Dylan Field was a guest on the Uncapped podcast with Jack Altman, where they discussed the slow build of Figma vs. the dizzying start of today’s AI startups, the role of AI and humans in design, the importance of staying connected to young people, and what it takes to be a strong and empathetic leader.

Great overflow from Jake on how developers and designers collaborate using Figma’s newest workflow updates and features. He covers design systems, Dev Mode, Code Connect, Code Syntax for variables, Annotations, AI, and code generation.

Luis explores a few approaches for handling components used in multiple design files but not yet ready for the main library. Delaying the creation of components until later doesn’t scale. Using naming conventions and canvas organization to separate local components doesn’t help with bringing them to another file. The best solution is to create Staging Libraries, ​“where your specific team, feature, squad, whatever can create what is in effect an extension of the system for your specific piece of work.” When the component needs to be used across multiple files, it can be pushed from the local level to the Staging library, and once it’s ready to become a part of the design system, it can be moved to the Global library.

With variables now supporting extended collections, Luis Ouriach put together structure recommendations for multi-brand systems.

Also fun to see how Figma uses extended collection for its own multi-brand system.

It’s wild how long it takes to build some of these larger features. Jacob Miller, a Product Manager for the Design Systems and AI team at Figma, shares an early exploration for slots from 3 years ago! I’ve been begging Jacob for slots at this year’s Config and got a feeling that they’re already working on it, but still it will be launched only next year.

If you wonder why it’s taking so long, Jacob wrote an insightful reply on how his team approaches these changes: ​“With design systems features, we have to plan them years in advance. Things like components, variables, and styles are used on the order of billions — one wrong move will result in breaking files and ruining critical design work. We have to be methodical. […] With DS features, I’m usually planning them around 3 years in advance.”

If you’re curious how slots and other new features will work, check out Jacob’s AMA.

Ridd led a panel about how AI is shifting design workflows, where Nick Pattison from Primary, Pranathi Peri from v0 (Vercel), and Henry Modisett from Perplexity were sharing how they use AI for prototyping and exploring ideas. One pattern that stood out to me between this panel and the above Superhuman rebrand case study is how designers now create specialized one-off tools for generating patterns, brand assets, or special effects. Personal software will only get more and more common.

I’ve been waiting for this video and kept thinking about it long after watching. To kick off his new series This is taste, Tommy Geoco flew to Kalamazoo, MI, to spend two days with Ridd. His Dive Club interviews show where the puck is going to be for the design industry and have been my most recommended resource for a long time. Tommy did a great job showing the actual person behind the online persona through his environment, family, motivation, and process of building the Inflight and Dive Club. Can’t wait for the future episodes of the series!

Developer Advocate Akbar Mirza joins VS Code Live to discuss how the remote Figma MCP server and new Code Connect updates bring design and codebase context into VS Code, so you can generate production-ready code that is aligned with your design system.

Miggi joins Build, Launch & Earn to explore what’s possible when designers start thinking (and building) beyond the mockup. They talk about workflows, play with tools in real-time, and look at how this shift opens new doors — for freelancing, launching products, and building more value into your client work.

Christine Vallaure walks readers through her Figma workflow — how she combines everything, thinks through a project, and turns all those features into a working and maintainable file.

Molly shares examples of when to reach for ​“inverse” color tokens and why to avoid just going with ​“white”.

Dylan Field comes to Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast to talk about keeping internal morale up after the Adobe acquisition fell through, his approach to maintaining pace and a sense of urgency 13 years in, how to systematically develop taste, how Figma decides which product lines to add, why he obsesses over ​“time to value”, and how AI is making design more valuable. Don’t miss Lenny’s biggest takeaways from this conversation.

Part II of Ridd and James McDonald working on Inflight.

Dylan Field shows the new Figma app in ChatGPT in action with the tech tree generated out to the year 2100.

Dylan also joined the Latent Space to discuss letting designers build with Figma Make, how Figma can be the context repository for aesthetics in the age of vibe coding, and why design is your only differentiator now.

Dylan joins the TBPN show to chat about evaluating new AI models, the trajectory of Figma Make, and why human judgment and taste still matter even as AI accelerates execution. They also discuss leadership, his views on open-source models and emerging hardware, and MCPs.

The Cut tool allows you to precisely divide vector objects and shapes into separate objects. When editing a vector, select the Cut tool and either click and drag to slice an object or click on a point to split the vector. Don’t miss a little fun interaction detail that Rogie and Tim sneaked in.

Dylan Field shows a couple of projects he built in Figma Make with pre-release Sonnet 4.5. He notes that the new model is very good at planning and was able to precisely transform a Figma design into a functional code with a single prompt.

Dylan Field gives his first interview since Figma’s big IPO, joining ACCESS Podcast to talk all things design, AI, and what’s next for Figma.

Christine Vallaure explains the basics of getting started with Figma Sites, setting up your first page, and customizing your own blocks.