Community | Figmalion

Master

Gleb Sabirzyanov released a major update to his popular plugin for working with components.

Quick component insert

Anthony DiSpezio shows the new component insert menu opened by a Shift+i shortcut.

Figma Society

What started as a Twitter thread with the following suggestions resulted in a list of Figma experts who post educational and useful Figma-related content. Check it out and subscribe!

Issue #46
Aug 22, 2021
#Community

You’re rewarded for risks you take

Designer Advocate Miguel Angel Cardona is a guest at the Latinxs Who Design podcast. He talks about his background and path to design. Before joining Figma, Miguel was a tenure track professor in the New Media Design program at The Rochester Institute of Technology teaching user interface and product design, and before that, the first designer at imgix.

Issue #46
Aug 22, 2021
#Miguel Cardona

Gleb Sabirzyanov on Open Design and the Figma Plugin Ecosystem

Gleb Sabirzyanov is a guest at Sustain Open Source Design podcast. You may know Gleb from his popular Figma plugins (Master and Blend) and countless community contributions. In this episode, he talks about the plugins he built, a project he started working on called Pink Turtles, and where he sees the future of Figma evolving in the next couple of years.

Stuff I wish I knew in Figma when I started

Rogie asks for great tips, and the community delivers in replies.

I’m creating a resource for y’all on stuff I wish I knew in Figma when I started. Can you throw me your favorites?
— ˗ˏˋrogieˎˊ (@rogie) August 4, 2021

Use an IconWrapper to nest icons in your components

A smart way to resize icons without having to detach components, hide layers, or add variants.

Ready for a @figmadesign pro tip?

Use an `IconWrapper` to nest icons in your components.

That way you can always resize your icons without having to detach components, hide layers, or add additional variants.

Here's how it works 👇 pic.twitter.com/rZDEoihWgs
— Ridd 🏛 (@Ridderingand) August 15, 2021

Behind-the-scenes look at building a design system

Ridd shows his process for creating responsive and customizable templates.

Ready for a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite systems I've ever built in @figmadesign ?

Of course you are (it'll be fun) 👇 pic.twitter.com/iiRmDdcc5q
— Ridd 🏛 (@Ridderingand) August 8, 2021

File structure best practice guide

Luis prepared a best practice guide on how to structure your frames in Figma.

A Q&A with Figma’s VP of Product

Figma’s VP of Product, Yuhki Yamashita, shares what it was like to build FigJam and how things have changed since then. In this post, he reflects on the evolving role of design and product management, what it means to welcome “non-designers” into the process, and the future of FigJam.

Knockout shadow

By default, drop shadows are no longer displayed through transparent areas of objects. Check out this thread by Rogie on how this feature came to life.

Figma just rolled out a feature that allows you to turn off showing a shadow behind transparent areas. I'm ridiculously stoked about this because of what it means for turning designs into code.

Left: HTML shadows
Right: Figma shadows

🧶 A thread this little/big feature... pic.twitter.com/AgvnWL8UAa
— ˗ˏˋrogieˎˊ (@rogie) July 22, 2021

HEIC Import

A new plugin from Rogie, this time for importing files in Apple’s default photo format.

Tricycle

Jordan Singer announced Tricycle, a set of automation tools for designers powered by AI. Over the years, Jordan has built some of the most interesting Figma plugins and experiments, so I’m stoked for this product.

Vectorizing Robotos in Figma

Pablo Stanley live-streamed his process of vectorizing a couple of character sketches.

Figma Mirror in Safari and lightweight Figma Viewer

Rasmus Andersson shares a few hidden Figma tips. His second tip on adding viewer=1 to the URL query part to load a file very quickly in Figma’s lightweight “viewer” renderer is something I may use in the future.

Try https://t.co/RWZ0T90aQr in safari. The iOS app is really just a web view loading that. So, likely iOS bit rot 🤷
— Rasmus Andersson (@rsms) July 22, 2021

Use component descriptions

Ana Boyer with a thread of multiple ways to use descriptions to improve your team organization and collaboration.

Figma Tip! Descriptions are some of the easiest and oftentimes overlooked ways to improve your team organization and collaboration. Here are some ways you can use these to your advantage:
(Thread)
— Ana Boyer (@_AnaBoyer) July 22, 2021

21 Best Figma Plugins for Designers in 2021

Molly Hellmuth and the UI Prep team installed and tested over 100 plugins to find the true gems. In this article, they recommend 21 plugins organized into 6 different “stacks”.

Plugin API to write prototype interactions

This update allows plugins to create new prototype interactions in the editor. Check out a code sample by Anthony DiSpezio.

We’ve updated our Plugin API to make reactions writable. Now you can build plugins to automate the prototype creation process or modify interactions in bulk.

Check out @adispezio's code example to get started. We can’t wait to see what you create! https://t.co/Q9KOnXwzz3 pic.twitter.com/fdoyNbKYcu
— Figma (@figma) July 27, 2021

Smarter default colors

Default Pencil and text colors are now smarter. When you draw or type, they are now black or white, depending on the background. Miggie shows this behavior in action.

Now in @figmadesign you can totally draw straight lines with the pencil tool while holding down the shift key!

But did you know that depending on the background when you start drawing with the pencil, it will auto adjust white to black and vice versa? Same when placing text! pic.twitter.com/i1mCFHjBcc
— miggi from figgi (@miggi) July 22, 2021

Create multiple flows

Compare, test, and present multiple interactive ideas from a single page. Check out a couple of quick tips for using the new feature by Miguel Cardona.

#Community