“To replace one icon with another, press and hold Command-Option while dragging a component onto an existing component in your document.”

This result is based on an exported PNG, so plugins for code generation in Dev Mode using GPT‑4 might provide an even better result.

Molly shows how to add real interactions to your prototypes. Variables make this slide show really easy to make.

Luis is rethinking the relationship between variables and styles. The future typography tokens are a great example, but even today this applies to styles with more complicated color fills. TL;DR: ​“Create variables in a private space, feed them into styles, and publish only styles to consumers.”

Jake Albaugh and Emil Sjölander discuss using AI-based code generation (codegen) tools for augmenting your design to development process, not automating it. ​“Codegen isn’t just an automated, hands-off replacement for translating design to code; it’s best as an augmentation for you to more quickly understand design changes, and to keep your team in sync.”

A few small tweaks to the visual experience of designing in Figma. #14: Whoa, now you can see both horizontal and vertical offset when hovering over objects while holding Option! (Used to be only one or another.) #15: Click targets are no longer jumping around when removing effects. (This one was pretty hilarious, but not in a good way.) #16: New red indicator lines show when you’ve reached min and max widths — even when typing or resizing paddings. #17: Arrow ligatures now work in section and frame titles. (FWIW I have a better solution!)

This one is a more practical and hands-on guide to Figma variables, with detailed instructions on implementing, organizing, applying modes, publishing to the library, and transferring them to code.

Molly Hellmuth with tips on the best ways to name, organize, use, and theme color variables.

New research from the Figma’s Insights team: ​“In a recent study we commissioned from Forrester Consulting, researchers found almost 9 out of 10 respondents experienced some type of barrier in the product development process, with 60% reporting either a lack of alignment across teams, difficulty making decisions, or lengthy development cycles. These barriers aren’t necessarily new, but have been amplified by three major forces at work: 1) More people involved, 2) More distributed work, and 3) More work in progress.”

On collaboration: ​“One striking finding from Forrester’s study was that the most successful teams collaborate more and also see improving this collaboration as critical. According to the study, successful teams want to improve feedback on work in progress, get more people involved earlier, and increase cross-team collaboration.” On that note, see upcoming events by Friends of Figma for anyone who regularly facilitates meetings and cross-functional collaborations.

You can now collaborate on Figma and FigJam files directly in Google Meet.

A cool bunch of improvements to Figma this week! #10: Select and copy items on the canvas while viewing version history. #11: Copy the URL of a file via Quick Actions. #12: When pasting links over existing selected text, you can now paste and match style so the text you’ve selected will be replaced by the URL or email address you want to paste in, rather than auto-link-ifying the selected text. #13: Exporting objects with a multiplier applied no longer occasionally adds an extra pixel to width and/​or height.

Export icons from Figma straight to React, Vue, or Svelte components.

Something new is coming up in October 👀 The landing page is a smart way to give a peek! ​“Builder​.io is the only headless CMS that gives developers, marketers, and product managers the freedom they need to ship fast, flexible, multi-channel experiences without overwhelming your backlog.”

Rad product and home page! ​“ShaderGradient is a design tool to create beautiful moving gradients. Make stunning visuals by adding natural movements and effects to the gradient. It’s available on your favorite tools, like Framer, Figma, and React.”

In this video, Sam walks through the features in the Tokens Studio plugin for Figma that allow the creation of variables that are synced to design tokens.

Mini-series showing how to use variables for advanced prototyping on a few example projects by the Design Pilot YouTube channel.

A new video from Lauren with a deep dive on when to use variants vs. variables with modes.

The second guide introduces the concept of ​“container queries”, which are slowly gaining adoption in CSS and will fundamentally change the way we approach responsive design. Christine compares the current approach of using media query breakpoints with container queries and investigates how to imitate them with the current Figma features.

Two new articles in the UX Collective from Christine Vallaure, who graciously shared free ​“friend links” with Figmalion readers. The first one explores a new approach to creating responsive designs with variables and modes, whereby components automatically adapt to the screen size they are placed on and only resize within the provided breakpoints. In this case, variables automate which component gets displayed and set stops at certain minimum and maximum points to stay inside your breakpoint range. I had no idea that string variables can be used to select a variant of the component 🤯

Week 2 of the Little Big Updates is all about collaborating more creatively. #5: Embedding MP4 and MOV video files directly in FigJam. #6: A new look for the embedded content in FigJam. #7: Camera selection and better audio/​video effects in the Photo Booth widget. #8: 300+ new emojis in the emoji picker after upgrading to Unicode 14.0. #9: When you stop following a spotlight in a Figma or FigJam file, a new reminder will appear prompting you to rejoin your teammates while the spotlight is still active.