Dear Ueno: What are some of your favorite Sketch tips and tricks?
Dear Ueno is an advice column for people who for some weird reason think we know what we’re doing. Find out more, or read our old advice.
From Joan in Idaho:
“Dear Ueno, What are some of your favorite Sketch tips and tricks?”
Steph Jeong, Designer at Ueno SF, replies:
Hi Joan,
First, thanks for asking this question! I finally get a chance to geek out and ramble about all the satisfying tricks in Sketch to people who actually care.
Sketch shortcuts and tricks can help you through various phases of the design process. Here’s how I use them in each phase:
Flowcharts
MDS Flowkit is a Sketch plugin that has a library of labels, arrows, and lines with different styles. It’s used in a pair with another plugin called Sketch Runner, which is a plugin that lets you search for symbols and sketch commands without digging through menus or leaving your keyboard. It’s basically like mac OS Spotlight for Sketch. You can search for any of the MDS Flowkit symbols on Sketch Runner and create a presentable flow chart super quickly.
Wireframes/Quick iterations
Creating objects
I always use keyboard shortcuts to create objects. They are super simple to remember — use the first letter for every object.
Editing layers
Almost everything you want to do to edit a layer has a keyboard shortcut:
- Change the opacity by in multiples of 10% by using the numbers 0–9
- Press Enter to edit a layer
Furthermore, you can increase the size and rotate a layer with just the shortcuts.
A quick shortcut to increase/decrease size:
A quick shortcut to rotate an object:
High fidelity mock-ups
Duplicating layers
As you start to work in high-fidelity mock ups, duplicating layers will save you a lot of time, and there are smarter ways to copy + paste than just ctrl + C and ctrl + V.
One of the most useful tools is copy/paste layer style. You can do this either by right clicking on the layers, or simply do cmd+alt+C to copy and cmd+alt+V to paste.
To set up repeating items, you can option+shift+drag to duplicate an item directly up/down/left/right. Then cmd + D to duplicate that action. This is good for quickly creating rows or repeating assets.
If you need to change a color from all the artboards last minute, Sketch now supports Find and replace color, which lets you quickly replace a color from all the artboards to another color. This is super helpful if you are testing out different colors to see the look and feel.
Vector Editing
Sketch is not the best tool to edit vectors, but the scissors and outlines tool help out a lot. With the Scissors tool, you can cut a side of a shape and create shapes like chevrons or hearts really quick. Then, the Outlines tool can turn these vector lines into shapes so that you can keep the line weight in scale as you resize.
File organization and production work
Clean file vs. Iterating fast
I probably have the messiest working file, and I need to get better at organization. But, when I need to iterate fast, I at least try to group things in an understandable form and get rid of unused layers/groups.
For this reason, I rarely use the “hide” feature. Instead, I just make duplicate artboards and iterate even if it’s a small change. Obviously, this also has the downside of having hundreds of artboards, but at least I don’t have to dig into the groups to try to find hidden layers.
When I’m working with other designers, I use pages to separate the latest work from the rest. I put all the unnecessary artboards under “Archive” page and leave the relevant designs under “Working.” When I need to move fast and have a faster feedback loop, I also use dates to indicate the latest versions.
Containers for your assets
My favorite trick is to have a container for your assets. Take a look at the image below. There’s an invisible container for every item including all of the paddings and dividers. Just think about it as a <div> container. Now, all you have to do is just stack the items. If you use some items frequently, you can even turn them into symbols.
With this system, you no longer have to spend time making sure everything has the same paddings or try to define the system in the style guide for other designers to understand. You can simply just duplicate and stack.
Clean up process
I find file clean-up process the most therapeutic thing ever. It becomes a lot faster when you know the shortcuts, and you can get into a rhythm with the repetitive tasks! I’ll share a video of what I do to clean up my files below:
Obviously, you should go into each group and rename all the layers. But, this is a gist of how quickly you can organize the general groups with shortcuts!
To quickly clean up your file:
- ungroup everything: cmd+shift+g
- select objects you want to group: click + drag
- group them: cmd + g
- rename the new group: cmd+r
- save new name by hitting enter
- cancel by hitting esc
- changing orders
- ultimate top/bottom = ctrl + option + command + up/down
- move 1 layer up/down = option + command + up/down
And that’s it. I hope you find this helpful!
Steph Jeong is a product designer at work and a homebody at home. You should probably follow her on Twitter. To submit questions to Dear Ueno, email hi@ueno.co with the subject line “Dear Ueno” or tweet at us with the hashtag #DearUeno. Include your (optionally fake) name, location, and profession.
