Tweets

Ever wanted to collaborate in FigJam using virtual reality? A note from the developer: ​“We wouldn’t build a better tool than Figma, so we used their super SDK to write a plugin that integrates with our XR application. We develop our applications for Snapdragon Spaces technology, available for Lenovo A3 glasses, as well as for Quest 2 and Quest Pro. We use Unity technology, so in the future the app can be open on any device like Android/​iOS/​MagicLeap/​Quest etc. The app is still a prototype, but we consider of going forward and release it in some day.”

Founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian shared his notes from a missed investment opportunity in Figma back in 2016. Hard to believe that it was still in private beta and they didn’t even charge for it only 6 years ago!

While the community file is super simple, I love how its prototype is used as a quick landing page, with links and animations. Fast and scrappy!

Vijay Verma with a smart workaround for rotating an object reflection with the key object. (And here is another one, if that wasn’t enough!)

Miggi with two great tips on managing gradients. I wish we didn’t need to resolve to a 100 pixels square hack, but often it gets the job done!

Dan Hollick with a fantastic deep dive on shaders. While this specialized area of graphics programming may seem too niche, shaders have been gaining popularity in UI design for animating gradients and creating cool special effects. In Figma, you can play with shaders inside Rogie’s popular Noise & Texture plugin.

Vijay challenges himself by limiting his tools only to primitives while working on this icon. It’s quite amazing what can be done by mixing imagination with 29 ellipses, 8 rectangles, and 1 frame.

In a short thread, Nitish Khagwal explains how instance overrides work in Figma.

Dann Petty asks for the best Figma tips for setting up a design system, and there are lots of golden nuggets in the replies. One of my favorites is ​“to not over eagerly start the design system when you start a project”.

Molly Hellmuth shares common mistakes that many of her students make when building their first design system, from overusing component sets and styles to mismanaging icons and making every component public.

Early beta of a new plugin for exporting Figma animations into a GIF.

Vijay is experimenting with inner shadows in Figma. Despite a limit of only 8 shadows, it’s usually enough to create a 3D effect on any shape.

Ridd explains why it’s better to think of each container component as having a single slot instead of a bunch of individual slots.

Lenny Rachitsky kicked off a new series on building products by interviewing Figma’s CPO Yuhki Yamashita. Learn about their planning process, how they use OKRs, their design review meetings process, org structure, lessons learned, and more in this Twitter thread, or in an excerpt from his subscriber-only newsletter.

Marcin Wichary introduces twelve editor improvements. Numeric scaling is the obvious highlight and something many of us have been waiting for, but a new dialog for creating Styles and preserved formatting when copying/​pasting text are great too!

While it’s easy to dismiss this and other similar projects as impractical toys, I believe they’re giving us a glimpse into the future of creative tools. Years ago every project started as a blank canvas, while now we often build on a foundation of existing design systems. I can imagine that one day the AI will generate the first iteration of the UI based on the existing design system, patterns, tone, and voice of the project.

Jan Mraz with a short video tutorial.

Steve Schoger with a new step-by-step tutorial. See also another one on drawing a briefcase.

A really cool hover effect, and a smart way to achieve it.

MDS is killing it with a killer Auto Layout tutorial. Who cares if it’s a bit late for Halloween!