Figma launched network access restrictions on the Enterprise plan to enhance security measures. This feature allows organization admins to prevent employees from accidentally authenticating into personal Figma accounts while on the corporate network.

An insightful essay from Mills Baker, the Head of Design at Substack, about gloomy possibilities for software designers in the coming years. ​“Who was the architect of your apartment building or house? You probably have no idea. As the construction industry matured, and best practices were commodified, the percentage of buildings requiring the direct involvement of architects plummeted. Builders can now choose from an array of standard layouts that cover most of their needs; materials and design questions, too, have been standardized, and reflect economies of scale more than local or unique contextual realities. Buildings are, it’s true, perhaps a little worse than they used to be, but the trade-offs overall are clearly what people want.”

“As I spend this Valentine’s Day working in Figma, putting the final touches on my Founders Who UX program, with hearts in my eyes (and a stomach ache), I began romantically reminiscing about all the tools that helped get me here. What better way to express my gratitude to them on this day than a love letter?”

Patrick Morgan with shares simple guidelines for using Figma to showcase your strength as a visual storyteller.

While Figma doesn’t have native support for color tokens yet, Luis kicks off a discussion of how they might work in the future. His approach is similar to how I usually organize color tokens in CSS, so hopefully that will be the direction they take!

Miggi shows how to use Figma sections for prototyping. Besides being a wonderful organizational tool, sections give you the ability to remember the states of areas of your prototype.

Yet another fantastic tutorial by Double Glitch. The use of dodge & burn in animations is really smart and produces a beautiful effect.

A simple temperature prototype by Vijay Verma, made as a part of Figbruary.

“We’re ringing in 2023 by bringing ten Figmates to showcase their favorite features and share their tips and tricks. Whether you’re new to Figma or a pro yourself, tune in to get an inside look on how the teams who build Figma and FigJam use the tools.”

“In this livestream, Aashrey Sharma, UX Designer at Epic Games, shares how he prototypes for game design and some principles to consider when creating a game, or more broadly, focus-based navigation prototypes.”

“You’ve been invited to collaborate in FigJam! Watch this video to learn the basics so you’re ready to jam with your team on project plans, flow charts, and more.”

From the author of the new EightShapes Specs documentation plugin: ​“This post describes how the plugin works, what it outputs, how teams adjust and style based on their preferences, and a bit of the background of how I got here. As you read, keep in mind: the plugin is great for specs but also proved unexpectedly useful for designers to audit in-progress Figma work for quality and completeness and critique their component with teammates.”

Speaking of sections in Figma, here is a plugin for you: ​“Wrap a new section around layers you’ve selected, or adjust the size of an existing section. Customize the spacing around selected layers, change the color of the section, and add additional titles and subtitles.”

Video and transcript of a fireside chat with Dylan Field on Figma’s origins, AI, and education.

Marcin Wichary leads the editor design team at Figma and wrote some of my favorite deep dives on design-related topics (like underlines on Medium or fonts and line height at Figma). Now he is working on a gorgeous book about keyboards, ​“covering 150 years from the early typewriters to the pixellated keyboards in our pockets.” Shift Happens (what a name!) has already become the #3 Kickstarter non-fiction book of all time, and seems like it’s on its way to a stretch goal, unlocking a larger 3^rd volume. Highly recommend listening to his recent interview on the Design Details podcast about the book, its publication, website, and more. Consider backing this project by March 9, 2023 to help it reach a stretch goal.