Symbols in Sketch: Explore the Full Potential of Sketch Symbols for Great Prototyping
How the Symbols in Sketch are useful…
Well, let me tell you the Symbols make every task easy in Sketch. As per the opinions from Sketch Experts, symbols make the designing jobs easy and faster. Even freelancers said that by frequent use of symbols, it makes the sketch task an easy one.
Now, you must be thinking of what are symbols used for? Symbols can be said to be used and reused for an element in a project keeping master symbol the same and sometimes changing it as needed by the whole sketch. Therefore, it can be said that the symbols are important elements that help us to form the design in Sketch.
However, if you have to design interfaces, the symbols will play an important role in the whole design system.
Importance of Symbols in Sketch
For the beginners in Sketch, symbols are made from shapes, text objects, bitmap images and other related symbols. When using any symbol, the symbol’s layer is contained within the artboard that helps to know the symbol’s boundaries. However, the lists, buttons, tabs and the like are the symbols that can be reused in an interface. If you wish to alter any properties of any symbol, you have to change the master symbol that is convenient to use. Below is a rundown of vital tips that shall help to create the symbols better in the sketch.
Drawing Symbols in an Organized Manner
Designing in an organized manner shall help in easy reworking on the task. One easy way is to use a slash in the symbol’s name. In this, the sketch will create a category with the part before the slash, naming it. This will place the symbol and name it with the slash. The same procedure can be used for many symbols under the same root that are connected by common factors like logic making it easy for the users to find it.
Naming Conventions
Every designer uses a convention to name the symbols and it is better to name it by the state and function of the symbols. It is better not to change the name of the symbol frequently and stick to one particular name for ease of work and identification. The designer can change the name inside the layers of the symbols and incorporate emojis in it. For this, they have to press control + command + space that opens up the emoji dialogue box.
Alternative to the Symbols Page
For any symbol that you create in the sketch, it is recommended to send it to the symbol’s page for ease of work. The symbols are listed one after another and in case, you delete any, the space in the list will be left blank. For the convenience of work, you can create a personalized symbol page instead of using the official one.
Replacing the Symbols
It is easy to replace the symbols with another from the menus given and selecting the one from the drop-down list. The new symbol that you use should be of the same size and position as that of the previous one. For this, you can click on the option ‘set to original size’ from the list.
Detaching
After you have made a symbol, it can be detached to identify the elements in it that help to form a group. To do this, you have to select ‘detach from symbol’ option from the drop-down list.
Using the Symbols as Assets
The symbols which are also known as elements can be used as bitmap images. For this, you have to mark the symbol elements as exportable. In case, the symbol has padding, when used in the sketch, it shall omit the blank space. To avoid this, you can use a slice. After creating the slice, you can place it on the blank ensuring that both are of the same size and do not come out of the boundary.
Explore how to handle different sizes of symbols in Sketch at Ultimate Guide to Symbols Sketch
