The AI feature Make Designs is back under a new name, First Draft, which I greatly prefer as it sets more accurate expectations. (Curiously, that was the original internal project name.) ​“We’re also introducing some key updates, like letting you choose from one of four libraries depending on your needs — whether it’s a wireframing library to help you sketch out less opinionated, lo-fi primitives, or higher-fidelity libraries to provide more visual expressions or patterns to explore.”

I believe that wasn’t previously shared: ​“Our vision is for First Draft to extend beyond our current libraries and allow organizations to incorporate their own custom libraries. In the future, teams will be able to draft ideas using their company’s unique design language without having to sift through hundreds of components by hand.”

Describing design details with plain text is a nice way to communicate the intent to developers.

You can now rename files in the desktop app by double-clicking the tab name.

My personal Figma account is on UI3, but I spend most of my days in a work account stuck on UI2. Surely I’m not the only one in this boat who found switching between two UIs quite distracting. Can’t wait to start using UI3 in my daily work.

Inga Hampton, Product Designer & Illustrator at Raycast, does pure sorcery in Figma.

Gary Simon makes a controversial case for not using grids in design. My 2 cents: grids help reduce the number of decisions you need to make, and maintaining a large set of mockups laid out with guides instead of Auto Layout sounds like a nightmare. That said, I think grids and Auto Layout should be added after figuring out the right direction, spacing, and hierarchy, not in the beginning.

“Specifically designed for creatives, this plugin lets you apply stunning dithering effects to any image. Fine-tune details, add noise, adjust brightness, and enhance glow. With support for algorithms like Floyd-Steinberg, Bayer ordering, Atkinson, and noise dithering, it’s the perfect tool for creators looking to craft unique, dynamic visuals.”

A collection of UX methods, templates, and activities for product ideation, mapping, and concept testing sessions. See also the entire catalog of resources on the website.

Archive link without a paywall. A large profile in The New York Times of what Jony Ive and his studio LoveFrom have been up to in the last five years. 

It’s a rare look behind the scenes at his interests and work, but this part caught me by surprise: ​“Mr. Ive and Mr. Altman met for dinner several more times before agreeing to build a product, with LoveFrom leading the design. They have raised money privately, with Mr. Ive and Emerson Collective, Ms. Powell Jobs’s company, contributing, and could raise up to $1 billion in start-up funding by the end of the year from tech investors. In February, Mr. Ive found office space for the company. They spent $60 million on a 32,000-square-foot building called the Little Fox Theater that backs up to the LoveFrom courtyard. He has hired about 10 employees, including Tang Tan, who oversaw iPhone product development, and Evans Hankey, who succeeded Mr. Ive in leading design at Apple.” 

2Advanced relaunch wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024. One of the most influential websites of the early 2000s is back, this time rebuilt with Rive and React instead of Flash. It’s really cool to see it again.