Tweets
It’s nearly impossible to make legacy applications multi-user collaborative
Fantastic thread on why collaboration features in XD or Sketch would never match Figma: “In short, Adobe would have never caught up to Figma. It’s genuinely easier and cheaper for them to use Figma’s architecture to rebuild all of their existing applications than to try to make any of their existing apps as delightfully multiplayer as Figma.”
I'm not surprised that Adobe is acquiring Figma for $20B, nor that Wall Street doesn't understand it and $ADBE stock is down more than $20B today. It's a smart move for Adobe because it's nearly impossible to make legacy software applications multi-user collaborative. Thread: 🧵
— Amal Dorai (@amaldorai) September 15, 2022
Figma’s Valuation vs. ARR
David Sacks on late bloomers and responsiveness of VC markets. See a more in-depth discussion in Episode 96 of the All-In Podcast.
Figma’s Valuation (purple line; left axis) versus ARR (red line; right axis).
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) September 16, 2022
Take-aways:
1) Late bloomers can thrive. Founders should never give up.
2) VC markets are highly responsive and slightly ahead of the curve.
We discuss fully on the next episode of @theallinpod. pic.twitter.com/JDnzALwqHK
Scott Belsky on the acquisition
Adobe CPO and founder of Behance: “Remembering the deluge of doubts in 2012 when we shared Behance’s acquisition, 10yrs later, platform grew 30x, product stronger than ever, brand intact, still free, high growth, and continued pipeline of goodness. But it takes work + principles. Like all bold moves, show > tell.”
today is a big day for both @Adobe and @figma. our teams are excited by the new possibilities and recognize both the opportunity and responsibility as we share our intent to come together. 🧵
— scott belsky (@scottbelsky) September 15, 2022
Figma’s “Big Wins” from 2013
Andrei Herasimchuk, the ex-Lead Designer at Adobe, shares a list of “big wins” and “small wins” that Figma cofounders and he wrote down in December 2013. Pretty amazing to see how almost all of it is a reality now. (“Modernizing masking & gradient UI” sounds pretty sweet though!)
Found this recently. Taken Dec 2013. It’s the list of things @zoink, @evanwallace, & myself wrote down for @figma while still in the temp office in Palo Alto. The list of “Big Wins” was all Dylan & Evan, esp. the community and team use part. They had the vision, even back then. pic.twitter.com/6mZg6cJvhp
— Andrei Herasimchuk (@Trenti) September 16, 2022
Blurring out areas of your FigJam file
A super useful tip by Miggi. The power of combining FigJam with Figma always keeps surprising me.
Blur out areas in your FigJam file with some @figma background blur shapes pasted in! #figmatip
— professor figma (@miggi) September 6, 2022
👉 Make a white rectangle in Figma
👉 Set blend mode to multiply
👉 Add background blur effect set to 50
👉 Paste into FigJam, resize + place over objects pic.twitter.com/TXhQmpPIyc
Quick palettes
Easy and fast way to access a pre-defined color palette in FigJam.
Here is a @figma FigJam process tip. Paste in screenshots of palettes when using the marker tool. Hit the "i" key for the eye dropper tool to select colors from the palettes. Great for quick ideation and grey scale UI wireframes. #figmatip. pic.twitter.com/sfAjcAwksv
— professor figma (@miggi) September 6, 2022
Archiving pages in a file
Clara Ujiie shows how to archive your work using pages and version history.
Want to archive your work in Figma?
— Figma (@figma) September 6, 2022
Here's how to do it.
Thanks, @claraujiie for the #FigmaTip 🤩 pic.twitter.com/rgBoePMlTA
Collaborative Dynamic Island
Luis shows the only Dynamic Island notification we’ve been waiting for.
Wow I love how collaborative this Dynamic Island is pic.twitter.com/wO8SFs6GaQ
— luis. (@disco_lu) September 8, 2022
Animating Dynamic Island
Zander Whitehurst shows how to animate the newly introduced Dynamic Island in Figma supafast.
🏝 Animating @Apple Dynamic Island in @figma, supafast pic.twitter.com/nTfhzhpVgd
— Zander Whitehurst (@zander_supafast) September 8, 2022
Trim pass effect in Aninix
Beautiful demo of a powerful animation plugin Aninix.
Hello, @apple.
— Aninix (@AninixApp) August 31, 2022
This is an animation created with a trim pass effect that you can do directly in @figma using @AninixApp.
It's quick simple and beautiful:) pic.twitter.com/EdqoL8a6BQ
Figish
Vijay Verma with a new beautiful illustration made in Figma. Don’t miss the details on his technique and fun facts in a Twitter thread.
GM Frenz! Here's a rare fish, Figish 🐠, I made in @figma. An experimenting with Figma to make something colorful and shinny. Here is the result.
— vijay verma ᵍᵐ (@realvjy) August 29, 2022
Exclusively available on @foundation 🤩 pic.twitter.com/DZ3VSijbsi
Zoom and opacity with the number keys
Anthony DiSpezio with a great tip on controlling opacity and zoom level with the number keys.
Incoming #figmatip
— Anthony DiSpezio (@adispezio) August 19, 2022
*Number keys for opacity* enabled:
- 0-9 to set 10% increments
- Tap two keys quickly for the exact %
- Tap 0 twice for 0%
- Hold shift for zoom keys⬇️
if disabled:
- 1 for 'zoom to fit'
- 2 for '...selection'
- 0 for '...100%'
- Hold shift for opacity keys⬆️ pic.twitter.com/82Et0GSV1w
Favorite keyboard shortcuts
Patrick Morgan asked designers about their favorite Figma shortcuts and shares the top 10 recommendations based on 220+ responses.
I asked designers for their favorite @figma keyboard shortcuts.
— Patrick Morgan (@itspatmorgan) August 15, 2022
220+ responses and hours of synthesis later...
Here are the top 10 keyboard shortcuts to supercharge your workflow:
How to choose the timing for UI animation?
The makers of the Aninix plugin explain animation timing in this detailed Twitter thread.
It’s very common and complex question “How to choose timing for UI animation?”. That's why we've prepared a simple guide to help you choose the right timing for any UI animation. We use @Figma + @AninixApp as always😉
— Aninix (@AninixApp) August 15, 2022
More explanation and details in the thread 🧵→ pic.twitter.com/uxwu0oEU6k
Ando plugin for AI art
This demo of the upcoming Ando plugin blew up over the last few days. Antonio Cao is working on a plugin using Stable Diffusion to generate AI art based on visual and text prompts. The new wave of AI design tools may be the biggest change in our industry after the introduction of multiplayer by Figma in 2016.
Gonna ship a Figma plugin to go from prompts + simple shapes to design ideas using #stablediffusion #aiart pic.twitter.com/0VYais9C6X
— Antonio Cao (@RemitNotPaucity) August 24, 2022
Searching for files
Nice improvement to the search — now you can find files based on page and frame names, in addition to the underlying text.
Another small but hopefully helpful change here for improving search in @figma, we shipped an update today that helps you search for files based on page and frame names (in addition to the underlying text). So much more to come 🚀 https://t.co/VBN3S3XbYB
— Manosai Eerabathini (@manosaie) August 18, 2022
3 thing about using Component Properties
Molly Hellmuth shares a few things she learned about using Component Properties after rebuilding a design system from scratch.
I just rebuilt my Design System from scratch (to include Config2022 updates)
— Molly Hellmuth (@molly_hellmuth) August 11, 2022
Here are the 3 biggest thing I learned about using Component Properties during this process.. pic.twitter.com/9aNJcmxNjd
10 physical objects
To celebrate 10 years of Figma, Dylan Field shares 10 physical objects from Figma’s history that are special to him. The beta notebook and WebGL coffee table are my favorites!
10 years ago, in August 2012, I dropped out of @BrownUniversity to start @Figma with @evanwallace !
— Dylan Field (@zoink) August 11, 2022
We might be in the business of digital design at Figma, but we love physical objects too!
So to celebrate 10 years I'm sharing 10 physical objects that are special to me...
Groups vs Frames
And one more good piece of advice from Patrick. Every time I use a rectangle I just create more work for myself down the road.
Designers new to @figma, avoid this simple mistake:
— Patrick Morgan (@itspatmorgan) August 9, 2022
❌ Don't use a Group with a rectangle layer as a background fill
✅ Use a Frame, which has its own native background fill property pic.twitter.com/bZaI6yb0Um
7 rules for crafting presentations in Figma
Patrick Morgan on setting guardrails to give structure to your presentations made in Figma. (I always use Figma for my slides. One time I had to use Google Slides, so I designed my slides in Figma and then copy-pasted them to the presentation.)
Once you craft a presentation in @figma, traditional slide tools just feel... insufficient.
— Patrick Morgan (@itspatmorgan) August 8, 2022
But to unlock that power, I needed to set guardrails to give structure to the blank canvas.
7 small enhancements made all the difference: