Sketch is a popular digital design platform that can be enhanced with plugins for a seamless, collaborative design process. Sketch plugins can make web design quicker and easier, and it is easier to use Sketch than Adobe Photoshop.
One of the issues with Photoshop is wasting time dragging elements around the screen. The Sketch app works differently, allowing top web design agency to work on their designs quickly and efficiently.
This lightweight vector-graphics software encourages a designer to focus wholly on the website design and function instead of the visual details.
You can personalize Sketch by choosing from many different available plugins according to what you want to do, adding functionality similar to what Photoshop would offer.
Let’s take a look at some of the Sketch plugins designers love the most:
Clear Styles
This plugin removes style properties in the layer you select, including Drop Shadows, Border (Stroke), Blur, Reflection, Inner Shadows, and blending modes. This isn’t a plugin to solid-fill properties, so Clear Styles will leave any solid it has if you install it. However, it can get rid of other custom fills, such as Noise, Pattern, and Gradient fills.
1. Sketch Notebook
Thanks to Sketch Notebook, web designers can easily manage sidebar comments when documenting app design. Adding and working such statements helps designers and developers make their workflow clearer and more efficient.
2. Sketch Toolbox
This enables users to organize a personalized directory of plugins directly in the app itself. This plugin is also helpful for downloading and installing new plugins with just a mouse click. Sketch Toolbox also makes sure installed plugins update automatically.
3. Child Layers
Click on a group to select the group folder. Usually, you’d hold the command key to pick individual layers in the group or hold shift and Command and pick the layers that way. With Child Layers, you can just click the group and use Ctrl + Option + A to choose everything.
4. Measure
Sometimes you’ll want to show an on-screen element’s dimensions, especially in the first stages of the design, to the team or a client. Or perhaps you’ll like to offer a reference document developers can use during build-out. The Measure plugin can draw an element that immediately converts to height and width measuring marks. These also automatically include the dimension in pixels.
5. Material Design Color Palette
Try this plugin if you’d like to create a design that is inspired by the material design color scheme used by Google. You can generate a dynamic color palette using the Google color scheme.
6. Style Inventory
Once the design part of the project is completed, the designer will need to deliver styles and assets to the developers. However, it’s hard for developers to work and develop the layout if they aren’t familiar with the text, font sizes, and colors used in the design. This plugin inventories all of those, allowing developers to view all used styles and assets in one list.
7. Swap Fill and Border
This plugin is helpful for the website’s workflow and the design process itself. If the Fill and Border colors are back to front, you can use this plugin and swap them around with just one shortcut for all layers, typically by pressing the X key.
8. Sort Layers
Layers tend to underpin most modern designs, and each one can contain various elements such as graphics, color, vector bitmap artwork, or text. This plugin can sort different layer elements according to variables like layer name, text, or layering positions.
This plugin works well for complex mockups. It isn’t hard to use, but you do need to get used to dynamic layer organizing, so prepare to spend a little time adjusting to the interface.
9. Dynamic Button
Anyone working on a prominent site involving many view states and interior pages should find the Dynamic Button plugin very helpful. The plugin has symbols to set up global properties for any object, immediately propagated to all artboard instances. This is a must-have for inputs, buttons, and so on.
If a text button with one word on it suddenly needs to have several, you might find the text no longer fits. So you have the choice of resizing it manually after figuring out the correct padding or using the Dynamic Button plugin, which does it all for you. The plugin can create fixed padding buttons that automatically adjust to the text length.
10. WorkingOn/SketchingOn
To deliver a timely, bug-free product, it’s important to collaborate. Try the WorkingOn/SketchingOn plugin to quickly share your work with the team. The result is shared via the WorkingOn platform. To share a selected object with your team, press Ctrl + L.
11. Divine Proportions
Every designer knows about the golden ratio, implying the proportion or sequence occurring in natural designs. This plugin allows designers to create a spiral/box pattern path. These ratios are typically viewed as 1:1.168. This can be used for any design form, such as photo compositing, icons, and website layouts. This is a good plugin, regardless of your familiarity with the golden ratio.
12. Page Switch
Not being able to jump between pages using a keyboard shortcut can be annoying, which is why designers like using the Page Switch plugin. You can use various shortcuts like Command + K for the previous page, Command + I for the next page, Command + P for a new page, and Command + ‘ to prompt a specific page to be selected.
13. Color Contrast Analyzer
It’s essential to get the color contrast right when working on a user interface. Whether you’re working on a mobile app or a website, the text will be useless if it isn’t legible. This plugin checks the color contrasts. Pick an element that includes text, then use the plugin menu to run the analyzer. The difference is then measured.
The best result is AAA, followed by the AA. Anything else means the contrast is insufficient for legible text. The plugin tests the content according to W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
14. Sketch Commands
Intended for more advanced users, this plugin includes various Sketch features and scripts focusing on various commands like layer effects, alignment, control, and page guides. You can duplicate documents by exporting artboard PNGs, using Command from the plugin folder. This is a great plugin as long as you know how to use commands like these.
Final Thoughts
Sketch can be customized by adding whichever plugins you like, many of which are simple to use. Sketch plugins can make the working life of a developer a little easier. They can also save a lot of time that might otherwise be wasted in editing, recreating plugins, or designing and redesigning.