5 Sketch Plugins you Need to Succeed

As product designers, we are always finding a way to make our design process more seamless. When working on various deliverables and adhering to a timeline, we are always looking for a more efficient way to use Sketch. With the following plugins, there’s no doubt you will be able to produce pixel perfect designs quicker and more efficiently.

Spell Check
As a product designer, it is common to focus on visual design and forget about copy. Personally, when I am producing deliverables I tend to overlook my grammar and have always been dependent on Spell Check on MicrosoftWord or autocorrect when using iMessage.  While visual design is a major component in your product, copy is usually overlooked. For those who tend to misspell words when including copy, a great plugin for Sketch is Spell Check. It is a simple spell checker that checks all the layers of your Sketch file. Once extension is ran, it will produce a list of texts that contain errors or an incorrect word. Very useful for those who have to sound out ‘Wednesday’ before typing it out.

Craft
For those that like to view their prototype as they design, this is the plugin for you. Craft plugin for Sketch allows you to preview your prototype as you design and also sync your artboards to Invision. When working with various stakeholders who request for an interactive prototype, the Craft plugin also allows you to copy a link while still working within Sketch and forward it to those who want to see your product. After syncing using the plugin, you can then go into Invision and view the artboards you created in Sketch as a prototype! Start adding your hot spots and you are good to go!

Nudg.it
With Fitt’s Law emphasizing the importance of size and distance, Nudg.it allows one to design while practicing this law. It has been said that components in a design are more visually appealing when spaced out by 8 pixels. Not only does this plugin allow you space your components out with the simple click of a shift + arrow but it also helps you keep spacing consistent throughout your designs as well. When using Nudg.it you can select the amount of pixels you would like to space your components out by. After managing this setting, you can start nudging! You can set your “small nudge” and “big nudge” settings to ensure elements are spaced consistently. This also helps you save time by avoiding the tedious clicking, dragging and dropping around your artboard.

Copy and Paste Guide
One of the challenges I have faced as a product designer is maintaining consistency in my designs when designing for multiple screens/pages. To ensure components are aligned I set an initial guide for myself. If you are new to setting guides, they are those red lines that run vertically or horizontally throughout your artboard. I personally use them to ensure components are aligned. With the Copy and Paste Guide you can set your initial guides and when switching to another artboard you can paste those guides that you have set. 

Paddit
If you are looking to save yourself some time when changing the background of elements within Sketch, Paddit is the plugin for you. Sometimes you might find yourself changing the background of your components to adjust to your art board’s background. With Paddit you can simply group your elements together and change the background from there. Now that you no longer have to adjust the background for each individual component, you will be saving so much time and be able to move on to your next task!

These are just a few of the many plugins available for sketch. If you are already familiar with these plugins you can also check out Sketch’s website for an extensive list of plugins from third-party developers. Now that you possess more knowledge on how to design more efficiently in Sketch, download away!

- Jackie Chan is a UX/UI Designer at Perpetual