Small habits that make Compose click.
A collection of practical tips for the Color Palette Maker, Typography Lab and Wireframing Whiteboard, plus a few workflow habits worth picking up.
Get palettes you'll actually use.
A few habits that keep your palettes consistent and easy to hand off.
Start from a color you already love
Pick a base color from a photo, a product shot or a brand asset instead of a random hex. The rest of the palette will feel more intentional from the first swatch.
Check contrast before you commit
Run text and background pairs through the built in contrast checker early. It's much easier to swap a shade now than after it's used across a whole design.
Lock the swatch you're keeping
If one color in the palette is already right, lock it while you keep generating variations for the rest. It saves you from losing a good accent by accident.
Export in the format your next step needs
Use CSS variables when you're headed straight into code, a hex list for handoff docs, or an image export when you just need a quick visual reference to share.
Name palettes by project, not by color
"Client X - v2" is far easier to find later than "Gold Palette 3." A quick, consistent naming habit saves real time once you have a dozen saved palettes.
Keep a neutral in every palette
Even bold, colorful palettes need one true neutral for text and backgrounds. Add it deliberately rather than letting the generator pick one for you.
Pair type like you mean it.
Type is easy to get almost right and hard to get exactly right. These help close the gap.
Pair contrast, not chaos
Choose a display face and a body face that differ in mood but share similar proportions or era. Two loud typefaces fighting each other rarely reads as intentional.
Preview real copy, not placeholder text
Paste an actual paragraph from your project into the specimen view. Lorem ipsum hides awkward letter pairs and line breaks that real sentences will expose.
Watch your line length
Aim for roughly 60-75 characters per line for body copy. If a paragraph feels tiring to read in the preview, it's usually too wide or too narrow, not the typeface.
Open up tracking on all caps
Uppercase headings and labels almost always need a touch more letter spacing than mixed case text to stay comfortable to scan.
Set your scale once, reuse it everywhere
Save a type scale as your default once you're happy with it. Reusing the same ratio across projects builds a consistent, recognizable rhythm over time.
Give headings more leading than you think
Large display type often looks cramped at the same line height as body text. Nudge it up slightly and compare both side by side before deciding.
Sketch fast, stay organized.
The whiteboard is built for early, messy thinking. These keep it from turning into actual mess.
Stay low fidelity at first
Block out layout with basic shapes before adding detail. Deciding structure and detail at the same time slows down the part of the process that should move fast.
Chain screens into a flow
Connect related screens so you can click through the flow like a real prototype. It surfaces missing states and dead ends far earlier than a static layout would.
Annotate decisions as you make them
Drop a note next to any choice that isn't obvious. Future you, and anyone else reading the board later, will thank you for the context.
Hold space to pan around
On a large canvas, holding Space and dragging is faster than scrolling. It's a small habit that keeps you in flow instead of hunting for the right spot.
Group and label by flow
Cluster screens by what they belong to, like onboarding or checkout, and label each group. It turns a sprawling board into something you can navigate at a glance.
Leave the edge cases in view
Sketch empty states, errors and loading screens alongside the happy path instead of skipping them. They're far cheaper to plan for now than to retrofit later.
Habits that carry across every tool.
Save early, save often
Compose runs locally with no cloud sync, so a quick Ctrl+S habit is your real safety net. Build it in from the first minute of every session.
One project per client or product
Keep palettes, type systems and wireframes for the same project together instead of scattered across generic files. It makes handoff and revisits much faster.
Work offline on purpose
Since Compose doesn't need a connection, it's a good default for focused sessions, flights or anywhere you want fewer notifications pulling at your attention.
Export before you switch tools
Export what you need from Palette or Type before moving on to Wireframe. It's a quick checkpoint that prevents rework if you close the project later.
Learn the shortcuts you use daily
Undo, redo, save and export cover most of a session. Learning those four shortcuts alone removes a surprising amount of friction from everyday work.
Revisit before you finalize
Step away and come back with fresh eyes before locking in a palette, pairing or wireframe. Small issues are much easier to spot after a short break.
Batch your exports at the end of a session
Instead of exporting after every tweak, keep working across Palette, Type and Wireframe, then export everything once you're actually happy with the result. It cuts down on clutter in your downloads folder and forces one last look at everything together before it leaves Compose.
Before you call it done.
A short checklist worth running through before you export and move on.
Start composing.
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