Composing components. Variable fonts. (mac)OStalgia.
While launching this newsletter in 2019, I was worried there may not be enough content to justify a new issue every two weeks. Clearly, I underestimated how vibrant and active the Figma community will become. Since then, I’ve heard from readers that some issues can be a little overwhelming — not surprising, considering, on average, there are 27 links per issue and sometimes as many as 41. The launch of Figmalion 2.0 in October simplified my publishing process, so now I’m finally ready to start sending the newsletter weekly. Hope you’ll enjoy shorter and more regular issues in the future!
— Eugene
P.S. Thanks to Denislav Jeliazkov for sponsoring the last few issues! Check out his book “Master UI Design Elements — The hidden secrets” or follow him on Twitter for great threads and tips on UI design.
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Master UI Design
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App Updates
Get insight into your organization’s recent FigJam activity
Admins on the Organization plan now can see who’s using FigJam at the Members and Activity tabs.
Variable fonts are coming to Figma?
If the screenshot is real, this is an exciting rumor!
What’s New
An idea for Auto Layout 4.0
Nice concept of what one of the features in Auto Layout 4 may be. I’d definitely love to see this!
(mac)OStalgia
Really cool project by Michael Feeney. He started by analyzing Mac OS 9 design and building a UI kit for it, then imagined how some popular modern apps would look back in the day.
Using Figma
Composition-Based Design System In Figma
“Figma has advanced enough where it now supports some powerful concepts that can help with the flexibility and maintainability of a design system. In this article, Sasha explains why she finds the Systems Designer position so rewarding — and it’s not only because of how fast certain tools have developed to help her master challenges she faces in her work projects.”
Scratching your own itch with Figma plugins
Jan Six is a Product Designer at GitHub and author of the Figma Tokens plugin. In this talk, he shows a few plugins he built to speed up his own design workflow.
Rogie creates NFTs
Rogie’s really cool short video shows his process and use of Figma features for creating Grim Syndicate NFTs.
Methods on archiving designs
Ana Boyer on a few ways to archive no-longer-needed mockups.
Animating radio buttons
Zander Whitehurst shows how to animate a radio button supafast.
3 super 3D libraries
Zander recommends three 3D libraries: Drawkit, Fall Guys, and Nikuu.
Comparing Base Components, Variants, and Slot Components
Great comparison of different techniques for customizing components by Ana Boyer. Playing with the examples instead of just reading about them makes all the difference.
Using Figma To Create SVGs for Cinema4D
Ben recorded a few videos showing how to use Figma with Cinema 4D for 3D modeling. Cool stuff!
Figma Tutorial for Beginners: Learn Figma in 1 Hour
Ari Pxl: “This is a deep dive for Figma, we start with the absolute basics and work our way to more complex topics like Design Tokens, Components, Auto Layouts, Prototypes and more.”
Made in Figma
Fons Mans
Fons creates so much beautiful art in Figma that I couldn’t pick a single thing to share — check out his work on Twitter.
Plugins
Componentizer
Really cool plugin (currently in beta) for turning frames into components. See a short video demo.
Caravage
If you’ve ever used my tool Accessible Palette, one of its core features is support for Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA) — a great alternative to a basic contrast algorithm in WCAG 2 and the current recommendation in WCAG 3 Draft. This plugin is a simple contrast checker using this algorithm and taking into account fonts size as well as background and foreground colors.
Pixel Princess
A new plugin by Gleb for turning vector lines into pixel art.
Backstage
Evan Wallace left Figma
Evan Wallace, Figma co-founder and CTO, announced that he left Figma last year. See also tweets by his co-founder Dylan Field and ex-engineer Jamie Wong. Evan is incredibly talented — I’m grateful for all he did for Figma and looking forward to seeing what he decides to do next.