Figma Developer Advocate Jake Albaugh joins a livestream on the Visual Studio Code channel to talk about Figma for VS Code extension, allowing developers to easily access and inspect designs from VS Code.

In a short video, Ridd shows how to set up and use the Raycast Figma File Search extension to navigate your Figma files quickly.

Brilliant tip from Molly Hellmuth — create a special text style for labels where line height aligns to your grid. No matter what variable is used for padding, the height of your UI elements will be a multiple of the base grid. (This is also a nice way to keep your labels aligned with icons.)

Layers, a community conference by Friends of Figma, Portugal, published an extended list of speakers. Register for a free virtual or in-person event on September 20th to catch talks by designers from Shopify, Miro, ADPList, Volvo, and more.

Vijay Verma made a tiny plugin to simplify the vector editing workflow when working on illustrations. Here is how it started: ​“After releasing UI3, people have been complaining that the boolean task is a bit hard to find. So, I thought, why not create a tiny plugin with some of the most commonly used options for vector work?”

Molly Hellmuth shares daily discoveries while working on the UI Prep design system update. There are great tips on pairing heading and body sizes, clearly marking a default text size, avoiding hiding components with a period or underline in the name, scoping variables in bulk, establishing a set of ​“surface” colors, removing a focused state, and including a special data text style for tables.

Nathan A Curtis maintained ~2,000 slides worth of workshops and talks in Figma for four years, so his feedback on Figma Slides is worth listening to. His biggest complaint is a lack of templates and styles on the Professional plan, but in the replies Slides PM Mihika Kapoor confirmed that Pro templates are coming soon.

Slides PM Mihika Kapoor shares how to run the perfect product review using Figma Slides. You’ll learn best practices for getting the input you need, driving decisions, and aligning stakeholders around the work.

Designer Advocate Mallory Dean on how learning the three Cs can help you build up the basics and pick up steam: ​“One of the core responsibilities of my role as a designer advocate is to onboard teams to Figma and help them see the magic of ​“multiplayer,” as we call it. In doing so, I myself have learned from the experience and collected invaluable resources. Most importantly, I see how I would have changed my approach when I first started out. Instead of focusing on learning specific features, I would prioritize understanding different focus areas, which I call the three Cs of Figma: creation, customization, and collaboration.”

Christine Vallaure shares an updated list of her old favorites and plenty of new tips, highlighting what you might have missed when working with components in Figma. (Thanks for the friend link!)

Ridd on two big issues and two opportunities of designing with AI: ​“If I’m in my design tool it’s because something is in my brain (even if it’s just a simple sketch). That’s why I don’t buy the so-called ​“blank canvas problem” as a real pain point for professional designers. Pointing AI at this ​“problem” is really a way to expand the user base by lowering the bar for non-designers to participate.”

Happy birthday to my favorite design tool!

There are three simple ingredients of a realistic illustration: gradients, shadows, and noise. Vijay makes it look so easy!

Luis shows where styles and variables can be used in the Figma UI.

Miggi explains how to control the behavior of text fields with visual and keyboard shortcuts without touching the auto width/​height or fixed size controls in the Design panel.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. Ana discusses the benefits of using color scales — consistency, accessibility, and efficiency.

Ana Boyer on creating a component API — a process of defining how you will approach constructing and naming your components across all of your libraries and documentation that will be consumed by your design and engineering teams.

The Yo! Podcast by Rob Hope is one of my favorite shows. In this wrap-up of Season 3, Rob talks to Pablo Stanley: ​“Pablo Stanley is a designer, artist, and musician based in Mexico. We discuss the creative side of his childhood gang, the importance of having fun with your team, why he left the Roboto NFT community, monetizing his AI stock site, and the importance of details in all aspects of design.”

On September 20th, the Portugal chapter of Friends of Figma organizes a free full-day hybrid conference for the community by the community. ​“Expect talks and workshops on the Future of Design, DesignOPS, Design Systems, Creativity and, as always, a lot of amazing Figma tips as tricks.” All talks will be streamed, but I wish I could attend the in-person event in Lisbon!

Speaking of design conferences, the GitHub Design team recently held its second internal design conference, LGTM. You can watch talks from last year in the YouTube playlist, but a couple of this year’s talks have already been published as well — ​“Who is the We in the How Might We” on building trust and ​“Async/​Await” on close collaboration across non-overlapping time zones.