#Community
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
Figma: why design helps to do business
A piece on why businesses should adopt a design-centric mindset to ensure success, with commentary by Nikolas Klein, Product Designer at Figma since 2018.
3 new ways to use component properties
Molly Hellmuth with a detailed walkthrough of beta features and why they’re worth using right away.
💡 Figma Tip: Starting using the new BETA PROPERTY features now!
— Molly Hellmuth (@molly_hellmuth) September 20, 2022
This update is huge! There are 3 major ways it’s going to make using component instances much easier for your design team.
Keep reading to learn how.. pic.twitter.com/T0OOkkXRIO
Baseline #10 — Exposing Nested Instances, Preferred Values, & more
Joey Banks explains why new features are so important for the design systems’ work.
Effective use of composition
Sho Kuwamoto, Director of Product at Figma, on new features and applying the concept of “composition” from engineering to design systems.
One of the reasons I'm so excited about this new set of features is that it lets people use composition effectively.
— Sho Kuwamoto (@skuwamoto) September 20, 2022
I know that "composition" (used in this way) is an engineering term and not a design term, but I think it applies.
1/n https://t.co/SL5mNhoMNm
Elemental poster
Vijay Verma with a gorgeous poster for Pixar’s upcoming Elemental movie. See the file and techniques he used in a thread.
From all the #D23Expo, I am most excited about Pixar's #elemental movie.
— vijay verma ᵍᵐ (@realvjy) September 12, 2022
The colors and overall poster really inspired me, so I created it in @figma over the weekend 😍 pic.twitter.com/sAaJqo8170
Ultra gradients
Fons Mans shows how to create rich gradients without any plugins — like this one, for example.
New tutorial! ✨
— Fons Mans (@FonsMans) September 13, 2022
Learn how to create an 'ultra gradient' with @figma, without using any plugins!
Let's get started 👇 pic.twitter.com/5eMYoPJc3z
Creation vs. usage of components
Luis on why it’s important to optimize for the usage of components.
Something I'm see a lot is that we prioritise component *creation*, not *usage*
— luis. (@disco_lu) September 13, 2022
This usually ends with something like this (simple example). Building is easier, but usage harder
The "notification" component is buried in variant settings. It's also a different component! pic.twitter.com/R5s63ptJ4w
What makes software magical?
MDS with another take on Figma/Adobe: “The magic happens in the details and typically in things that you didn’t plan for”.
What makes software magical? Another take on Figma/Adobe for those of us who still wanna talk about it. pic.twitter.com/g2m5mQBEj0
— MDS (@mds) September 16, 2022
Figma’s “Big Wins” from 2013
Andrei Herasimchuk, the ex-Lead Designer at Adobe, shares a list of “big wins” and “small wins” that Figma cofounders and he wrote down in December 2013. Pretty amazing to see how almost all of it is a reality now. (“Modernizing masking & gradient UI” sounds pretty sweet though!)
Found this recently. Taken Dec 2013. It’s the list of things @zoink, @evanwallace, & myself wrote down for @figma while still in the temp office in Palo Alto. The list of “Big Wins” was all Dylan & Evan, esp. the community and team use part. They had the vision, even back then. pic.twitter.com/6mZg6cJvhp
— Andrei Herasimchuk (@Trenti) September 16, 2022