Happy Monday! Last week, Figma announced Schema, their new design systems conference. The lineup of speakers and agenda look great. I already applied to attend, but all talks will be recorded and shared the week after the event anyway. Looking forward to it!

👉 Speaking of design systems, I mentioned a new tool I’ve been working on in the previous issue. Accessible Palette is a free app for designing color systems with consistent lightness and contrast. It’s built on CIELAB/LCh color space and has some really useful features, like shifting Hue of the color range, checking contrast ratios against any color in the palette, or using an improved contrast algorithm from an upcoming WCAG 3 Working Draft. This tool was born out of a real-life project, and I believe it can be a huge help to anyone working on design systems or caring about accessibility.

🤓 See why the HSL/HSV color model sucks for systems work, WCAG 2.1 contrast ratios shouldn’t be trusted, and sometimes Figma isn’t enough in my article at Wildbit blog: Accessible Palette: Stop using HSL for color systems.

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I believe this issue breaks all previous records for a number of major features shipped in two weeks. Just look at this list: FigJam plugins and widgets with custom objects; audio calls, cursor chat, and high fives; people mentions in the Community; updates to FigJam on the iPad; improved experience for admins of Teams and Organizations; and even a revision to the Education plan! I’m most excited to see what smart FigJam widgets the community will come up with — the possibilities are truly endless!

In August, I worked on a fun project of reconstructing the color system of Postmark and making it more accessible. That project involved a ton of research on color science, and I ended up building an internal tool based on HCL/LCh color model with built-in support for WCAG 2.1 and 3.0 contrast checks. Last week, I got a great opportunity to spend some time turning this internal tool into a public app. Can’t wait to write about the app and why the HSL color model shouldn’t be used for color systems!

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Hello 👋 Figmalion is back to its regular biweekly schedule after a short summer break.

While August is usually the quietest time of the year, the last three weeks have been quite busy for the Figma community. First, a long-awaited feature was released — now you can move published components between files without breaking their connection! In addition, Figma shipped a few improvements to libraries and components. Font Awesome (which is shipped with Figma by default) switched their entire icon design process to Figma. Smashing Magazine published a guide on useful plugins. A few members of the Figma community were guests on the podcasts — check out conversations with Miggi and Gleb. Lastly, there are a few great tips on using components and organizing design systems. Enjoy the issue!

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