Color and Text Styles

Color Variable

A color variable is a value that can be assigned to a color to use across a design. It allows for easy color management and consistency throughout the design. The color variable can be changed once and it will automatically update all instances of that color in the design. This helps in keeping the design consistent, especially if the color scheme changes.

Create color variable

You can create a new color variable from the Inspector, the Components View, or the Find and Replace menu in Sketch.

• Select a layer, then click on the color well in the Fill section. Select the solid color you want, then click Create Color Variable. Name it and click Create or press Enter to save.

Apply Color Variable

Select the layer where you want to apply a Color Variable. In the color well for any style property you can select the Color Variable you want from the grid. You can switch between the Color Variables for that document or any Library you have enabled. You can also apply a Color Variable by clicking on the color swatch icon   next to the color well.

Color Style

A color variable allows you to store and reuse a specific color value throughout your design. By creating and saving a color style, you can define a color once and apply it to multiple objects or layers in your design, making it easier to manage and maintain consistency in your color choices.

Text Styles

Text Style allows you to save and apply consistent formatting to text in your designs. It will enable you to set text properties such as font, size, color, letter spacing, line height, and more and apply them across multiple text layers in a Sketch document. By creating and using text styles, you can ensure that your text is consistent, making it easier to make changes and updates later on.

Create Color and Text Style

Select a layer, then click on the plus icon to create a text style in the Appearence section. Give it a name and save it.

Apply Text Style

Select a layer and choose the pop-up menu that reads No Text Style under the Appearance  section. In the Components Popover, select the Text Style you want to apply. You can use the search bar at the top of the popover to help you find the style you need.

Colors

Colours are an essential part of the design process. As designers, we know how difficult it is to find the right colour combinations for the background, buttons, text styles and other layouts. We can add colour styles to fills, strokes, backgrounds and text, and you may even create colour styles for images or gradients. Color Theory The most important thing you need to learn is the colour wheel. Understanding how the colour wheel works and what colours go well together will help you create a more knowledgeable design.

Primary Colors The primary colours are those you can combine to create other colours. The main primary colours are red, yellow and blue. These colours cannot be formed or made from a combination of different colours.

Secondary Colors These colours are the result of mixing the primary colours like purple (a combination of red + blue), green (a variety of blue + yellow) and orange (a combination of red + yellow).

Tertiary Colors The tertiary colours are created by combining a primary colour with secondary colours. Some examples include blue-green and orange-yellow.

Neutral Tones The most crucial aspect of colours is the neutral tones. These are the neutralizers, and as such, these keep your designs from feeling too heavy. Most importantly, the neutral tones are easy on the eye and defer the user's attention to the content. You can use these as backgrounds.

Material Design Color System

You can use the colour tool from the Material Design Color System. With that tool, you can create colour palettes for your UI. The app allows you to preview your colour palette in some UI samples they provide, and if you update a colour, you can see the new colour updated in real-time.

Playlist Design

Now, let's jump into the design! We're going to design the playlist screen. In the previous section, we already built the top card, so we will easily insert it into the artboard and then create the playlist layout.

• First, we'll duplicate the music player screen and delete everything except the status bar, home indicator and BG.

Top Navigation

On this screen, the top navigation is different from the music player. We will replace the icon with a back arrow. The only action on this screen is to go back to the previous page.

• Select the top navigation, and delete the more icon. Replace the arrow down icon with the arrow-ios-left instead.
• Change the title to __Now Playing __and moves the title to the left next to the arrow back icon. The spacing from the text and arrow left icon is 8.

Insert a Symbol Instance

We will insert the top card we have built; if not made, you can choose from the symbols document. This card will define the album we have chosen, and then we will create our playlist.

• Click on the diamont icon on the top menu and add the top card. The spacing is 24 from the Top navigation group.

Playlist Layout

So let's start preparing the base and adding a title for our playlist layout. With a strong foundation and an eye-catching title, we will be one step closer to creating a successful and engaging playlist for our audience.

• Create a rectangle of 390 by 395, corner radius 30, fill: color white 10%, blend mode: overlay, border: linear, color white, and overlay.
• Write a title Featuring using the __Subtitle __text style for iOS/Dark.

Create Music Layout

Once the base is in place, we will turn our attention to the next step of designing our playlist. We will build our playlist from scratch, or you can also integrate the pre-made List Layout that I have included in the symbols document.

• Create a rectangle 390 by 70, and make it transparent. Create a square of 50 by 50, fill it with an image, corner radius of 10. Write the title of the music and select body 1 text style. Write the artist's name using the body 2 text style. Create a separator using Line 359, color black 10%.

Conclusion

This is a simple way to add some polish to your design process in a short amount of time. It becomes super simple to update colors and text styles, so if you have a color scheme or style guide, it can become less important to have predefined colors and fonts applied to every object.