It’s no secret that the digital industry is booming. From exciting startups to global brands, companies are reaching out to digital agencies, responding to the new possibilities available. However, the industry is fast becoming overcrowded, heaving with agencies offering similar services — on the surface, at least.
Tools are an extension of our hands, and as such, they should be versatile, quick and intuitive. A lot has changed between the print era of offset presses and the digital era of cross-platform screens. Developers have attempted to adapt our tools, but Sketch is perhaps the most successful app in this regard — its creators have removed the bloat, started afresh and presented a smaller, fit-for-purpose feature set. What may seem on the surface to be a simple drawing tool in fact nails the core workflows of digital design.
When copying components from the sticker sheet, you can take any level of elements. This means you can take a whole screen, just the components within or even just the icons. The tabs, as well as other components, have been prepared with a transparent background. Move within the “app bar” group and you’ll be able to copy the “tabs” group and paste onto any existing background. The advantage of a transparent background is that you will get the proper spacing around the component, but you can quickly place it on top of an existing background or toolbar.
You’ll notice a box on the right side of the list. This box is a secondary action. Tapping anywhere to the right of this action would open up that list item; but for quick actions (such as calling a contact or opening information about a document) you can use the secondary action. We’ll replace this placeholder box with a heart so that the user can quickly save notes. In the sticker sheet you’ll find a small set of icons in the top left under “typography.” Grab the heart icon and paste it where the gray box is located. The icon should be in a group containing the heart icon and a transparent 24 × 24 box. This box helps with spacing, so make sure to grab the whole group.