Rafa

Rafa

@rafa.design

Designer and app developer, working on Sketch and Hand Mirror ✨

2.8K followers 417 following174 posts

I am so incredibly honored to share that I will be working alongside the legend, the myth, the Underscore himself, as well as @ismh86.net, and @myke.social! Our brief collaboration on the latest Pedometer++ Apple Watch update was such a fun experience, can't wait to see what we do next ✨

Hand Mirror 4 is out now, you can take a Snap, draw on it, and save it to your Photo Library 📸 Here's some of my favorite UI details:

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If you unlocked Hand Mirror Plus you get to be in the credits! Also, you can always click on the mirror icon to turn it into… a mirror.

Little behind the scenes, but one fun thing of working on a feature all about taking pictures, is that you end up with a lot of pictures during development… do recommend.

Hand Mirror 4 is out now, you can take a Snap, draw on it, and save it to your Photo Library 📸 Here's some of my favorite UI details:

View full thread

That Snaps UI is bonkers, so I had to account for you moving the window, you resizing the window, aspect ratio, how much space there is available below, above it, to the left, right 🫨

This started out as a joke and then I had to keep it going — click the "Hand Mirror Plus" label and it changes it EVERYWHERE in the app… every menu, label… Right click to "clear this nonsense".

Hand Mirror 4 is out now, you can take a Snap, draw on it, and save it to your Photo Library 📸 Here's some of my favorite UI details:

The "What's New" window, replicating a real-life-old-school software box 👨‍🦳

There's a new "Meet the developer" easter egg where I come out and say hi 👋 If you keep spamming that button I'll just deactivate it though…

I was born too late and never got to design a physical box for my software, so I did a fake one for the “What's new" window in Hand Mirror. This update is almost ready, if you like to make videos or write about this stuff get in touch!

After 3 great years, it’s time for me to wrap things up at Sketch and look for a new thing 👀

I made a new app, Night Knight 🌙 It's a Night Light, a Noise Machine, and a Wake Aid that switches the color of the light at a certain time of day to let my kids know that it's “morning" and they can get off bed. It's also free: apps.apple.com/us/app/night...

Built this in just two days, after realizing we didn’t bring our kids’ night clock, and my son was up at 5 AM ready to go play. We need that green light at 7 😂

It’s always fun when I get to take a break from product and hang out with marketing

Sketch@sketch.com

Sometimes you’ve gotta let @rafa.design roll out the green screen and talk about his favorite Sketch updates. Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it informative? Yes. Will we be asking him again? Absolutely.

Rafa reposted

We’ve got a biiiig update for you. A complete redesign of Sketch. Maybe you’ve tried the beta, maybe you’ve seen the teasers. Now you can update and try it all for real. And there’s more! 🧵 ↓

This design would have definitely been rejected if I wasn't building it on my own 🙈 Weird chromeless UI that renders outside the window, that you can resize, and move anywhere in the screen, with drawn annotations that you'll need to keep track of their position and scale… 💀

Having fun working on Hand Mirror again 📸

Favorite project of the year ✨

I decided to open up my Opal Tadpole webcam, because I was curious to see how they managed to make it so small… and to my surprise the camera was not installed directly to the board, but with a cable instead! 💡 I don’t know if you know where I am going with this…

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3D printer to the rescue: got a main shell for the components, a little ring to keep the lens in place, and some fake FireWire plugs to make it work with the original base…

Final result: a modern  iSight 4K Camera ✨

I decided to open up my Opal Tadpole webcam, because I was curious to see how they managed to make it so small… and to my surprise the camera was not installed directly to the board, but with a cable instead! 💡 I don’t know if you know where I am going with this…

This meant that I could probably make it fit my iSight camera body and have a 4K, plug and play camera (and upgrading my old PiSight project) 👀

If you're like me and are trying to study and inspect the new Liquid Glass effect, I've built a small utility app for you! Test Liquid Glass with all the different options, tinting, sizes, and backgrounds — only for macOS Tahoe for obvious reasons. 💾 rafa.design/glasshole

Here's some other details that I bet most won't ever notice, but (for the sake of my career) I hope some will _feel it_: We've added subtle animations to some of our illustrations, like this background and shines, as well as some hover effects on the cards that accept a click

All of these animations are randomized, so every time I see them they're slightly different. For this one I took the super cute illustration from @raphaellopesph.bsky.social, isolated some elements like the background blobs and shines, and then replaced them in code

Did you spot the Easter Egg? There's a hidden dusty corner where you can find @sketch.com 's original icon, back from when it was still called DrawIt 🧓💛

Rafa reposted

@mikestern.bsky.social

For @sketch.com v102, we rebuilt our iOS 18 UI Kit to support stacks and frames! sketch.com/s/bb57439f-1... Download the "templates and guides" file, too! Has lots of pre-made symbol instances and UIs, color a material palettes, a dynamic type chart, and more: developer.apple.com/design/resou...

I gotta come clean, me joining the @sketch.com team was all part of a LONG CON, just so that I could ship a dynamic app icon — muhahaha, FOOLS!

Playing through #F1 24 career mode and having a blast — I’ve printed a F1 style wheel rim for my old Logitech G29, complete with swappable custom plates for when I switch teams 😂

My 3D printer arrived last Friday and I’m having a blast, still learning the basics of 3D modeling but I was able to design three custom pieces:

Anotha one! I love my monitor, but I don’t love that it doesn’t have a camera: this is an XDR MagSafe Mount to use Continuity Camera, and finally getting rid of that ugly webcam wart 😅

New Naughty Dog IP. Directed by Neil Druckman. Music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. A Porsche spaceship? This looks perfect 💯 www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7TV...

youtube.comIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophet Announcement TrailerYouTube video by Naughty Dog

They asked if I could do a 2024 recap video… and to “go crazy” (I hope they don’t regret it).

Sketch@sketch.com

What did we do in 2024? We asked @rafa.design (and a few friends) to show what we shipped… and… well… enjoy!

Being sick AND having to take care of a baby and a toddler is… very hard.

Rafa reposted

@workspaces.bsky.social

👉 @rafa.design is a Product Designer at @sketch.com and an independent app developer This is his workspace 👇 Full tour: www.workspaces.xyz/p/461-rafael...

It a’me!

Workspaces@workspaces.bsky.social

Today on workspaces.xyz 👀

Seriously, getting a 3D printer was a mistake

Rafa reposted

We’re working a stack layout feature for @sketch.com, and while we still have lots to do, here’s a sneak peek from yours truly: youtu.be/wK_OXZxakPQ Particularly pleased with how we’ve repurposed the existing alignment actions to override cross-axis alignment on items.

youtu.beSneak peek: Stack layoutYouTube video by Sketch

My 3D printer arrived last Friday and I’m having a blast, still learning the basics of 3D modeling but I was able to design three custom pieces:

Another print: custom stands and labels for my lightsabers 🤓

It was super tricky to get that first layer right, I wanted to print it face down to get that nice texture from my textured plate… already ordered a 0.2 nozzle for printing text 😂 #3dprinting

My 3D printer arrived last Friday and I’m having a blast, still learning the basics of 3D modeling but I was able to design three custom pieces:

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Second, a custom desk hanger for my AirPods Max. Super simple 😇

And third, my son keeps barging in my office while I’m working, so I designed a custom door lock to keep him out (I love him though) 😅

My 3D printer arrived last Friday and I’m having a blast, still learning the basics of 3D modeling but I was able to design three custom pieces:

First, a shelf to hold my Sonos on my monitor stand (I know I know, not optimized for sound fidelity)

First time doing this, but for the rest of the week Hand Mirror+ is only $2.99 (50% off) — it's a one time purchase, so if you get it now you'll still get all future big features, including the upcoming Snaps 📸 apps.apple.com/us/app/hand-...

apps.apple.com‎Hand Mirror‎

This is brilliant, and that icon ✨

Marcelo Marfil@mmarfil.com

Mastered hackery to create easy access to a new mini I'm using as a home server: – Dock folder with custom icon & fan display – AppleScript tied to a shortcut for folder contents display – Automator/Shortcuts/Webloc ‘apps’ to trigger actions

Does everyone with a 3D printer feels like any time not printing is wasted time?