GuideGuide 5: Sketch!
May 21, 2018 | Written by
Cameron McEfee
GuideGuide 5 has a new brand, a new billing model, and most importantly, new support for Sketch.
Switching to subscriptions
GuideGuide is now a subscription product, with all supported applications covered by one price. You can read about why I switched to subscriptions. A license costs $7 USD/month. Education discounts are available if you contact support from your school email address. I’m also considering discounted annual pricing, regional pricing, and “forever” licenses, but those ideas are off in the future.
The previous version will continue to function as normal and should support future CC versions unless Adobe changes the APIs it uses. I will offer limited support for installation and recovery issues, but will not be continuing its development. If you would like to try it out before making a decision, you can download the 14 day trial.
Sketch and beyond
The most exciting part of this launch is support for Sketch, a macOS design tool that has gained popularity in recent years. GuideGuide in Sketch is a floating window that you can toggle with the keyboard shortcut cmd + option + shift + g, and manipulates Sketch’s “smart guides.”
To bring GuideGuide to Sketch I had to nearly completely rewrite it. In the process, I built an infrastructure that is flexible enough to support for new applications without much effort. Once the dust from this launch settles, I plan to kick off development for an InDesign version. After that intend to investigate a number of other apps, including After Effects, XD, and Figma.
New brand, new design
In the last couple years I’ve started focusing my efforts on operating like a business, putting into practice tricks that that I’ve picked up from the talented software engineers I’ve had the good fortune to work with. With the switch to a subscription model, I wanted apply this same focus to the design to ensure this launch came with a brand of equal stature to the product.
To get a fresh perspective, I hired a friend with a knack for brands, Dave Keller. What he came up combines a solid, structured logo with vibrant colors and crazy, grid-ignoring curves. I’m very pleased with the result.
In addition to the new brand, GuideGuide also has a new UI. The new version is by-and-large the same, with a few tweaks to make it fit better in the Sketch UI and bring some elements that were once hidden in menues out into the main interface. The quick guides are now on top, and saved grids can now be manually reordered.
Gimme your money
In 2015, I wrote about the value of my time and how it influenced my decision to start charging for GuideGuide. With this switch to subscriptions, I’ve written about my next goal, using it to become my own boss. I’m one guy designing and building a product that thousands of designers have come to rely upon, loving every minute of it, and I hope you’ll get some satisfaction out of knowing that your support contributes to my hopefully near-at-hand independence.
Seriously though, gimme your money.