Want to know more about Sketch? In this video from my free Sketch tutorial, I'll give you an introduction to this useful design app. You'll learn who it's for, why you should consider using it, and what you can do with it.
What Is Sketch?
Why Use Sketch?
Sketch is a digital design app from Mac. You can use it for UI, mobile, web and even icon design.
If you've been using Photoshop for these things, then you should know that Sketch is a very capable replacement. If you want more detail on switching from Photoshop to Sketch, see my Coffee Break Course:
Here are the top three reasons that I use Sketch from a web designer's perspective.
1. The Licensing System
Basically, you pay for the app once, and you can use it for as long as you want. Now, while it's true that you only buy the app once, that license that you buy lasts for one year, and in that year, you have all the updates included.
After your license expires, you can still use the app, but you won't get any new updates. You will have to purchase a new license for that.
Fortunately, renewing a license is a bit cheaper. While a new license costs $99, renewing one is $69 a year, which is not that much.
2. Sketch Is a Vector-Based App
Being vector-based means that every shape you draw can be resized to any dimension without losing sharpness. So your designs will look great, even on a retina or very high DPI screen.
3. Ease of Use
Sketch is just so much easier to use than an app like Photoshop. I cannot tell you just how much time it has saved me.
And speaking from a web designer's point of view, one thing that I also love about Sketch is the quality of the render, which means the designs that you can create are very, very close to a finished HTML/CSS result or web page. And because of that, you can really perfect a design, even on the coded version. It's just great.
Who Is Sketch For?
Now, who is this app for? Well, first of all it's a Mac app. So, if you don't have a Mac, unfortunately you are not be going to be able to use it.
There is a Windows app that can interpret Sketch files. So you can open Sketch files in that app, but you cannot edit them—you can only work in Sketch on a Mac.
Now Sketch is actually very lightweight, so you don't need a monster PC to run it. For example, I'm running it on a four-year-old MacBook Pro. It's top spec, 16GB of RAM, i7, all that stuff, but I bet this app would work just fine even on the cheapest Mac available, which right now is, I believe, a $500 Mac Mini.
Really anyone with a design background can use Sketch. As I said earlier, you can use it for web design, UI design, mobile, icon design, and pretty much anything you want—except maybe things like heavy 3D renders.
You can even use Sketch for wireframing, or with the help of some plugins you can use it for prototyping, which is very, very cool.
Watch the Free Sketch Tutorial
In the full Sketch tutorial for beginners, you’ll learn everything you need to get started with Sketch. From a tour of the user interface to more advanced features like shared styles and symbols, it's all there for you. By the end, you'll be confident in using Sketch for all your design projects. And, best of all, the whole course is now free to watch!
