Collaborating on documents has become easier than ever with a host of tools, but for web and graphic designers, the options can sometimes be lacking.
That’s why Seattle-based Thomas Street and Makefast Workshop are working on a new plug-in for the popular design program Sketch, which is used by tech giants like Apple, Google and Facebook, that will let multiple designers work on the same project simultaneously.
The new service, Picnic, is like Google Docs and other collaboration tools, but it is designed for the more graphically-inclined types using Sketch. Users can integrate the plug-in with their own file-sharing systems, whether that’s Dropbox, Google Docs or a local server.
Picnic is in the middle of an alpha test right now, and Thomas Street representatives told GeekWire the company is hoping to release a beta version in a couple weeks. Thomas Street has not laid out a timeline for releasing the product to the public.
Thomas Street is a consultancy that helps tech companies design and develop products. The company basically sells to clients the promise of a collaborative, efficient partnership. But Thomas Street found that its designers were not equipped with the right tools to work together on complex projects.
A couple Thomas Street folks using Sketch to collaborate on a project were frustrated by the inability to work on the same page at the same time. They found it took way more communication than necessary to make sure they didn’t wipe out each other’s work.
Matt Wolfe, a Thomas Street partner, tasked Makefast developer Adam Kumpf with exploring the technical feasibility of working on the same pages simultaneously within Sketch. Turns out Sketch’s plug-in friendly architecture made it possible, and about a month after the initial idea came about, Picnic was out for Alpha testing.
“Now we can have designers sit side by side in one file,” said David Graunke, a partner and developer at Thomas Street. “They don’t have to each have their own file, they don’t have to coordinate to make sure only one person has it open at a time. They can share that and they can see what other people are working on.”
Here is a look at Picnic in action on Sketch:
The interest in the product, Graunke said, has far exceeded the company’s expectations. Thomas Street hoped to get 30 people and groups signed up for its test, but Graunke said more than 4,000 have signed up from around the world. Despite the massive interest in the product, Graunke said it is keeping things small, starting testing with only a couple teams based in the Seattle area before expanding out.
“As soon as we feel like those folks have a stable experience, we are going to start widening out access in waves. We want to make sure we have the resources to give people the support they need in the early stages,” Graunke said.
