Figma is changing how they refer to paid seats across all of the products (Figma Design, Dev Mode, and FigJam). The paid seats are used to be ​“Editor” seats, and now they are ​“Full” seats.

A cool technique of using randomizer plugins like Random Swap Variants and Variants Randomizer to generate a set of unique illustrations from predefined components.

The Designer Advocate team recently hosted another Office Hours AMA focused on the use of variables in Figma. Watch Lauren Andres, Luis Ouriach, Chad Bergman, and Shana Hu discuss nested instance variant binding, applying boolean variables, and a few related questions.

An absolutely massive collection of over 1,800 public company logos turned into handcrafted icons by T. Costa from Fey: ​“Finding quality logos for public companies can be a hassle. Some attempt to claim ownership of third-party assets, while others charge you for access. So we’ve decided to open-source our entire vector library. For free.” See also a behind-the-scene look at technical details from their CTO.

A friendly reminder to backup your data in the new year. Yes, Figma files are safely stored in the cloud, but one day a file could be accidentally deleted or you may lose access to the account. This is a Node.js CLI tool to backup Figma files and store them as local .fig files. (Keep in mind that if you’re a part of the Organization or Enterprise account, that action will be logged and you might need permission from the company.)

I’ve been heavily relying on this powerful plugin for finding and selecting elements lately. Works fast and has a ton of filters as well.

What a fun Figma launch video from 2016! That was way before I considered a switch from Sketch or even heard of Figma. (If you’re not familiar with Sandwich and Adam Lisagor’s work, check out their other commercials.)

An episode of the In Depth podcast with Kyle Parrish, Figma’s first sales hire, who built the company’s zero-to-one sales engine from scratch. Figma now has more than 3 million monthly users. ​“When he joined Figma as its very 1^st sales hire, Kyle was eager to hit the ground running and close deals. So he was caught off guard when CEO Dylan Field assigned him to work customer support for the first 4 weeks. But looking back, it’s a tactic that paid dividends.”

Some of the industry’s best designers answer the question ​“What book should designers read and why?” I only managed to read six of these so far, but a bunch of them have been sitting in my queue for a while. Great project by Vincent van der Meulen.

Speaking of books, I’m in the middle of a work project involving data visualization and felt like I needed a refresher and a solid reference. I’m reviewing Edward Tufte​’s books (how are they not on the above list?!), but also landed at ​“Fundamentals of Data Visualization” by Claus Wilke while looking for an answer to a specific question. Seems like a highly practical book with clear guidelines. An entire book is available online for free and seems to be out of print, but after skimming through a few chapters I ended up ordering a copy from AbeBooks.