“Dwell has a well-established culture of company-wide brainstorming, a concept they call ​“swarming.” During a swarm, someone will post a topic that they want to discuss into a Slack channel, throw in a FigJam link, and invite anyone from the company that is interested to join in and ​“swarm” on that subject. Swarms last around 10 to 15 minutes and can range from discussing a magazine feature idea to hammering out the details of company goals and editorial strategy.”

FigJam is out of beta with new paid plans for teams that want to collaborate without limits. Figma also got a new Enterprise plan ​“that provides the structure, granular controls, advanced security, and support that organizations need to support all the groups that take part in their design process.” (The Twitter thread by Sean Chin provides a curious look behind the scenes on how long it takes to ship something like this.)

…and a few improvements to the plugins and widgets menus in FigJam.

Quickly import and embed PDF files into your FigJam boards.

Framer announced the new app for designing and publishing websites without writing any code. Like everything they do, it’s powerful and well-made. It’s even integrated with Figma through their Framer Copy Paste plugin! Excited to see more high-quality tools in this field.

A new plugin by Framer. You can now copy layers in Figma and paste them directly into Framer to make your Figma projects interactive in just a few steps.

Admins on the Organization plan now can see who’s using FigJam at the Members and Activity tabs.

Fill-in-the-blank sticky note, where different people can fill out different parts of the sentence. Works great for e.g. ice breakers, user story templates, and critical user journeys.

Lee Munroe shows how the design team at OneSignal structures their meetings, including Figma design crits and fun activities in FigJam.

The team at Awwwards explains how Tilda differs from other website builders and why it’s the best tool for web designers who work on Figma and want to create professional websites without writing code.

Fast Company: ​“When COVID-19 struck, Figma users needed a brainstorming tool, fast. FigJam aims to make collaboration more natural — and it’s just getting started.” (Use a private browsing mode to avoid a paywall.)

Admins on the Organization plan now have more ways to see who’s using FigJam and who’s in need of an editor license.

Two new tools in an improved FigJam toolbar: Highlighter (Shift‑M, hold Shift for straight lines) to highlight text and objects and Eraser (Shift-Delete) to delete individual strokes to correct and refine your sketches. See also this tweet from Miggi on how to bring doodles made with Highlighter from FigJam to Figma.

“Organizing your Figma files can be a daunting task, especially as your design system team and wider org grows. We’ve gathered some of the tips that we’ve picked up along the way, including ways you can make Figma work better with zeroheight.”

“AWS Amplify announces AWS Amplify Studio, a visual development environment that offers frontend developers new features to accelerate UI development with minimal coding, while integrating Amplify’s powerful backend configuration and management capabilities. Amplify Studio automatically translates designs made in Figma to human-readable React UI component code.”

“Use link previews to add sources of inspiration and useful context to your FigJam file. Paste links of rich media from other websites — like videos, articles, or documents — and FigJam will turn them into a preview on your board. Figma will even make some link previews interactive, which allow you to pan around Figma design files and city maps, or stream music and videos while you work in FigJam.”

Grapic is the iPhone app and a FigJam widget that lets you use a real pen, paper, and whiteboards with your remote colleagues, clients, and friends.

Last year, Figma destroyed the competition in almost every category. They went after a few remaining areas with the launch of FigJam this year. Great to see that Figma is still the most exciting design tool out there by far!

A FigJam widget to help your group take turns. Keep track of whose turn it is, who’s already gone, and who’s left.

“We’re bringing our open platform to FigJam so developers can build plugins and widgets to automate workflows and engage the entire team. Widgets are interactive, native-like objects — like polls, games, and notepads — that the entire team can use together. Hear from Figmates and developers from the Community to see how you can build your own!”