by jydesign | Feb 27, 2016 | Blog
Note: I found this incomplete post in my drafts from early 2016. I’m posting it as-is, and backdated to the last saved draft date, in the hopes of appearing prescient 😉
Trying out the preview release of Figma
Great cross-platform option for design and collaboration. Has almost all of the power of Sketch, but lives in the browser.
Lacks: Symbols, ability to integrate directly with third party tools such as Zeplin, Avocode
Where it shines: vector editing (see this article for details); Ability to import native Sketch files and retain grouping, export to SVG/Raster, Slices…
by jydesign | Dec 2, 2015 | Blog
The Perfect Holiday Gift for the Designer(s) in Your Life
What savvy designer or developer won’t be delighted to receive this wonderful keepsake as a gift?
While you are at it, get one for yourself. Guaranteed fun because it’s S.V.G. (So Very Good)! Buy it Now on Amazon.com
Only $7.10 & FREE Shipping on Amazon (seriously, check it out…)
- Citrine Orange Glass Shaped Diamond Ring Paperweight by JK
- Measures 3″ Diameter x 2″ Deep
- Hand Blown Glass
- Great for Any Room
by jydesign | Oct 6, 2015 | Blog
Designers, Competitors and Adobe have Time to Prepare
Adobe announced Project Comet, among with a lot of other interesting stuff, at their 2015 MAX conference on October 5. Depending on the types of tools you’ve been using recently, this news may mean different things for your workflow. For those who primarily use Adobe tools, Comet may look new to you. If you have been experimenting with the surprising number or new design, prototyping and interaction/animation tools that have risen in popularity over the past few years, you may see Comet as reactionary (but, perhaps compelling nonetheless).
Image Credit: Adobe.com (Note: image resized using Affinity Photo – to emphasize competitive pressure)
When Adobe announced artboards for Photoshop, there was a lot of talk about Adobe copying Sketch. This seems fair to say, however it also seems a little bombastic when you consider that Adobe Illustrator has had artboards for years. However, it’s clear that Sketch has become known for developing designs on artboards and easily exporting final artwork assets at various pixel densities. It’s success has also been buoyed by a growing ecosystem of independent plugins, UI Kits and other resources.
With the announcement and demo video for Comet, similar cries of ‘copying’ will continue as we notice familiar aspects of various prototyping and design tools in Comet. However, there were also some pretty cool things shown in the Comet demo that seemed ahead of the competition. For example the ease of mocking up repetitive data like lists and grids via Comet’s “Repeat Grid” tool. (more…)
by jydesign | Sep 27, 2015 | Blog
Sketch Hunt inspires 3 other sibling sites
Affinity Hunt, Principle Hunt and Prototyper Hunt
After the spike in interest for Sketch Hunt, I decided to continue the experimenting. I’ve launched three additional sibling sites. Each one offers niche content for designers and developers:
These sites let me share information about new products that I’m personally interested in. They also also served the purpose of being a side-project and exercise in branding. (more…)
by jydesign | May 10, 2015 | Blog
It has been about a week since Sketch Hunt was featured on Product Hunt on Saturday morning of May 2nd. This was definitely an amazing boon for a fledgling site, as you’ll see below.
I launched Sketch Hunt as an experiment on April 14th with no special efforts to promote it, other than some personal tweets and links on this site. Therefore, Sketch Hunt had very little traffic in its first week of being live. On May 1st, Designer News linked to Sketch Hunt and a this caused a notable boost in traffic. However, the exposure on Product Hunt clearly provided a huge relative increase in attention.
Sketch Hunt – relative traffic increase thanks to Product Hunt
(more…)
