Q. Hi Tobia, can you tell us a bit yourself?
Hi my name is Tobia, I’m 30 and I’m from Italy. I’m currently based in Berlin and I work as a Lead Designer for a company called Bonagora, a B2B platform for the home fashion wholesale.
Bonagora Marketplace - POS, by Tobia
Everything started long time ago when I began playing around with Photoshop. At first I started exploring it and tried to create some piece of artwork by mixing colors, create shapes, use pictures and use blend modes.
After that my interest started shifting towards the technical aspect of design and I became very passionate about UI design. I started to replicate what other designers were doing to understand how they came up with such amazing and cool stuff. Plus, I was also creating my personal UI. From that point I was just improving my skills about UI design on a daily basis.
I didn’t even think at that time that this could become my full time job. Started as a passion and became a job, it’s awesome I would say.
Q. Does sound awesome! What’s your goal when you start a design – any principle you apply to yourself?
Well, first thing first. When I start a new design, let’s say a new project, I always try to understand the whole concept regarding the app, the user’s need and which problem the app is trying to solve. When I’m designing a pixel perfect mockup, which for me is the very last step of my design process, I always try to be consistent, keep the UI clean and simple and give the users the best experience.
In a nutshell it means clean/clear UI, less tap possible and very intuitive hints for actions. This is where my focus is when I design UI for apps.
In general I always try to stick with the main UI design principles: structure, simplicity, visibility, feedback, tolerance and reuse. These always guide me to my design process.
Q. What first attracted you to exploring Material Design?
I used to work on Android design and at that time it was a bit hard for me to understand all the philosophy and the logic behind it. When the new Material Design concept came out I was really fascinated by it. Not just because the design itself, which I found impressive and extremely beautiful, but for all that they have build behind it: the new philosophy, the new concept of UI design.
They didn’t just build a new UI design, they build a new system.
Zalando App Mockup, Freebie by Tobia
All the metrics, values, grids, and so on are far easier to understand now and easier to apply to your ideas. The Material Design Documentation also is something very useful and thought through every single details. They have been working 2 years on something that really change the way UI are build and not just a new “UI look”.
In my opinion, consistency between apps is the aspect that the new Material Design has improved dramatically.
Right now apps have a clear and fresh line to follow to make them consistent between different screen sizes and also between apps that are part of the same suite. A clear example is the Google app suite: all of them stick to the principles described on the guidelines and the result is pretty impressive in terms of consistency and beauty.
I also think that now it very clear how to manage the UI between different screen sizes and resolutions. Now you have three different “breakpoints”: phone, tablet, desktop. Still an intensive process because you have to come up with different UI solutions for different screen sizes and think about meaningful animation between different states of the UI. But now it’s clearer than before. And with tools like Sketch, the process has become super easy, in terms of design and exporting assets for developers.
Right now I find designing for Android devices much more fun that it was before, thanks to the pretty clear and well done guidelines.
Q. What’s the best way to learn Material Design?
For me the best way to learn Material Design at the beginning was reading the guidelines.This is the first step that I would suggest to someone who wants to learn and know more about it. The Google presentation is very useful to understand what is all about and how they came up with it.
The Sketch Material Design Template (included in Sketch) is an awesome template that you can use to start design Material Design apps. I often use it when I have to use some elements or start with an empty page. Well done and very useful.
Q. So do you still use Photoshop?
I used to use Photoshop for all my design duties, and Illustrator mostly to create icons. About seven months ago I switch to Sketch and I won’t go back to Photoshop to design UI anymore.
I started designing with Sketch and I found the whole process of design UI easier and faster, after a week of practicing I was able to do everything that I was able to do in Photoshop. So right now I use Sketch all the way for design UI. Still using Illustrator to create icons though. I find it easier and faster, for me at least.
DiscoMusica - Sketch UI, Freebie by Tobia
Q. What Sketch plugins do you use?
I use a few Sketch plugin. Among them you probably know for sure the famous Content Generator that helps you to fill up your UI with names, avatars, descriptions and details of any kind.
I also occasionally use Scripts that helps you on modifying shape to fill up in width or height the artboard, create blend steps, and so on.
Create Blend steps with Scripts Plugin.
Q. What websites or apps inspired you the most for your work?
Generally for me the most inspiring websites and apps are the ones that Google creates. Regarding the website and the apps I would say that Google Maps, Google Calendar and Google Mail are my top 3, especially on mobile apps. The way that they design and make the UI works is something unique that really inspire me.
Google Calendar, by Google Design.
Q. Which designers do you look up to?
There are a lot of awesome designers out there and in general I always refer to the creation itself rather than a specific designer.
But of course I have my favorites which are: Eddie Lobanovskiy, Ionut Zamfir, Creative Dash, Julien Renvoye, Haraldur Thorleifsson and Eric Hoffman.
Rjday Landing page design, by Julien Renvoye.
Julien Renvoye has an incredible way to create original design, great use of color and layout structure. And his layouts are very clean and nice. Haraldur Thorleifsson is simply impressive. His google style is simply amazing. Great use of colors, super clean and well structured UI and very original design overall. I simply love the designs these guys come up with every time.
Great inspiration there, thanks Tobia!
Do you want to continue this conversation with Tobia or follow his work?
You'll find him on MaterialUp, Dribbble, Behance and Twitter.