That’s what I love about this community so much. Fons Mans shared an idea for the plugin, Rogie stepped in and offered to build it, and three days later they already had some WIP. Don’t know if I need this plugin yet, but seeing this collaboration makes me so happy.

Zen Keys is a new plugin from Corey Lee that extends the Quick Actions menu to provide more keyboard accessibility for Figma features that don’t have dedicated shortcuts. Spend less time reaching for your mouse and lean into Figma zen mode with keyboard actions. (Something is cooking with the Quick Action bar, isn’t it?)

Somewhat related to the previous article, Ridd looked for a way to account for optical balance when icons are hidden from a button. Jordan suggested a smart solution of wrapping the label in an Auto Layout with an additional smaller padding that adds up with and without the icon.

“Our new Community Libraries Beta offers the building blocks you need to start designing, right at your fingertips. As part of the Beta, users on free plans will have access to a special selection of community wireframing, UI, and icon kits. Just click into the Assets panel and Library modal to browse through the featured libraries and design faster than ever.”

Miggi causes the ​“figception” by using Jambot to come up with ideas for making Figma content. Quite amazing to see how it can be used as a tool for thought (or even programming, FWIW).

A new free and open-source illustration collection from Pablo Stanley: ​“Transhumanism has always fascinated me. It’s a philosophical movement that challenges our understanding of human limitations and our potential to transcend them. It holds the belief that we can evolve beyond our current physical and mental restraints by integrating technology into our very being. It’s about pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human, embracing the fusion of biology and technology, and envisioning a future where we’re no longer constrained by our natural form.”

Vijay Verma made a photo-realistic illustration of the Nintendo Switch console with 150+ primitive shapes, inner shadows, and gradients.

Miggi shows how to make a notification badge that expands to fill its contents with Auto Layout.

A short video on using the bezier curve tool to make an S‑shaped curve.

Molly shares the best practices for working with color that she learned from the Adobe Spectrum design system.

Dan Hollick explains the science behind making realistic shadows and recommends the Beautiful Shadows plugin that takes care of this for you.

Ridd interviews Luis Ouriach about using variables for his Deep Dives podcast. ​“Luis goes deep into strategies based on team size, provides naming guidance, and even breaks down how he thinks about structuring libraries with variables in Figma. Lastly, Luis shares a behind-the-scenes of his journey as a designer advocate and even gives a unique prediction for how AI will take shape inside of Figma.”

According to Corey Lee, the copy-pasting of collections is coming soon!

During Maker Week, Rogie built a handy plugin for attaching files to the Figma document for hand-off. Great tool for sharing fonts, high-resolution pictures, or other assets with developers.

Luis updated Figma’s public UI2 design system file with all the features and elements introduced since its last update in 2019. His process is fascinating to follow and shows how much work went into this little update! Also has some great tips on plugins and the organization of a large design system.

Creativity is great, but it can get messy. How do you balance creative chaos and stakeholder visibility? Hugo Raymond spoke to Bupa to uncover their approach.

Vijay recreated a Fujifilm X100V camera using mostly primitive shapes with shadows and gradients. As a Fuji shooter since the days of X‑T1, I love seeing his attention to detail in this illustration! See this thread for his tips on creating a metal pattern and a camera texture.

Christine Vallaure reminds us of using Selection Colors for applying variables to multiple objects.

“Saving” and ​“liking” resources are now combined to make Community simpler to use. Your saved resources are available from your Community profile or the Resources dropdown in a Figma file.

The number of installs or downloads used to be the only metric in the Community, but over time it was replaced with how many times a resource was used. Now you can also rate and review Community resources. It’ll be interesting to see which of the most used resources are also the most loved ones.