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Avocode Blog - Curated design & code stories worth reading

Chris Messina is best known for inventing the hashtag. He also designed products and experiences for Google and Uber, founded startups, and changed the world with the creation of other social innovations, like coworking and BarCamp.

Product Design Tips from the Hashtag Inventor, Chris Messina

The Grit - Chris Messina, The Hashtag Inventor for Avocode

Stefan Sagmeister is a a New York-based designer, typographer and founder of Sagmeister & Walsh. He has designed album covers for Lou Reed, OK Go, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Jay Z, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny.

Mastering Design Thinking with&nbsp;Stefan Sagmeister

The Grit - Stefan Sagmeister for Avocode

Discover the main trends in design with Mike Creative Mints, a well-known person in the design world, and one of the most popular designers on Dribbble specializing in branding, UI, and illustration.

2020&#58; The Year of Curiosity in UI Design

Designer & Illustrator Mike Creative Mints for Avocode

AI has become an over-hyped buzzword, and the design world is no exception. This article outlines 10 trends of how artificial intelligence will affect UX/UI design in the next decade.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Design with Gleb Kuznetsov

The Future of Artificial Intelligence with Gleb Kuznetsov for Avocode

Emanuel Sá is the Co-Founder and Head of Design at Sketch. He revealed a lot of his design and business thinking behind the early days of Sketch, the current development of Sketch Cloud, and the company’s plans.

Behind the Scenes of the Sketch App & Sketch Cloud with Sketch Co-founder Emanuel Sá

The Grit - Emanuel Sá, Co-founder of Sketch

Explore how we developed a custom graphics engine that renders sharp design files in the browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox). Need to access and render design data from proprietary design files? Contact us for access to our Cloud API.

How Avocode Graphics Engine renders Sketch, Adobe XD, PSD, AI, and Figma designs in the browser

Render Sketch, Adobe XD, PSD, AI, and Figma designs in the browser with Avocode

Do you know what design trends to expect in design in 2020? See the trends predictions from top designers for the year, and get tips and techniques to put them into practice for your brand.

Design Trends Predictions for 2020 From Top Designers

Design Trends Predictions for 2020

Teresa Man is the Design Lead at Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. She is also a community manager at Elpha and a mentor at Lambda School. Previously, she was Experience Director at Konrad Group.

Building the fastest email experience in the world with Lead Designer at Superhuman

The Grit - Teresa Man, Lead Designer at Superhuman

What can we expect in the Design Tool Market in the next decade? What’s the missing part for seamless cross-team collaboration in the design process? And what’s on the Avocode 2020 roadmap? Read about Avocode Cloud API, Private Cloud, Version Control, and more.

Design Tools in 2020: To&nbsp;the&nbsp;Cloud and Beyond

Future of Design Tools in 2020 According to Avocode CEO

Talin Wadsworth is the lead product designer for Adobe XD. As part the Adobe Design group, Talin has lead many 1.0 product initiatives, including the launch of Creative Cloud and Adobe Sketch for the iPad.

How XD changed Adobe with Talin Wadsworth, the Lead Designer at Adobe XD

The Grit - Talin Wadsworth, Lead Designer at Adobe XD

Jane Davis is the Head of UX Research at Zapier. She leads a small (but growing) team of amazing researchers, content designers, and research operations specialists. Prior to joining Zapier, she was the Design Research Manager for Growth at Dropbox.

The secret of research with Head of UX Research at Zapier

The Grit - Jane Davis, Head of UX Research at Zapier

Femke van Schoonhoven is a product designer in the Uber Eats team based in Toronto, Canada. Her role is being responsible for creating the end-user experience of a particular product or feature.

Why the comfort zone holds you back with Product Designer at Uber Eats, Femke van Schoonhoven

The Grit - Femke van Schoonhoven, Product Designer at Uber Eats for Avocode

Zeplin app, Avocode app, InVision app, or Abstract app? But which one is the best design hand-off & inspect tool for you? Which one fits your desktop or browser workflow the best? I tested all of these tools in one day to write this review for all designers, developers, managers, and design ops leaders.

In-depth review of 3 top alternatives to Zeplin app for design teams in 2020

In-Depth Review of 3 top Alternatives to the Zeplin App in 2020

Yury Vetrov is a former Design Director at Mail.ru. He led design teams with background in design agency management, as well as coding and writing.

After directing design on 25 products at Mail.ru Group, Yury Vetrov shares his thoughts<br/>on Design Management

The Grit - Yury Vetrov, Design Director at Mail.ru for Avocode

Josh Taylor is a product designer and startup advisor helping companies launch delightful new products. He previously worked at Evernote as a Design Director and led a small design team to redesign the revolutionary Evernote Web App.

The early days of design at&nbsp;Evernote with Josh Taylor

The Grit - Josh Taylor, Product Designer and Startup Advisor for Avocode

Minko Gechev is a Senior Developer Programs Engineer in the Angular team at Google. He talks to developers who use Angular to improve the development experience of the framework and the tooling they provide.

Minko Gechev on his journey towards shaping Angular at&nbsp;Google

The Grit - Minko Gechev, Senior Developer Programs Engineer at Google for Avocode

Lou Downe is the Director of Design and Service Standards for the UK Government. She was voted one of the UK's top 50 creative leaders, and one of world’s 100 most influential people in digital government.

Design Director for the UK Government, Lou Downe, on making service design more inclusive

The Grit - Lou Downe, Design Director for UK Government for Avocode

Andrew Lucas-Walsh is a Product Designer at Netflix. He helps to make software to support the content production process at Netflix's studio. During his career, he also managed a couple of design teams at Facebook.

Accepting discomfort leads to growth with Product Designer at Netflix, Andrew Lucas-Walsh

The Grit - Andrew Lucas-Walsh, Product Designer at Netflix for Avocode

Chris Heilmann is the Principal Program Manager at Microsoft. He predominantly works on the Edge browser and the developer ecosystem around it. This means developer tools, integration chains, and also editors like Visual Studio Code.

Chris Heilmann promises big things in the open-source space

The Grit - Chris Heilmann, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft for Avocode

We sat down with designer Bradley G. Munkowitz, aka GMUNK and talked about the importance of personal projects. If you didn't know, he did all the visuals for Tron Legacy, Oblivion, or the Windows 10 desktop wallpaper.

GMUNK (Bradley G. Munkowitz) on the importance of personal design work

The Grit - Interview with legendary designer Bradley G. Munkowitz

Yuan Wang is the Experience Design Lead at Airbnb. She previously led the design of Twitter Threads and worked as a Senior Designer at Mozilla. Explore some great lessons from her impressive design journey.

Making every Airbnb trip magical with Experience Design Lead, Yuan Wang

The Grit - Yuan Wang, Experience Lead at Airbnb for Avocode

Noah Stokes is the Design Director at Dribbble. He started his career working for Apple, but he wasn’t happy with the job. How did he join the Dribbble, and what are they currently working on?

The journey towards giving designers spotlight on Dribbble with its Design Director Noah Stokes

The Grit - Noah Stokes, Design Director at Dribbble for Avocode

Julie Delanoy is the Head of Product Design at Product Hunt. Besides helping startups and makers build and launch their products, she is building a platform - Remote Stories, where people share their experience about remote work.

Head of Product Design at Product Hunt shares her tips for building your own freelance business

The Grit - Julie Delanoy, Head of Product Design at Product Hunt for Avocode

Tori Hinn is the Creative Director of Figma. Her portfolio includes clients like Apple, Etsy, or Google. She also started a project Women of Graphic Design in hopes of correcting some of the design’s gender bias.

Gender equality in design with Creative Director of Figma, Tori Hinn

The Grit - Tori Hinn, Creative Director of Figma for Avocode

Jory Raphael is the Lead Icon Designer at Font Awesome. He worked on several projects for Apple, including icons for the Apple Store iPad software. He also founded Notabli - a private social network focused around families.

Designing icons with Lead Icon Designer at Font Awesome, Jory Raphael

The Grit - Jory Raphael, Lead Icon Designer at Font Awesome for Avocode

Ivy Mukherjee is the Senior Product Designer at GRAB. Previously, she designed for Growth & Onboarding at Shopify, aiming to create experiences, where users don’t need to ask any questions. She’s passionate about Design Systems and intrigued by inclusiveness and accessibility.

Why work for a hyper-growth product company with Ivy Mukherjee

The Grit - Ivy Mukherjee, Senior Product Designer at GRAB for Avocode

Meng To is designer and the author of Design+Code Book. He is a self-taught UI/UX designer who transitioned to digital work. His passion lies in helping people improve their skills in both design and code, especially learning to implement design in real products.

Teaching designers how to code with Design+Code creator Meng To

The Grit - Meng To, Author of Design+Code Book for Avocode

Tanner Christensen is the Product Designer at Lyft. He previously worked as Product Design Lead at Atlassian, and as a Product Designer at Facebook working on projects like Facebook Ads Manager.

From high school dropout to product designer at Facebook and Lyft: Tanner Christensen

The Grit - Tanner Christensen, Product Designer at Lyft for Avocode

Designers and developers work with all kinds of tools on all types of platforms, so a proper design hand-off tool needs to work with all primary design tools (Sketch, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Figma)

How we made Avocode faster with concurrent design rendering

Jasmine Friedl is the Head of Design at Intercom. For five years, she led design at Facebook on projects like Payments in Messenger, Safety Check, and Summit Learning Platform. Read about her lessons learned during her impressive career path.

The career path of the new Head of Design at Intercom: Jasmine Friedl

The Grit - Jasmine Friedl, Head of Design at Intercom for Avocode

Linzi Berry is the Design System Lead at Lyft. In the interview for Avocode, she speaks about her role at Lyft, what’s their current design system solution and how to keep it up to date all the time.

From flash websites to design systems with Linzi Berry, Design System Lead at Lyft

The Grit - Linzi Berry, Design System Lead at Lyft for Avocode

A deep dive into 5 core features that help all designers and front-end developers efficiently collaborate and turn Sketch, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator or Figma designs to code faster with Avocode.

5 things you should know about Avocode

5 things you should know about Avocode

An annual review of our favorite updates and statistics from the past year. In 2018, we shipped Avocode 3 - the new generation of our product, 48 products updates, support of three new formats (Figma, Adobe XD, and Adobe Illustrator) and more.

2018 review: Avocode 3, SDK, 48 updates and more

2018 in Review: The journey and stats of Avocode

Preview your Sketch, Adobe XD, and Figma prototypes in on place with Avocode, and see how your entire design workflow is connected before you start coding. Click through connections and comment on point.

Cover your Sketch, XD, and Figma prototyping workflow in one place

Play your Sketch, Adobe XD, and Figma prototypes with Avocode

This Avocode tutorial will show you how to open and inspect Adobe Illustrator files without Adobe Illustrator app installed on your computer. All you need is a PDF-compatible AI design file and a browser.

How to open Adobe Illustrator design files online?

How to open an AI file without Adobe Illustrator?

We’ve been observing the design space for a long time now and now we’re here to offer our parsing & rendering technology as a Software Development Kit to help everyone in the design industry to innovate faster and at a lower cost. Meet Avocode SDK!

How could the design industry innovate faster?

Need to render UI design files in your product?

If you’re using Adobe XD, you can now sync your XD artboards to Avocode just by pressing CTRL + ALT + E and selecting a project. This way, you do not have to leave your favorite design tool to deliver designs to development.

Good news for all Adobe XD Windows users: New Avocode integration here

The Avocode Integration with Adobe XD comes to Windows

With Design Overview in Avocode, you can create consistent stylesheets and see all fonts, including font-size and colors listed right next to your design. Learn more about how the Design overview in Avocode works.

Meet Design overview — the first step to design systems in Avocode

Meet Design Overview  —  the first step to Design Systems in Avocode

There are many reasons people love using Avocode: powerful inspect mode, team collaboration, design management, and many hidden features that can rapidly improve your workflow. In this article, we cover the 10 most important ones.

10 things you might not know about Avocode

10 power-user Avocode features you might not know about

Index Studio comprises a small, yet talented team of designers and developers with a penchant to deliver and develop well thought out solutions to client ideas/briefs.

How Index Studio clarified communication to developers and won their clients back

After 3 years from launching Avocode 2.0 we’re extremely excited to launch the Avocode 3 — the new generation of our product with new features that were requested 2,722 times.

Introducing Avocode 3  —  World’s first truly cross-platform design hand-off tool

Introducing Avocode 3  —  World’s first truly cross-platform design hand-off tool

Ever since the launch of Sketch, the screen design space has changed for a lot of designers. But there were a lot of creative folks who have been slightly left out — all Windows and the Linux users.

Introducing new Adobe XD integration for Windows, Linux, macOS and the web

Would be nice if you can upload your Figma design to Avocode. Figma is a new design tool which is very similar to Sketch...

Introducing a new integration to import Figma design frames into Avocode

After months of cooperation, we’re ready to release the first version of integration with Adobe XD. We believe you should not be limited by the design tool just to open and inspect a design file - with Avocode all you need is a browser.

Avocode now integrates with Adobe XD

Don't you just love it when you meet a tourist in your own country and suddenly he starts speaking in your native language? Only last month, we had people from 126 countries visiting our website.

How we translated the Avocode website written in Next.js with the i18next package (2/2)

From now on, Avocode enables anyone to import, open and inspect layered Sketch designs on Windows, Linux (yes Ubuntu too), or on macOS without Sketch app. It even works in the browser

Major update: Open and inspect Sketch designs on Windows, Linux, and macOS

“Aside from the clear advantages of Next.js, the biggest game-changer for us is the modularity of the codebase. To be able to edit quickly and at best only in a few places, we have split our web into tiny — almost atomic — design parts.”‎ - Co-founder & Head of Marketing at Avocode

Why is Next.js the web framework our Marketing Team always wanted? (1/2)

Why do we use Next.js framework for the Avocode website

What are the benefits of image export with Avocode? 1) You can export any layer. 2) Change images format to PNG, JPEG, SVG, or WebP. 3) Rename exported images. 4) Scale vector shapes and export as bitmaps in higher resolution. 5) Select multiple layers and export them at once

The Best Way to Export a clean SVG from Sketch designs

The best way to export SVGs from Sketch designs with Avocode

Wondering how open is the Sketch file format? Here’s a story behind the very first ever Photoshop to Sketch Design Converter that is now used by thousand of designers, based on technology we already had in the house.

How we learned to read and write Sketch app data format

How we learned to read and write the Sketch file format at Avocode

Are your switching to Sketch from Photoshop, but don’t have the time to recreate all your designs? In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to do it automatically, for free and in a matter of minutes.

How to convert Photoshop design to a layered Sketch file?

How to convert Photoshop design to a Sketch file?

Are you running on macOS? Do you want to collaborate on your Sketch files with people who are on different platforms — such as Windows or Linux? It all comes down to what you need to do.

How to handoff Sketch Artboards and assets to developers — no matter their&nbsp;OS

How to handoff Sketch Artboards and assets to developers

Are you running on macOS? Do you want to collaborate on your Sketch files with people who are on different platforms — such as Windows or Linux?

How to handoff Sketch Artboards and assets to developers — no matter their OS

Hi, my name is Petr and I'm one of the co-founders of Avocode. We are working on a tool to share, hand-off and inspect Photoshop and Sketch designs. Our product is built in an open source framework…

My experience of building Nachos UI kit for React Native

If you’re building a cross-platform app with JavaScript, HTML and CSS, you might have some experience with the Electron autoUpdater. Though it provides an uniform API, autoupdating on Windows tends…

Get that damn Windows Auto Update working on Electron

Electron framework can be used to build cross-platform desktop apps with frontend technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Electron Apps are cross-platform, meaning they compatible and run on Mac, Windows, and Linux operating system.

4 must-know tips for building cross platform Electron apps

4 tips for building cross-platform Electron apps

There’s a wave of designers entering the industry who learned the trade using non-Adobe products. I am one of those designers. While it’s great being considered a Sketch maestro at the agency I work…

Get the greatest design stories in a free e-book.

Product Design Tips from the Hashtag Inventor, Chris Messina

Mastering Design Thinking with Stefan Sagmeister

2020: The Year of Curiosity in UI Design

The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Design with Gleb Kuznetsov

Behind the Scenes of the Sketch App & Sketch Cloud with Sketch Co-founder Emanuel Sá

How Avocode Graphics Engine renders Sketch, Adobe XD, PSD, AI, and Figma designs in the browser

Design Trends Predictions for 2020 From Top Designers