In the previous article in this series, I discussed our ideation and initial prototyping process. We covered details on how to use Adobe Fireworks to set up a responsive design wireframe, reusable components, prototypes and ways to share designs. In this article, we’ll share how we used Adobe Fireworks in our iterative visual design process, along with other useful tips. Why Adobe Fireworks? Before diving into details, let’s acknowledge that Fireworks became feature-frozen in May 2013 and that some of the visual results discussed in this article could have been achieved using alternative graphics software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Sketch . But the hard truth is that Fireworks is still used by many designers and offers a unique workflow and integrated feature set, unmatched by any program available. For a good read on why Fireworks is still relevant, I recommend “ The Present and Future of Adobe Fireworks .” In Search of the Key Design Tool As discussed in the “Creating Wireframes And Prototypes” section of part 1, our choice of a design tool came down to the following: Speed Fireworks proved to be quicker for directly creating and manipulating visual elements on the screen than other tools, like Photoshop and Illustrator. The combination of integrated vector tools and bitmap-editing capabilities in one package, plus pages, states, symbols, styles and extensions, was something unique and worked best for us.
↧