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The Ultimate Sketch App Tutorial Collection

The Ultimate Sketch App Tutorial Collection

Learn Sketch App 3 in 25 tutorials or fewer

The best tutorials to bring you from total beginner to absolute professional in Sketch, with minimal searching and work.

Sketch App is one of the cleanest and most robust design softwares out there. It is sometimes thought of as one of the few viable Photoshop alternatives given its more reasonable cost, but it's got much more to bring to the table than just "Photoshop lite." It's arguably the best tool for UI/UX specifically, and for designing for the web in general. 

So if you're tired of Photoshop chugging, don't want to continue paying for CC, or are just ready for a change, here's the ultimate list of tutorials to bring you from Sketch novice to master in no time. 


Step 1: Clicking around with purpose

Getting started and acclimated can be the hardest part — having an idea of what you want to do but not the means to even begin doing it. So here are 3 of the best "getting started with Sketch" / acclimation tutorials to just give you a hang of what the buttons and settings are for. This will be a shorter section so we can get straight to the meat of creating the actual useful things you're here for (rather than spending too much time in the vague "here's what the software can do" tutorials). 

Get started with Sketch in 5 minutes

This is a lovely, pared down tutorial filled with great imagery and gifs to illustrate exactly, step by step, what to do to get started. If you only look through one tutorial, this may be the best one. It starts with Sketch shortcuts (invaluable to know), takes you through creating your first artboard, explains Sketch's file system setup, and in general gives a really nice starting out primer for anyone new to the software. 

Getting Around Sketch 3


If you prefer to watch a video to get a similar gist, this is a good starter one, which is about 10 minutes long. Follow along and play with the different features of Sketch if you're completely new and unfamiliar. Items covered include a nice range of overview, starting with adding basic shapes, moving through transforming, selecting, and arranging. If you want to make it extra fun, you can play a drinking game: a shot for each time he says "just like Photoshop."

Helpful Guide To Getting Started With Sketch

A lovely little personal list from Medium. A designer kept notes as he learned Sketch, and included the resources he found helpful (some of which you'll also see on this list) in a post. The author cautions against just jumping straight in, saying that rading some of the available tutorials out there really makes a huge difference in understanding and speed of learning. We agree!

Step 2: Learn the basic tools

Now that you've clicked around a bit, you know enough to know what you don't know. It's time to get a primer on the important tools you're going to use in Sketch over and over again.

Nested and base symbols

This tutorial teaches you how to use nested symbols to make social assets (but really, in general, any branding or repeatable design in just seconds. Learn about base symbols and how they're grouped for ease of use in Sketch.

Shared Styles

One of the great things about Sketch is "Shared Styles" — so you can set a styling and then reuse it quickly and keep objects in sync with one another. This way, if you make one cascading change, everything changes. Time saving ftw.

Masking

Sketch can do many of the things Photoshop can, but the masking tools work pretty differently. Sketch has a special command that allows you to use a shape to hide part of an image. It's super easy, you simply drop an image in the canvas and place any shape over it, then use the edit tool for masking. See all the steps in the tutorial. 

Scissor Tool

Now that you've played around a bit, "you may have noticed the 'Scissors' tool in Sketch’s toolbar and wondered 'what the heck is that?' You may have even played around with it, only to be more perplexed." Never fear, this tutorial will make you love the scissors. 

Mastering Group Resizing Feature in Sketch

How to resize elements by group, all together. This is an update on the previous installment about how this feature works. The updated v44 has some lovely new tweaks to the group resizing tools, and this tutorial very nicely walks you through how (and why) Sketch has it set up. 

Custom Templates and Reusable Symbol Libraries in Sketch

For UI/UX designers who often use the same interface elements, canvas size or grid settings for multiple projects — this tutorial will change your life. You'll learn how to create custom templates and libraries of reusable symbols that you can repeat super easily. Symbols are a feature in Sketch that make reusing / replicating graphics multiple times a cinch. You create a symbol, and then when you make changes to it, all other instances of the symbol are also automatically updated. When you combine templates and symbols you'll create a reusable library of symbols available for all future projects.

Keyboard Shortcuts

As with so many pieces of technology for desktop, Sketch has a lot of handy plugins, shortcuts and quick button-mashing ability. Here's a list of all the ways to speed up your Sketching. The first tutorial also sends you to a simple list of keyboard shortcuts, which is helpful to have open at all times while your'e designing. 

Sharing your work

Arguably, one of Sketch's most useful post-design tools is the ability to share easily and lightning fast with clients and your mom. This quick video explains exporting and sharing (spoiler alert, it's a drag and drop into an email ;)


Step 3: In-depth, goal-oriented tutorials

Once you've got the hang of the basic tools, it's time to use them to actually create. Here are specific use case tutorials for everything from creating a simple login form to getting down to business and crating a full UI layout. 

Build a simple login form

The perfect leaping-off point to get started! Learn about basic shapes, forms and why Sketch is great for interface design. This beginner-level tutorial will introduce you to designing with Sketch, from starting with creating a blank artboard to adding the finishing touches and background to your shiny new login form. 

Creating Patterns In Sketch

Patterns can be resource heavy. This tutorial will help you not only understand the basics of creating a geometric, or repeating, pattern, but also save disk space and headache while you're at it. Since Sketch is great for creating tiled fills in shapes, you'll be able to create patterns that are totally seamless and can fill in any type of shape .

How to Create a Smooth Segmented Chart using Sketch 3 App

This tutorial will teach you how to create a simple line chart with Sketch. You'll be able to make this lovely graph that's Inspired by Google Material design principles, and which uses primarily the vector tool, gradients and masks.

How to make a flat diamond icon

Use Sketch to create the Sketch icon. Meta, we know. but this will also give you a great grasp of vector shapes and color settings. You'll play with layers, shadows, inversions and all kinds of good things.

Pixel Perfect shapes in Sketch

Managing pixels in any design software can be the bane of your existence. Here's how to be a pixel master in Sketch, so when pixels just don't align, or when resizing bites you in the behind and gives you those fuzzy edges, you'll know just what to do. 

How to make a reusable button with icons

The author had a pretty common goal: building a button with a label and an icon, that he could reuse over and over again, while changing and resizing, but also keeping everything in the center. Here's how he hacked the button — give a whole new idea to the term button mashing.

Step 4: Design thinking and the bigger picture

These tutorials are less about digging into the nitty-gritty, and are more focused on the "why" of design, using Sketch as the skeleton on which to hang your ideas. It's important to focus on how users will see your work and why you're designing something the way you are. These are great ways to jolt that deeper thinking design brain of yours. 

Designing in Sketch

The goal is to do as little of your own work as possible. One of the biggest sells of Sketch is not really its photo-editing prowess, but rather the time saving it can do for you when designing multiple layers and page UIs. This tutorial is great for design thinking meeting web design meets understanding Sketch.

Design a Bold Email Newsletter

Learn how to create a simple and bold email newsletter template to delight any client or customer. Newsletters are hugely important to businesses these days, and the author of this tutorial is right: they should be considered a key point in any marketing strategy. The step by step guide will walk Sketch beginners through making a impactful newsletter starting completely from scratch and explaining the most common tools as it goes. 

Designing a Better Notes App

File this one under wish fulfillment. How to think through designing a better UI for a simple tool, with Sketch as the backbone. This tutorial is really heavy on thinking through user experience, to give you a good idea of how important it is to begin big picture thinking well before you ever put cursor to screen. It may be easy to design in Sketch, but that doesn't mean you should forget the crucial design thinking before you start.

Creating an E-Commerce App in Sketch: Part 1 of 3

This intensive tutorial will walk you through the entire process of creating an app design, from splash screen to categories, putting the best parts of Sketch into practice. This is a more serious tutorial, and you'll find yourself learning things even experts might not know!

Step 5: Almost ready to make the jump?

Now that you've got the basics — and some even more in depth understanding of Sketch, you may be ready to use it all the time! If you need some help switching from Photoshop, here are some final tutorials for just that.

Sketch vs. Photoshop: The 5 Things Sketch Can Do That Photoshop Can’t

A great overview of the things the Sketch excels in that Photoshop may leave you struggling with. The top five reasons Sketch is better for designing digital products.

How to switch from photoshop

Migrate all your existing resources and actions with this simple tutorial that will make going from one software to the other a snap. 

Bonus: Extra goodies for your Sketch enjoyment

Some great, simple (and free) add-ons that will make your Sketch experience even smoother. These plugins and additions are all designed by Sketch enthusiasts and developers to speed up an already pretty quick process. 

Sketch Select Tool

Sketch Select makes it extremely convenient to select layers with like attributes. You can move within or across different artboards. Coming from Sketch App Hub, which has lots of great little spelled-out plugins and add-ons to make Sketch even better and quicker for use. 

Compo UI components

This Sketch plugin makes it much easier to work with interface components. All you have to do is press âŒ˜J and bam — you've turned a text layer into a button, or put an existing component in order. Great for site building in a snap. 

Organize and batch rename shared text styles

A super-quick way to manage and organize your fonts & text styling in the most efficient way possible. This helps if you're using a lot of styling in your text. 

Step 6: Ready to rock!

Now that you're a Sketch master, here are some pieces of inspiration to get you designing amazing things. 

14 Inspiring UI/UX Designs Made in Bohemian Coding Sketch

Fourteen fabulous and inspiring works designed in Sketch to get you going. Now, get designing!


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