Articles

“Hold the Option or Alt key while in Vector Edit mode to see precise measurements between points.” The team at Figma is on fire lately — there was at least one app update in every issue since March!

“Twice a year, we set aside a week for everyone at the company to explore a project outside of their daily responsibilities. Unlike hackathons — which are largely built for engineering and design — Maker Week is for everyone, across teams and skillsets.”

“At Early Stage, we’ll talk to Field about staying patient during the product development process and then transitioning into an insane growth sprint. We’ll also chat about the fundraising process, how he built a team from scratch, and how he took the team remote in the midst of a pandemic, as well as chatting about the product development strategy behind Figma.”

Dylan Field shares how he and Evan Wallace came up with the idea for Figma. In the first part, he shares his original pitch in the Thiel Fellowship application from 2011.

Varun Vachhar walks readers through the process of building a simple confetti plugin from scratch.

“We sorted Figma’s plug-ins on most downloaded and we took on testing the top 50 in the list. Here is what we found out.“

Pavel Laptev shares the experience of using a design system approach in Alteos, including how they use Figma API to share design tokens with code.

A detailed look into how Microsoft is building a cross-platform Fluent Design System. They have an interesting take on building a Figma plugin to move away from fixed values and toward consistent design tokens that later translated into platform-specific code values.

I wrote about the illustration library and plugin Blush in the last issue. Now, Elsma Ramirez shares how she created The Munchies collection for it using a component-based approach.

“Auto Layout has been around for a while, but not everyone’s aware of the benefits it brings. It doesn’t replace constraints, they’re still very much needed. The trick is to use the right feature where necessary. I want to show you how to combine components, constraints, and Auto Layout for the best results.”

An interesting approach of using pre-defined spacer components and Auto Layout for managing space in design mockups.

While working on the book, I learned about a powerful way to arrange objects using a combination of Layout Grid and Constraints. I wrote a short article for Pro​to​typr​.io explaining how it works.

A good writeup of a complete redesign accomplished in 8 weeks, from branding research to final implementation.

The article compares three main players — Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD. Figma is the recommended tool, but Adobe XD has its own market with more complex prototypes.

The Increment is a cool magazine published by Stripe, with every issue focused on one topic in how teams build and operate software systems at scale. The topic of the last issue is Frontend, and this article explores how integrated design tools are reshaping the workflows of the UX, UI, and frontend teams.

You can now adjust the scale of Figma’s user interface in the Desktop App.

Better integrate Figma with your team’s favorite tools. Trigger actions in tools like Slack and Jira whenever a file or library is updated, commented on, published, and more.

Christine Lancaster thinks Figma is the right fit for designing in the challenging times of 2020. ​“Down with design elitism and preciousness. Let’s include the copy writers, the dev team, the client, the PMs, the whole shebang in our design process. Better collaboration means we end up building the right things for the right people.”

“Knowing that we could all use a little dose of imagination, we asked members of the Figma design team to share the places they turn to for inspiration. Here, you’ll find their tips: making stickers, the power of social media, and how your camera roll can get you out of a rut.”

Nina Mehta from Mailchimp discusses what design pairing is, how to structure it, and tips for convincing your boss that it’s a good idea. This is a recap from a livestream featured in Issue #13.