#Community
Customize the anchor points for FigJam connectors
Clara Ujiie with a nifty FigJam trick.
TIL you can customize the anchor points for your FigJam connectors by holding cmd while you drag the connector. ty @lbudorick pic.twitter.com/yvWOgjdlvP
— Clara Ujiie (@claraujiie) October 31, 2022
Fixing broken paths
Gleb Sabirzyanov suggests a few approaches for fixing broken vector paths and shapes.
❓ How to fix an issue in Figma when you try to outline, flatten, or union a shape and it disappears or becomes broken.
— Gleb Sabirzyanov (@gleb_sexy) November 4, 2022
A thread of methods that *may* help solve this @figma glitch: pic.twitter.com/dtZmJ5jMXo
That’s So Hot! Figma Fridays
This week, Designer Advocate Mal talks about Taylor Swift Midnights Cover Template, Halloween Retrospective Template, Hidden Kittens, and Calendar.
It's FRIDAY! Time for 🔥🔥That's So Hot!🔥🔥 An album artwork template? Halloween vibes 🎃! Kittens 🐈 and Calendars 🗓️ pic.twitter.com/Vu5npj3zJj
— Mal (@mdeandesign) October 28, 2022
Shortcut to open “Present” mode
Not sure if this is new but super handy for those of us using Figma for presentations!
shortcut to open 'present' mode in @figma design:
— Anthony DiSpezio (@adispezio) October 24, 2022
mac: cmd+opt+enter
win: ctrl+alt+enter
tooltip reminder in the UI coming soon! pic.twitter.com/jsmBF3216T
Embedded YouTube video in Figma
Copy-pasting objects from FigJam to Figma never disappoints.
If you want to have an embedded Youtube video in your @Figma file, like to document process, share resources, or have a contextual walkthrough.
— miggi but espooky 👻 (@miggi) October 23, 2022
1.) Paste the YT link in a FigJam file
2.) Copy-Paste the playable video object into Figma
3.) That's it!#Figmatip pic.twitter.com/x3KrtKuudS
Noah Levin: Innovate stale practices by effectively learning from others
Noah Levin talks about Figma’s unique processes in hiring and culture on the Design To Be podcast.
Component icon explorations
Luis shows some of the original designs for the component icon by Rasmus Andersson. At this point, it’s hard to imagine anything other than ❖, but I also like #7 and #14.
I was digging through old Figma files and found a few of @rsms's original designs for the ❖ component icon
— luis. (@disco_lu) October 19, 2022
Literally naming the component!
If we changed to another one, what would you choose?
These are all main component / instance pairs pic.twitter.com/OnYxzLIXpq
Hanging quotes
Miggi shows how to do hanging opening quotes with Auto Layout.
A pet peeve of mine is seeing opening quotes set within a block of type. Using Auto layout and absolute position, you, too can make better quote blocks in @figma. #figmatip
— miggi but spooky 👻 (@miggi) October 18, 2022
More about optical margin alignment: https://t.co/dSTmOWEgUy
& in CSS: https://t.co/dCBrtS8lFx pic.twitter.com/kfMQ6sJ5mE
3 ways to use the component properties beta
Ridd shows how to use the new beta to expose the subcomponent state, avoid breaking down components, and set preferred values for “slots”.
The component properties beta is 🔥
— Ridd 🏛 (@Ridderingand) October 18, 2022
Here are 3 ways I'm using the new features to level up my Figma game 👇 pic.twitter.com/txBKz0F5Wz
Base components for exploratory work
With the recent improvements to variants and components, Ridd makes a point that the benefits of using base components are no longer worth the cost for the design systems work. That said, they’re still great for exploratory work.
I'm constantly asked about .base components...
— Ridd 🏛 (@Ridderingand) October 13, 2022
My answer: now that variant sets are smaller AND it's easier to make bulk changes...
The benefit (ease of updating) is no longer worth the cost (ease of use).
But there's one use case I still love 👇 pic.twitter.com/InfTH6Arm3
That’s So Hot! Figma Fridays
Designer Advocate Mal shares one hot community file, plugin, and widget.
Got a min? Welcome to That's So Hot! Figma Fridays where I share a 🔥 community file, plugin, and widget pic.twitter.com/QbIxSbPTbS
— Mal (@mdeandesign) October 14, 2022
On working in the open
An interesting comment from Rasmus Andersson on how the design team at Figma works. Many people get anxious when collaborators or viewers appear in their files in the middle of work. There must be a better way than moving files between private Drafts and public files. (Personally, I’d love to see something similar to the git push command developers use — privately work on changes, then when you’re ready send them to the public file. This would obviously affect multi-player collaboration, but sounds like an interesting challenge to think about.)
The key Figma workflow is to conduct the majority of day-to-day “heads down” design work in draft files (maybe shared with a designer you’re partnering with.) at the end of the day or week, stage stuff to a dedicated shared file for a larger audience.
— Rasmus Andersson (@rsms) October 7, 2022
Using component props for contextual spacing
An interesting technique from Luis on using component props for adding spacing around icons only in some instances, for example when used inside a button.
How can you use component props for contextual spacing?
— luis. (@disco_lu) October 4, 2022
For example, an icon that needs a 12px margin in *some* instances?
– Create a spacer component
– Place that inside a wrapper component for your icon
– Nest that one inside your main component
– Bubble up the props pic.twitter.com/KUv1oX05zs
Will Figma Announce Design Tokens at the Schema Conference 2022?
At the recent All-Hands call Sho Kuwamoto confirmed that Figma is working on design tokens. Schema Conference seems to be a perfect moment to announce them, so fingers crossed!
Relume Rumble
Web design meets e‑sports in a live Figma Arena. Inspired by Layer Tennis, this is a 1‑on‑1 tournament where players have 30 mins to come up with a design based on the brief provided during the stream. The audience votes to decide the winner.
What Figma plans to do inside Adobe
Casey Newton interviews Dylan Field about antitrust issues, keeping control of his product road map, and whatever DALL‑E and other AI tools might mean for the future of design.
How Figma does product work
Sho Kuwamoto describes how the editor team works. Building the process around “What do our users want us to make better?” instead of self-centered questions is probably what makes Figma so magical.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how @figma does product work.
— Sho Kuwamoto (@skuwamoto) September 23, 2022
And what makes Figma “Figma”?
This, in turn, made me realize I never followed up on my previous thread about roadmap prioritization.
So here goes….https://t.co/WqInVKd1xj
Starting a fresh design system
Luis shares jumping-off points for starting a new design system in Figma.
If you're looking to start a fresh design system within Figma, here's a jumping off point:
— luis. (@disco_lu) September 23, 2022
1️⃣ Team for design system
2️⃣ UI Kit project
3️⃣ Separate files for: Styles, Icons, Components
*️⃣ Extra platform-level libraries if your developers are split into platform teams pic.twitter.com/je5UCOpI78
Halftone effects
Vijay Verma shares a few techniques for adding simple halftone effects in Figma. See also his experiments with Rogie’s upcoming NT plugin and how he achieved a frosted glass effect.
Yes, this is @figma. Simple halftone effects can be easily added to your photos and illustrations to give them a retro look.
— vijay verma ᵍᵐ (@realvjy) September 18, 2022
Another experimenting with @rogie NT plugin. Sharing techniques here 🧶 pic.twitter.com/X43m4oXSWg
A single set of height variables
Ridd with a pro tip on using Variants. Good prep work for the design tokens in the future!
Variants pro tip incoming 👀
— Ridd 🏛 (@Ridderingand) September 18, 2022
Create a single set of height variables.
And then apply them across all of your core "atoms" (buttons, inputs, etc.)
3 reasons why 👇 pic.twitter.com/McUW6B2Ua8