Issue #32: Design systems made in Figma, new video series, and futuristic interface tutorial

Figma Support Forum

Figma introduced Support Forum, which in time will become an easily referenced resource for troubleshooting and best practices.

Introducing Component Variants, Zapier Integration & new Notifications experience

Zapier announced a new set of features for product teams, including native support for Figma Variants.

How a small team built figma.com’s design system

During an audit of marketing pages, the team at Figma realized they weren’t following their own advice. Over the course of a month, their small team created and organized a robust, adaptable style guide and component library that now lives in their CMS. I loved that part: “…every color has its own branded name, inspired by California, where Figma is based. An earthy green is avocado toast, and an ember yellow is sunset.”

How we migrated our design team to Figma

“As the coronavirus hit the travel industry earlier this year, the design team at Agoda looked at how we could save costs without sacrificing the quality of the work we’re doing. The collaborative features and the opportunity to shrink the cost of multiple license fees to just one were two compelling reasons to review Figma and eventually propose a plan to migrate our whole design organization to the new tool.”

#Switching to Figma

And yet another story about moving design files to Figma

“If you are reading this, means that you are interested in how and why to move your designs projects to Figma. Don’t expect a detailed guide on what’s the most optimised way of doing it, but rather the whys and hows of how I did it recently and why I believe it was a successful move.”

#Switching to Figma

20 Speed tips

Noah Levin, Design Director at Figma, collected 20 of his favorite tips and tricks for whipping up something quickly.

Building Complex Figma Variants

Carol Chan shares her learnings from building a collapsible card component with many properties.

#Components & Variants

Using Figma for Presentations: 2021 Update

With support for components, hyperlinks, PDF export, presentation mode, and shared community files, Figma became a fantastic tool for designing slides and creating presentations. This article provides an overview of the modern workflow.

#Presenting

Figma Plugins for Better App Design Workflows

The team at Headway shared an evolving list of their favorite Figma plugins for automating aspects of the design process that can take a long time or be done multiple times a day.

Illustration tutorial: Create an eye in Figma

Martin Bekerman is a Brand Design Lead at Netflix and a fantastic illustrator. See some of his recent artworks in the next section.

Short keys to help master placing images in your designs

⌘+⇧+K to place an image, ⌘+⇧+C/V to copy/paste it from/to an object.

More control over your Bezier handles

And another short video from Miguel, this time about Bezier curves.

How to make dotted lines for illustrations

Come for the tip, stay for a beautiful demo.

Embed Figma files inside your PM tools

A nice way to share the always up-to-date versions of your designs.

#Embed

Coffee with Charli: Managing a multi-brand design system

Figma and Charli Marie, Creative Director at ConvertKit, introduce the new video series “Coffee with Charli”, where she’ll interview design systems leaders. First up, Charli chats with Chris Pearson of Conde Nast about design systems for multiple brands.