Issue #120

The Ultimate Recap of Config 2023

Back home, every once in a while I have to pinch myself and question if last week really happened. Being invited to speak at Config felt unbelievable enough, but being surrounded by my design heroes, community legends, and virtual friends was just surreal. Meeting an entire team of Designer Advocates and volunteer Community Advocates from around the world felt like a reunion after writing about their work for years. I think I’ve seen half of my Twitter friends in 4 days, and made many new ones.

When Rogie and Vanessa invited me to participate in Figma Like the Pros, I immediately jumped on it. Meeting my co-speakers a couple of weeks later was so exciting as I’ve been a fan of their work for a long time. Molly, Helena, Rusmir, Christine, Joey, and Femke were a dream team, and I’m so grateful for getting to know them better. Rogie and Vanessa were incredible hosts, supporting our group at every stage of the process — even when things went wrong. (If you watched live, you might have noticed that slides jumped ahead in the second half of my talk. My confidence monitors went out of sync, but thankfully Rogie fixed the slides in the YouTube video.)

Oh, and I guess some things were announced that week?! I spend at least half of my time in a code editor, so watching how Figma placed a stake in this area with Dev Mode felt like Christmas. Even while I mostly hand off designs from myself to myself, it will make implementing them so much faster. The new Variables and Auto Layout updates are great, and something the community has been waiting for. Lastly, the big talk of the 2nd day on AI and the future of design was one of my favorite sessions and made me so excited about what’s coming next. And still, we design.”

This week rejuvenated my love to design, software, and this community for the next year, or at least until the next Config. Thank you for an incredible week, Figma!

— Eugene

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Config 2023

Dev Mode

Variables

Advanced prototyping

AI and Diagram

Other Updates

Resources