Issue #25 •

Videos from Config Europe. Debugging Figma. Building internal plugins.

Last week, Figma published over 8 hours of video recordings from Config Europe, so get comfortable! Software engineer Jamie Wong shared a great story of debugging a sneaky bug in Figma. Roman Shamin from Evil Martians wrote an epic blog post on building an internal plugin to create and maintain a dynamic color system. So many artists and illustrators keep pushing the limits of what’s possible with Figma — check out their work in the Resources section!

I’m really happy to welcome Bravo Studio as a sponsor of this issue. I first wrote about them back in January, and last week they released a major new version. It’s mind-blowing that iOS and Android apps now can be created by connecting a Figma prototype to external APIs and services without writing any code. Check them out!

— Eugene

Sponsor

Bravo Studio

A design first, no-code tool, which allows you to turn your Figma app designs and prototypes into real publishable mobile apps (both iOS and Android).

Learn more →

App Updates

Color Picker Update

You can now type CSS color names into the color picker. Here is a good demo.

Desktop App: Better Copy as PNG

“Copy as PNG” now has a keyboard shortcut (⌘⇧C or Ctrl+Shift+C) and defaults to 2x resolution.

Config Europe

The Recordings From Config Europe

All 22 talks from Config Europe are now available on YouTube. Don’t miss the keynote by Dylan Field and a closing talk by Haraldur Thorleifsson that are not part of the playlist for some reason.

Creating Moments of Connection

“As we reflect on the many takeaways from the conference, more than anything, we’re reminded how design has the power to bring us together. We’ve curated some of our favorite snippets on creating moments of connection — through the work you do, the products you build, or the way you show up in the community.”

Learning and Failing as a Team

If you’re not sure where to start with the recordings, this blog post introduces two talks: ​“Design systems as a service, not a product” by Declan Talbert, UX Designer at University of the Arts London, and ​“Failing Together” by Figma’s Product Manager Kelsey Whelan and Product Designer Nikolas Klein.

What’s New

Debugging Misadventures: Down the Rabbit Hole

Software engineer Jamie Wong tells a great story of debugging a sneaky bug in Figma when he found himself on an hour-long Lyft ride from San Francisco to Mountain View to meet a stranger who’d never heard of Figma.

Design Tool Figma Nabs Google Veteran Ken Norton

Figma has hired Ken Norton as director of product. Ken spent more than fourteen years at Google, where he led product initiatives for Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Mobile Maps, and GV. After using Figma for nine months, he said he approached the company about joining.

The Cloud 100

It’s that time of the year again — time for annual rankings and ratings. Forbes published their annual ranking of the world’s top private cloud companies. Figma is #29 on the list.

Investing to Buy Future Freedom With Craig Mod

You may remember Craig Mod from his keynote on Config 2020. In this podcast, he talks about finances, starting investing at an early age, saving to buy future freedom, and how this approach led him to invest in Figma during the early days.

Using Figma

Figma DIY: Building a Color System Plugin

An epic blog post from Roman Shamin describes a better way of working with a dynamic color system and how to build an internal plugin that makes it possible.

Using Real Data in Figma

Jacob used Google Sheets Sync plugin to fill his designs with real medicine names while designing an online pharmacy that delivers NHS prescription medicine.

Improve Your Design Handoff + Free Figma Template

“There are tons of tools and platforms available that ease out the design handoff. To maintain a smooth design handoff, both designers and developers must take place into the process. Here are some tips for the designers and developers on how to improve the design handoff.”

Figma for Beginners

A beginner-friendly tutorial by Unn Swanström.

Why Motion Matters in Product Design

Design Lead Gabriela Schmitz from LottieFiles gave a talk at Figma Meetup. If you didn’t try it yet, Lottie has a popular plugin for Figma.

Adding hover states

Rogie shows how to add a hover state and make nav component instances inherit all main component triggers.

Rearrange items by dragging a little pink dot

A nice tip for rearranging components, frames, and shapes.

Resources

AEUX

“AEUX is a set of panels for Figma, Sketch and After Effects. Transfer layers as you need them with the least amount of friction between visual design and motion.”

Byte Dance Icons

Over a thousand of free open source icons.

The Forge — Type Foundries Archive

The Forge is a curated collection of premium font foundries. They provide hundreds of high-quality typefaces as downloadable trial fonts for testing.

@Rengised

Alexander creates beautiful icons and illustrations.

Goliath

Wish it was a Figma file to peek into, but very cool nonetheless.

Recreated (Fig)Mario

“Figma is not for illus… oh!” Beautiful work by @mrhammn.

Recreating an Apple Event Invite in Figma

Andrew Denty decided to recreate this year’s October Apple event invite in Figma.

Plugins

BlendingMe

BlendingMe blends two lines, ellipses, or rectangles. I used it on a recent project, and it’s a capable alternative to the more advanced Blend Tool in Adobe Illustrator.

Backstage

Power Up Your Design System With Figma’s Agency Partners

“Figma has partnered with leading global digital and design agencies. These agencies have a proven track record of helping their clients run at scale by setting up and migrating their design systems, implementing more efficient processes, and providing an overall elevated level of service.”

Reflections on Figma’s Inaugural Student Fellowship

As it started looking like many students wouldn’t be heading back to campus this year, Figma had to revisit its focus on local, campus-specific programs. Instead, they decided to make progress on classroom resources, student stories, Virtual Campus Slack Community, and hackathons this summer.

Building a High-Growth Culture

A part of the conversation between Dylan Field and Andrew Reed from Sequoia.

Features

Topics

Design Tools

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