DEV Community

Cover image for Dear frontender, how do you collaborate with your designer?
nop33.eth
nop33.eth

Posted on

Dear frontender, how do you collaborate with your designer?

Dear frontend engineers,

How do you collaborate with your designers?

Every frontender's wet dream is a clearly defined design system1, 2 delivered in an inspectable format so that they can inspect every element of it, measure distances, paddings and margins, see colors and variants and basically every property that needs to eventually be translated in CSS.

In my career, I have worked with designers that delivered their designs:

  • in Sketch files, so I had to tell my boss to buy me a Sketch licence so I can inspect them
  • with InVision which did not require any additional software, simply the web browser
  • with Zeplin, which only required installing the free software, no need for a licence
  • sadly, I have also worked with designers that delivered their designs in PDF format...

So far I had the best experience with Zeplin and InVision cause I could inspect the typography and design system separately from the main designs (although this highly depends on the quality of the designer's work).

How do you prefer working with the designers you collaborate with? Which is your preferred tool and why? Do you have a specific process that you can share? How do you bridge the gap between designs and CSS/code?

Thank you!

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Top comments (0)