Articles

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.

“How design tool played a decisive role for businesses such as Microsoft, Uber and 8 more well-known companies.”

Now it’s possible to embed private Figma files into the tools used by the whole team, like Dropbox Paper, Notion, Coda, Jira, etc.

Noah Levin, Design Director at Figma, dives deep into their day-to-day operations — meeting cadences, rituals, and anything else that helps the design team stay connected and efficient.

Zeplin redesigned their Figma plugin, improving export experience and solving some of the performance issues.

Framer Web team shows how to move from visual design to interactive prototyping in minutes, thanks to their recently announced Figma importer.

Part 1 covered color palettes, typography styles, and shadows. In this part, Marc talks about icon sets.

Alessio Calvo talks about fears and motivation for building his first side project, Artisan Kit for Figma.

Cory Etzkorn shares his experience with building Faker plugin. Overall it’s a good summary of work involved in shipping Figma plugin.

Airbnb’s chief design officer Alex Schleifer talked to TechCrunch. An interesting insight into how Figma helped them ship new features while working remotely: ​“We like to use as few tools as possible, but Figma is a game changer because people can see decisions being made live.”

Because of COVID-19, the design team at YML had to adjust quickly to a new reality of remote work. They switched from Sketch to Figma as so much of their work relies on collaboration, and now their team shares why.

Good tips on creating custom transitions, handling and organizing multiple flows in a prototype, and communicating during developer handoff.