. I learned german on middle and high school, but can’t say a shit practically anything in this freaking language. When someone ask me something in croatian, polish or russian, I mostly understand but I blame it on Slavic roots. And I’m learning french for 6 months now, because I always wanted to speak and understand this language.
Fav song(s): “Hurricane by 30 Second to the Mars”! Mentioned already in the “Favorite musician(s)” ask.
Aesthetic: piano sheets, coffee, blue color, literature, music, theather, optimistic thoughts, deep thoughts, dogs, family, friends, love... <3
Random fact(s): My lucky number is 13, so 13 random facts about me!
MY FAVORITE book is “The Picture of Dorian Gray”; musical is “The Phantom of the Opera”; anime is “Yu Yu Hakusho”; manga is “Ao no Exorcist”; film is “The Shawshank Redemption"; series is “Game of Thrones” but not the season 8; band is “TVXQ”; color is blue in any shade; season is autumn; dogbreed is “Czechoslovakian woldog” and icecream with flavour of citrone or pistachio.
My biggest dream it’s make everyone on this world happy, satisfied, loved and accepted.
I’m coffe AND tea person. I can’t choose what I love more!
I love cleaning the house while listening (and stupidly dancing and falsely singing) to music.
My life motto? “Freedom. Beauty. Truth. Love.” Bohemian all the way!
I’m pretty shy and don’t talk much at first. I like to be around people, don’t get me wrong, but mostly I’m a listener. That’s maybe why I love writing so much.
I already know what song will play at my funeral! It’s “Lacrimosa from Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart”.
I’m romantic! If you’re my parnert just prepare to be woke up with your favorite breakfast, we will watch your favorite series and talk about it all the time, I will plan our vacation just to make sure it will be unforgettable for you, I will buy your favorite perfume, I will DIY presents for you, I will respect and love you with all my heart, I will praise your work, I will learn about your hobbies and support them... Yeah, my friends call it’s “annoyingly submissive” but who cares? That’s just me.
Even thought what I wrote here (^8.) - I fall in love only one time in my whole life. It was 2 months after my 18. birthday. He was tall, black-haired cishet man, witty, inteligent, humourus, gently, ironic, sarcastic and beautiful human being. And he’s my boyfriend for 5 years now and we have awesome 1 year old daugher. 
I studied law and public administration in highschool and criminology on university. In Semptember this year (2019) I’ll start my master’s degree for public safety and 2 years long psychology practice. After this I’ll go to work and start my distance learning of psychology (A/N: 3 years for bachelor + 2 years for master + 4 years for doctor + 2 years of another practive - then exams and only AFTER ALL OF THIS you can become a psychiatrics with your own office! That’s why I wanted start studying this subject AFTER my police graduation).
I have emepthophobia - abnormal and very strong fear of throwing up. This is why I eat only things I know for long time (no raw meat, no sushi, no experimental cusaine); I don’t like eating at restaurants (I’m afraid that some guest can get nauseated and start throwing up); I don’t go to amusent parks and never was (and I'll never be!) on their attractions; I am abstinent (Don’t try to force, seriously); I don’t like to be around drunk people; I hate hospitals and doctors (even thought a deeply respect them, but try to get the tube into my mouth ONE MORE TIME AND WILL DESTROY ALL YOUR BLOODLINE) and I HATE films when they put throwing up like “comedic” aspect (mostly American comedies. That’s why I don’t watch them.). Actually, just writing it down makes me anxious because I imagine all the things I’m writing and it’s horrible... (I needed to stop writing, calm myself for like half a hour and even after this I didn’t wrote everything that I hate about this phobia).
I’m demisexual but still don’t see myself as a part of the LGBT+ comunity. Maybe because when I come out some friends of the comunity (namely gay, lesbian a trans female lesbian) they say that “demisexuality is nothing compare their fight for rights” and it’s “just another heterosexual made-up thing for which don’t want sex or want to judge others who love sex with no relationships including”. That’s why, when someone ask me why I support LGBT+ so much and have so many friends of them, I’m saying that I am a “Straight Ally”. Even though I know it’s not all the true (because I don’t identify myself like heterosexual at all), I just don’t fell I need to explain or “come out” like some others. I just live with it and I’m happy. To all demisexuals: Don’t ever think you are weird. You aren’t! You can fall in love. You can feel aroused. You can have fuctional relationship with no sex or sex including. You don’t need to have anyone to be happy. Just like have a family, child/children, husband/wife and be sometimes excited to be touched by your loved one(s). You can love or hate hugs. You can found someone attractive just INSIDE and be happy with it. Every demisexual it’s different. But still matters. Don’t ever think about to be ashemed by your sexuality. It’s your thing and NO ONE can’t say a shit about it.
Yeah, and I beat cancer when I was 17 by the way. And still not 100% healthy but living.
Thank for tagging and hope you found it interesting!
See you next time, maybe with my another Les Mis fanfiction!
0 notes
anthonykrierion · 6 years
Text
Demystifying the Design Process with Sketch
For non-designers, there is often a level of mysticism around the way we work. In your job, it may well be your responsibility to brief a designer, but as for what happens in between that stage and finally seeing the fruits of their labour – well, this may be rather alien. While it’s not necessarily important to know the ins and outs of this (in a similar way that I can’t claim much knowledge for what our developers do code-side), this post aims to demystify the process and shed light on one of my favourite design programs at the moment, and equip you with good reason to convince any digital or web designer you work with to pick it up if they don’t use it already. Not to mention that having a top-level overview of design software makes it a whole lot easier to communicate with those that do use it.
If the above doesn’t quite apply to you, don’t click off just yet; there is still value to be had if you are:
A designer – learn how this program and accompanying tools can improve the way you work.
A jack-of-all-trades – discover how you can improve the design aspect of your role
A manager – as if by magic  find out how to streamline your team and processes
Still here? Great, let’s begin.
Disclaimer: This is not an advertorial.
While it would be nice to have been sponsored to write this post, it’s worth clarifying first of all that any hints of sales chatter that may ensue should just be read as pure enthusiasm for the product.
So, to cut to the chase, my most-recommended piece of design software at the moment is Sketch. It’s my partner in design if you will. I started using it around two years ago and haven’t looked back since. Before getting on to the ‘why?’  and ‘how?’ though, let’s briefly touch upon what it actually is (and isn’t)  for those in the dark.
Sketch? What’s that?
On paper Sketch is a ‘proprietary vector graphics editor’. From a user perspective though, it’s essentially a blank canvas in which you can design and create anything from a macro website right down to the nitty-gritty aspects of a user-interface.
Rather than just rattle through more points about what Sketch is and what it’s capable of, I want to throw in a quick lowdown as to what it isn’t:
It isn’t anything to do with SketchUp (which happens to be a 3D graphics modelling programme) so best not to get them confused.
It isn’t an illustration, photomanipulation or text-setting tool – these are best left to Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, respectively.
It isn’t going to work in Windows/Linux etc. – sorry! It’s an Apple macOS-only program; though the benefit of this being that it’s incredibly well-designed and intuitive for Mac users.
It isn’t going to break the bank! Sure, it was the free trial that roped me in to give it a go, but it was the very reasonable price tag that converted me to a paying user.
Life before Sketch
Before Sketch came along, my go-to design programme had always been Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator and I go way back, to my teen years, before I ever thought of myself as a designer. Over the years I’ve built up a bank of knowledge and can convincingly say that I now have a pretty good understanding of its features, and am more than happy to sing its praises over the likes of Photoshop. Similarly, when I joined Distilled, the other designers here were also keen advocates of Illustrator, and so it never occurred to me to question the process. Until one day I was chatting with a designer from another company, and on finding out our process, looked at me with incredulity and asked: “You use Illustrator for web build design?!” To be fair to us, there are plenty of designers who did, and still, do this. But importantly, this set the wheels in motion for me to look beyond our tried and tested tools. After some research it seemed a lot of people in the design community were raving about Sketch – this relative ‘new kid on the block’; so I set myself the task of using it for the next project I was assigned to.
I was immediately sold; and here are three reasons why you should be too.
1. Designed for digital, with a kickass online community to match
Unlike Illustrator, Sketch is designed for digital-first use cases in mind. With that comes an understanding that us digital folk want things done fast, we want them now. The time it took for me to go from deciding to try it out, to downloading, installing and opening the app, was less than five minutes. Anyone who has ever tried to get Illustrator on their machine before can relate to how amazed I was at the speed. That’s not a surprise, considering the app itself comes in only at 45.2mb, in comparison to Illustrator CS6 at 259.8mb.
Sketch’s UI is laid out in a clean, modular fashion, with no potential for toolbars to become unwieldy and disparate  (which I’m definitely guilty of in Illustrator), and this ease of use if further reflected in the way the programme operates:
No matter how intuitive a tool is, questions are bound to crop up when you start doing more complex things. Luckily I quickly learnt what a great online community Sketch has fostered. My favourite forum is sketchtalk.io where you can generally expect pretty fast response rates.
Not only is this community great in sharing knowledge on a case-by-case basis, there are also those who eagerly contribute by writing plugins (often open source and free to use) which enhance the capabilities of Sketch. For example, just the other day I came across AnimateMate, allowing users to create simple animations. This is just one example amongst many. Usually, if I know something I specifically want to do that isn’t natively built into Sketch, I’ll consult Google – ‘[blank]  plugin for Sketch’. Or, I might occasionally browse directories like this and this to discover new goodies.
All in all, the payback far outweighs the minimal learning curve of familiarising yourself with slightly different keyboard shortcuts.
2. Save time (and money) by streamlining the route from design to development
Prior to Sketch, my process from taking a design into development typically looked like this:
Create layouts in Illustrator.
Write up a detailed spec document for the developer, including aspects such as font weights and sizing, and hex code colours to name but a few.
Export a series of flat image or PDF from Illustrator for the dev and manually save any assets they might need, e.g. icons, images or logos.
Dev then goes away and uses the above to code and build by eye to match the design.
Expect a few feedback rounds on getting sizings, padding etc spot on.
Instead, my process is cut pretty much in half and now consists of just three steps:
Create layouts in Sketch.
Export layouts into Zeplin (third party plugin) project.
Invite developer to the Zeplin project (which literally just takes seconds).
Zeplin is my second most favoured tool when it comes to design. Its saved me hours by eliminating the need to do a write up a spec, manually export assets and cuts down the back and forth with developers by a mile. In fact, it almost deserves another post all to itself, but in the meantime, they’ve got the ground covered in a couple of quick overviews as to how Zeplin is good for designers and also developers.
If I still haven’t convinced you yet, just know that a lot of these new time-saving tools only support Sketch and not Illustrator ;-)
3. Work with a tool that’s as agile and iterative as you
Sketch is an app that’s constantly improving and pushing out updates. There’s even a part of their site dedicated to showcasing the latest changes. From a user perspective, I love this – it shows that I’m getting a product that’s at the forefront of technologies. And of course, it’s not cumbersome to update, no machine restarts etc.  The majority of them are done in the time it takes to go make a brew. Given that there’s not a single day in which the digital landscape isn’t changing, it’s great to know that the tool you’re working with is also changing and improving with it.
In fact, as much as it is about delivering the best user offering, it is a market as competitive as any other. As well as die-hard Illustrator and Photoshop fans to try and lure away, there are others trying to steal market share, for example, Adobe XD and soon-to-be InVision Studio. The Sketch folk know they can’t rest on their laurels, and I’m looking forward to another year of great updates fuelled by a dose of healthy competition.
Closing thoughts
To summarise, Sketch has revolutionised the way I approach design, forcing me to think more about the power of automation and in turn benefiting from that with shortcuts that don’t compromise on quality. I urge anyone working with designers to get them to give it a go. And with a one-month free trial, there’s really no excuse.
Demystifying the Design Process with Sketch was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing
0 notes
davidrsmithlove · 6 years
Text
Demystifying the Design Process with Sketch
For non-designers, there is often a level of mysticism around the way we work. In your job, it may well be your responsibility to brief a designer, but as for what happens in between that stage and finally seeing the fruits of their labour – well, this may be rather alien. While it’s not necessarily important to know the ins and outs of this (in a similar way that I can’t claim much knowledge for what our developers do code-side), this post aims to demystify the process and shed light on one of my favourite design programs at the moment, and equip you with good reason to convince any digital or web designer you work with to pick it up if they don’t use it already. Not to mention that having a top-level overview of design software makes it a whole lot easier to communicate with those that do use it.
If the above doesn’t quite apply to you, don’t click off just yet; there is still value to be had if you are:
A designer – learn how this program and accompanying tools can improve the way you work.
A jack-of-all-trades – discover how you can improve the design aspect of your role
A manager – as if by magic  find out how to streamline your team and processes
Still here? Great, let’s begin.
Disclaimer: This is not an advertorial.
While it would be nice to have been sponsored to write this post, it’s worth clarifying first of all that any hints of sales chatter that may ensue should just be read as pure enthusiasm for the product.
So, to cut to the chase, my most-recommended piece of design software at the moment is Sketch. It’s my partner in design if you will. I started using it around two years ago and haven’t looked back since. Before getting on to the ‘why?’  and ‘how?’ though, let’s briefly touch upon what it actually is (and isn’t)  for those in the dark.
Sketch? What’s that?
On paper Sketch is a ‘proprietary vector graphics editor’. From a user perspective though, it’s essentially a blank canvas in which you can design and create anything from a macro website right down to the nitty-gritty aspects of a user-interface.
Rather than just rattle through more points about what Sketch is and what it’s capable of, I want to throw in a quick lowdown as to what it isn’t:
It isn’t anything to do with SketchUp (which happens to be a 3D graphics modelling programme) so best not to get them confused.
It isn’t an illustration, photomanipulation or text-setting tool – these are best left to Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, respectively.
It isn’t going to work in Windows/Linux etc. – sorry! It’s an Apple macOS-only program; though the benefit of this being that it’s incredibly well-designed and intuitive for Mac users.
It isn’t going to break the bank! Sure, it was the free trial that roped me in to give it a go, but it was the very reasonable price tag that converted me to a paying user.
Life before Sketch
Before Sketch came along, my go-to design programme had always been Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator and I go way back, to my teen years, before I ever thought of myself as a designer. Over the years I’ve built up a bank of knowledge and can convincingly say that I now have a pretty good understanding of its features, and am more than happy to sing its praises over the likes of Photoshop. Similarly, when I joined Distilled, the other designers here were also keen advocates of Illustrator, and so it never occurred to me to question the process. Until one day I was chatting with a designer from another company, and on finding out our process, looked at me with incredulity and asked: “You use Illustrator for web build design?!” To be fair to us, there are plenty of designers who did, and still, do this. But importantly, this set the wheels in motion for me to look beyond our tried and tested tools. After some research it seemed a lot of people in the design community were raving about Sketch – this relative ‘new kid on the block’; so I set myself the task of using it for the next project I was assigned to.
I was immediately sold; and here are three reasons why you should be too.
1. Designed for digital, with a kickass online community to match
Unlike Illustrator, Sketch is designed for digital-first use cases in mind. With that comes an understanding that us digital folk want things done fast, we want them now. The time it took for me to go from deciding to try it out, to downloading, installing and opening the app, was less than five minutes. Anyone who has ever tried to get Illustrator on their machine before can relate to how amazed I was at the speed. That’s not a surprise, considering the app itself comes in only at 45.2mb, in comparison to Illustrator CS6 at 259.8mb.
Sketch’s UI is laid out in a clean, modular fashion, with no potential for toolbars to become unwieldy and disparate  (which I’m definitely guilty of in Illustrator), and this ease of use if further reflected in the way the programme operates:
No matter how intuitive a tool is, questions are bound to crop up when you start doing more complex things. Luckily I quickly learnt what a great online community Sketch has fostered. My favourite forum is sketchtalk.io where you can generally expect pretty fast response rates.
Not only is this community great in sharing knowledge on a case-by-case basis, there are also those who eagerly contribute by writing plugins (often open source and free to use) which enhance the capabilities of Sketch. For example, just the other day I came across AnimateMate, allowing users to create simple animations. This is just one example amongst many. Usually, if I know something I specifically want to do that isn’t natively built into Sketch, I’ll consult Google – ‘[blank]  plugin for Sketch’. Or, I might occasionally browse directories like this and this to discover new goodies.
All in all, the payback far outweighs the minimal learning curve of familiarising yourself with slightly different keyboard shortcuts.
2. Save time (and money) by streamlining the route from design to development
Prior to Sketch, my process from taking a design into development typically looked like this:
Create layouts in Illustrator.
Write up a detailed spec document for the developer, including aspects such as font weights and sizing, and hex code colours to name but a few.
Export a series of flat image or PDF from Illustrator for the dev and manually save any assets they might need, e.g. icons, images or logos.
Dev then goes away and uses the above to code and build by eye to match the design.
Expect a few feedback rounds on getting sizings, padding etc spot on.
Instead, my process is cut pretty much in half and now consists of just three steps:
Create layouts in Sketch.
Export layouts into Zeplin (third party plugin) project.
Invite developer to the Zeplin project (which literally just takes seconds).
Zeplin is my second most favoured tool when it comes to design. Its saved me hours by eliminating the need to do a write up a spec, manually export assets and cuts down the back and forth with developers by a mile. In fact, it almost deserves another post all to itself, but in the meantime, they’ve got the ground covered in a couple of quick overviews as to how Zeplin is good for designers and also developers.
If I still haven’t convinced you yet, just know that a lot of these new time-saving tools only support Sketch and not Illustrator ;-)
3. Work with a tool that’s as agile and iterative as you
Sketch is an app that’s constantly improving and pushing out updates. There’s even a part of their site dedicated to showcasing the latest changes. From a user perspective, I love this – it shows that I’m getting a product that’s at the forefront of technologies. And of course, it’s not cumbersome to update, no machine restarts etc.  The majority of them are done in the time it takes to go make a brew. Given that there’s not a single day in which the digital landscape isn’t changing, it’s great to know that the tool you’re working with is also changing and improving with it.
In fact, as much as it is about delivering the best user offering, it is a market as competitive as any other. As well as die-hard Illustrator and Photoshop fans to try and lure away, there are others trying to steal market share, for example, Adobe XD and soon-to-be InVision Studio. The Sketch folk know they can’t rest on their laurels, and I’m looking forward to another year of great updates fuelled by a dose of healthy competition.
Closing thoughts
To summarise, Sketch has revolutionised the way I approach design, forcing me to think more about the power of automation and in turn benefiting from that with shortcuts that don’t compromise on quality. I urge anyone working with designers to get them to give it a go. And with a one-month free trial, there’s really no excuse.
0 notes
ronijashworth · 6 years
Text
Demystifying the Design Process with Sketch
For non-designers, there is often a level of mysticism around the way we work. In your job, it may well be your responsibility to brief a designer, but as for what happens in between that stage and finally seeing the fruits of their labour – well, this may be rather alien. While it’s not necessarily important to know the ins and outs of this (in a similar way that I can’t claim much knowledge for what our developers do code-side), this post aims to demystify the process and shed light on one of my favourite design programs at the moment, and equip you with good reason to convince any digital or web designer you work with to pick it up if they don’t use it already. Not to mention that having a top-level overview of design software makes it a whole lot easier to communicate with those that do use it.
If the above doesn’t quite apply to you, don’t click off just yet; there is still value to be had if you are:
A designer – learn how this program and accompanying tools can improve the way you work.
A jack-of-all-trades – discover how you can improve the design aspect of your role
A manager – as if by magic  find out how to streamline your team and processes
Still here? Great, let’s begin.
Disclaimer: This is not an advertorial.
While it would be nice to have been sponsored to write this post, it’s worth clarifying first of all that any hints of sales chatter that may ensue should just be read as pure enthusiasm for the product.
So, to cut to the chase, my most-recommended piece of design software at the moment is Sketch. It’s my partner in design if you will. I started using it around two years ago and haven’t looked back since. Before getting on to the ‘why?’  and ‘how?’ though, let’s briefly touch upon what it actually is (and isn’t)  for those in the dark.
Sketch? What’s that?
On paper Sketch is a ‘proprietary vector graphics editor’. From a user perspective though, it’s essentially a blank canvas in which you can design and create anything from a macro website right down to the nitty-gritty aspects of a user-interface.
Rather than just rattle through more points about what Sketch is and what it’s capable of, I want to throw in a quick lowdown as to what it isn’t:
It isn’t anything to do with SketchUp (which happens to be a 3D graphics modelling programme) so best not to get them confused.
It isn’t an illustration, photomanipulation or text-setting tool – these are best left to Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, respectively.
It isn’t going to work in Windows/Linux etc. – sorry! It’s an Apple macOS-only program; though the benefit of this being that it’s incredibly well-designed and intuitive for Mac users.
It isn’t going to break the bank! Sure, it was the free trial that roped me in to give it a go, but it was the very reasonable price tag that converted me to a paying user.
Life before Sketch
Before Sketch came along, my go-to design programme had always been Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator and I go way back, to my teen years, before I ever thought of myself as a designer. Over the years I’ve built up a bank of knowledge and can convincingly say that I now have a pretty good understanding of its features, and am more than happy to sing its praises over the likes of Photoshop. Similarly, when I joined Distilled, the other designers here were also keen advocates of Illustrator, and so it never occurred to me to question the process. Until one day I was chatting with a designer from another company, and on finding out our process, looked at me with incredulity and asked: “You use Illustrator for web build design?!” To be fair to us, there are plenty of designers who did, and still, do this. But importantly, this set the wheels in motion for me to look beyond our tried and tested tools. After some research it seemed a lot of people in the design community were raving about Sketch – this relative ‘new kid on the block’; so I set myself the task of using it for the next project I was assigned to.
I was immediately sold; and here are three reasons why you should be too.
1. Designed for digital, with a kickass online community to match
Unlike Illustrator, Sketch is designed for digital-first use cases in mind. With that comes an understanding that us digital folk want things done fast, we want them now. The time it took for me to go from deciding to try it out, to downloading, installing and opening the app, was less than five minutes. Anyone who has ever tried to get Illustrator on their machine before can relate to how amazed I was at the speed. That’s not a surprise, considering the app itself comes in only at 45.2mb, in comparison to Illustrator CS6 at 259.8mb.
Sketch’s UI is laid out in a clean, modular fashion, with no potential for toolbars to become unwieldy and disparate  (which I’m definitely guilty of in Illustrator), and this ease of use if further reflected in the way the programme operates:
No matter how intuitive a tool is, questions are bound to crop up when you start doing more complex things. Luckily I quickly learnt what a great online community Sketch has fostered. My favourite forum is sketchtalk.io where you can generally expect pretty fast response rates.
Not only is this community great in sharing knowledge on a case-by-case basis, there are also those who eagerly contribute by writing plugins (often open source and free to use) which enhance the capabilities of Sketch. For example, just the other day I came across AnimateMate, allowing users to create simple animations. This is just one example amongst many. Usually, if I know something I specifically want to do that isn’t natively built into Sketch, I’ll consult Google – ‘[blank]  plugin for Sketch’. Or, I might occasionally browse directories like this and this to discover new goodies.
All in all, the payback far outweighs the minimal learning curve of familiarising yourself with slightly different keyboard shortcuts.
2. Save time (and money) by streamlining the route from design to development
Prior to Sketch, my process from taking a design into development typically looked like this:
Create layouts in Illustrator.
Write up a detailed spec document for the developer, including aspects such as font weights and sizing, and hex code colours to name but a few.
Export a series of flat image or PDF from Illustrator for the dev and manually save any assets they might need, e.g. icons, images or logos.
Dev then goes away and uses the above to code and build by eye to match the design.
Expect a few feedback rounds on getting sizings, padding etc spot on.
Instead, my process is cut pretty much in half and now consists of just three steps:
Create layouts in Sketch.
Export layouts into Zeplin (third party plugin) project.
Invite developer to the Zeplin project (which literally just takes seconds).
Zeplin is my second most favoured tool when it comes to design. Its saved me hours by eliminating the need to do a write up a spec, manually export assets and cuts down the back and forth with developers by a mile. In fact, it almost deserves another post all to itself, but in the meantime, they’ve got the ground covered in a couple of quick overviews as to how Zeplin is good for designers and also developers.
If I still haven’t convinced you yet, just know that a lot of these new time-saving tools only support Sketch and not Illustrator ;-)
3. Work with a tool that’s as agile and iterative as you
Sketch is an app that’s constantly improving and pushing out updates. There’s even a part of their site dedicated to showcasing the latest changes. From a user perspective, I love this – it shows that I’m getting a product that’s at the forefront of technologies. And of course, it’s not cumbersome to update, no machine restarts etc.  The majority of them are done in the time it takes to go make a brew. Given that there’s not a single day in which the digital landscape isn’t changing, it’s great to know that the tool you’re working with is also changing and improving with it.
In fact, as much as it is about delivering the best user offering, it is a market as competitive as any other. As well as die-hard Illustrator and Photoshop fans to try and lure away, there are others trying to steal market share, for example, Adobe XD and soon-to-be InVision Studio. The Sketch folk know they can’t rest on their laurels, and I’m looking forward to another year of great updates fuelled by a dose of healthy competition.
Closing thoughts
To summarise, Sketch has revolutionised the way I approach design, forcing me to think more about the power of automation and in turn benefiting from that with shortcuts that don’t compromise on quality. I urge anyone working with designers to get them to give it a go. And with a one-month free trial, there’s really no excuse.
from Digital Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/demystifying-design-with-sketch/ via http://www.rssmix.com/
0 notes
davidrsmithlove · 6 years
Text
Demystifying the Design Process with Sketch
For non-designers, there is often a level of mysticism around the way we work. In your job, it may well be your responsibility to brief a designer, but as for what happens in between that stage and finally seeing the fruits of their labour – well, this may be rather alien. While it’s not necessarily important to know the ins and outs of this (in a similar way that I can’t claim much knowledge for what our developers do code-side), this post aims to demystify the process and shed light on one of my favourite design programs at the moment, and equip you with good reason to convince any digital or web designer you work with to pick it up if they don’t use it already. Not to mention that having a top-level overview of design software makes it a whole lot easier to communicate with those that do use it.
If the above doesn’t quite apply to you, don’t click off just yet; there is still value to be had if you are:
A designer – learn how this program and accompanying tools can improve the way you work.
A jack-of-all-trades – discover how you can improve the design aspect of your role
A manager – as if by magic  find out how to streamline your team and processes
Still here? Great, let’s begin.
Disclaimer: This is not an advertorial.
While it would be nice to have been sponsored to write this post, it’s worth clarifying first of all that any hints of sales chatter that may ensue should just be read as pure enthusiasm for the product.
So, to cut to the chase, my most-recommended piece of design software at the moment is Sketch. It’s my partner in design if you will. I started using it around two years ago and haven’t looked back since. Before getting on to the ‘why?’  and ‘how?’ though, let’s briefly touch upon what it actually is (and isn’t)  for those in the dark.
Sketch? What’s that?
On paper Sketch is a ‘proprietary vector graphics editor’. From a user perspective though, it’s essentially a blank canvas in which you can design and create anything from a macro website right down to the nitty-gritty aspects of a user-interface.
Rather than just rattle through more points about what Sketch is and what it’s capable of, I want to throw in a quick lowdown as to what it isn’t:
It isn’t anything to do with SketchUp (which happens to be a 3D graphics modelling programme) so best not to get them confused.
It isn’t an illustration, photomanipulation or text-setting tool – these are best left to Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, respectively.
It isn’t going to work in Windows/Linux etc. – sorry! It’s an Apple macOS-only program; though the benefit of this being that it’s incredibly well-designed and intuitive for Mac users.
It isn’t going to break the bank! Sure, it was the free trial that roped me in to give it a go, but it was the very reasonable price tag that converted me to a paying user.
Life before Sketch
Before Sketch came along, my go-to design programme had always been Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator and I go way back, to my teen years, before I ever thought of myself as a designer. Over the years I’ve built up a bank of knowledge and can convincingly say that I now have a pretty good understanding of its features, and am more than happy to sing its praises over the likes of Photoshop. Similarly, when I joined Distilled, the other designers here were also keen advocates of Illustrator, and so it never occurred to me to question the process. Until one day I was chatting with a designer from another company, and on finding out our process, looked at me with incredulity and asked: “You use Illustrator for web build design?!” To be fair to us, there are plenty of designers who did, and still, do this. But importantly, this set the wheels in motion for me to look beyond our tried and tested tools. After some research it seemed a lot of people in the design community were raving about Sketch – this relative ‘new kid on the block’; so I set myself the task of using it for the next project I was assigned to.
I was immediately sold; and here are three reasons why you should be too.
1. Designed for digital, with a kickass online community to match
Unlike Illustrator, Sketch is designed for digital-first use cases in mind. With that comes an understanding that us digital folk want things done fast, we want them now. The time it took for me to go from deciding to try it out, to downloading, installing and opening the app, was less than five minutes. Anyone who has ever tried to get Illustrator on their machine before can relate to how amazed I was at the speed. That’s not a surprise, considering the app itself comes in only at 45.2mb, in comparison to Illustrator CS6 at 259.8mb.
Sketch’s UI is laid out in a clean, modular fashion, with no potential for toolbars to become unwieldy and disparate  (which I’m definitely guilty of in Illustrator), and this ease of use if further reflected in the way the programme operates:
No matter how intuitive a tool is, questions are bound to crop up when you start doing more complex things. Luckily I quickly learnt what a great online community Sketch has fostered. My favourite forum is sketchtalk.io where you can generally expect pretty fast response rates.
Not only is this community great in sharing knowledge on a case-by-case basis, there are also those who eagerly contribute by writing plugins (often open source and free to use) which enhance the capabilities of Sketch. For example, just the other day I came across AnimateMate, allowing users to create simple animations. This is just one example amongst many. Usually, if I know something I specifically want to do that isn’t natively built into Sketch, I’ll consult Google – ‘[blank]  plugin for Sketch’. Or, I might occasionally browse directories like this and this to discover new goodies.
All in all, the payback far outweighs the minimal learning curve of familiarising yourself with slightly different keyboard shortcuts.
2. Save time (and money) by streamlining the route from design to development
Prior to Sketch, my process from taking a design into development typically looked like this:
Create layouts in Illustrator.
Write up a detailed spec document for the developer, including aspects such as font weights and sizing, and hex code colours to name but a few.
Export a series of flat image or PDF from Illustrator for the dev and manually save any assets they might need, e.g. icons, images or logos.
Dev then goes away and uses the above to code and build by eye to match the design.
Expect a few feedback rounds on getting sizings, padding etc spot on.
Instead, my process is cut pretty much in half and now consists of just three steps:
Create layouts in Sketch.
Export layouts into Zeplin (third party plugin) project.
Invite developer to the Zeplin project (which literally just takes seconds).
Zeplin is my second most favoured tool when it comes to design. Its saved me hours by eliminating the need to do a write up a spec, manually export assets and cuts down the back and forth with developers by a mile. In fact, it almost deserves another post all to itself, but in the meantime, they’ve got the ground covered in a couple of quick overviews as to how Zeplin is good for designers and also developers.
If I still haven’t convinced you yet, just know that a lot of these new time-saving tools only support Sketch and not Illustrator ;-)
3. Work with a tool that’s as agile and iterative as you
Sketch is an app that’s constantly improving and pushing out updates. There’s even a part of their site dedicated to showcasing the latest changes. From a user perspective, I love this – it shows that I’m getting a product that’s at the forefront of technologies. And of course, it’s not cumbersome to update, no machine restarts etc.  The majority of them are done in the time it takes to go make a brew. Given that there’s not a single day in which the digital landscape isn’t changing, it’s great to know that the tool you’re working with is also changing and improving with it.
In fact, as much as it is about delivering the best user offering, it is a market as competitive as any other. As well as die-hard Illustrator and Photoshop fans to try and lure away, there are others trying to steal market share, for example, Adobe XD and soon-to-be InVision Studio. The Sketch folk know they can’t rest on their laurels, and I’m looking forward to another year of great updates fuelled by a dose of healthy competition.
Closing thoughts
To summarise, Sketch has revolutionised the way I approach design, forcing me to think more about the power of automation and in turn benefiting from that with shortcuts that don’t compromise on quality. I urge anyone working with designers to get them to give it a go. And with a one-month free trial, there’s really no excuse.
0 notes