Tweets
Managing gradients in Figma
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!
Someone asked yesterday about managing gradients in @figma, here are two ways to handle.
— @miggi@masto.ai (@miggi) January 5, 2023
1. Double click on a gradient stop to distribute evenly.
2. You can nudge / big nudge gradient stops. On 100x100 square, I can move over 5 times in nudges of 10 to get placement at 50%. pic.twitter.com/SqkwTPHxcc
Shaders
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.
You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://t.co/nSJsBnSzDM
— Dan Hollick 🇿🇦 (@DanHollick) December 15, 2022
Primitive shapes challenge
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.
Friday, Figma & Fun 🧪
— vijay verma (@realvjy) December 16, 2022
Challenge: Create something cool with primitive shape only. Here is an app icon using 29 Ellipses, 8 Rectangles, and 1 Frame with added shadows and noise using the NT plugin. Shared @figma file and Behind the scene below. Enjoy 😍 pic.twitter.com/wcVeCOjGKQ
Design System Overrides
In a short thread, Nitish Khagwal explains how instance overrides work in Figma.
Must know – @figma Design System Overrides
— Nitish Khagwal ✨ (@nitishkmrk) December 5, 2022
thread 🧵 ... pic.twitter.com/pQK87fGZyE
Best advanced Figma tips for setting up a design system
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”.
I'm pretty good at @figma but today I pushed myself to actually use more advanced techniques.
— DANN© (@DannPetty) November 30, 2022
I'm designing a developers dashboard which would likely become a pretty big design system over time.
Please send your best advanced Figma tips for setting up a design system!
Top 10 Figma mistakes when building the design system
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.
💡Top 10 Figma mistakes I see my students make when they build their first design system.. and how to avoid them
— Molly Hellmuth (@molly_hellmuth) December 2, 2022
Keep reading to learn how.. pic.twitter.com/2bdZOAYMQC
Export Smart Animations to GIF
Early beta of a new plugin for exporting Figma animations into a GIF.
Export Smart Animations to GIF in Figma 🔥
— Michael Yagudaev 🧑🏻💻🇨🇦 (@yagudaev) November 9, 2022
Love to hear your feedback 💜 👇 pic.twitter.com/iKr79EamiD
Inner shadows
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.
Experimenting with inner shadows in @figma.
— vijay verma (@realvjy) November 14, 2022
I found that if you use drop shadow or inner shadow on any layer, the limit is 8. In spite of this, it is enough to make any shape like 3D. One secret shared below ☺️. pic.twitter.com/da9sz9fLv0
Slot components mistake
Ridd explains why it’s better to think of each container component as having a single slot instead of a bunch of individual slots.
Seeing a lot of people making the same mistake with slot components...
— Ridd 🏛 (@Ridderingand) November 15, 2022
Here's what to avoid 👇 pic.twitter.com/vu0KxP7vMa
How Figma builds products
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.
I’m kicking off a new series where I share how the best product teams build product.
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) November 15, 2022
First up, @Figma.
I sat down with @yuhkiyam to learn about their planning process, how they use OKRs, their design review meetings process, org structure, lessons learned, and more.
Read on: pic.twitter.com/wnRlS9s5sr
Mini-bundle of Editor updates
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!
Pssst. Ok.
— Marcin Wichary (@mwichary) November 14, 2022
So our product marketer @pseullah is distracted, and I thought I could just go ahead and quickly launch a few @figma improvements before she comes back!
(And also share some secrets.)
👇 pic.twitter.com/O90d2J1OWQ
text-to-figma
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.
Introducing text-to-figma: build and edit @figma designs with natural language!
— Jay Hack (@mathemagic1an) November 7, 2022
Join the waitlist here: https://t.co/81KKqnZ3HO
1/n pic.twitter.com/Bw3sw31HaM
Infinite loading circle animation
Jan Mraz with a short video tutorial.
After some time, I'm back with the Figma tutorial. Today it's all about infinite loading circle animation.
— Jan Mraz - UX / UI Designer (@janm_uiux) November 10, 2022
Thank you for your huge support of my UX/UI design content! 💜 pic.twitter.com/i0vk7UoifI
How to draw a rocket icon
Steve Schoger with a new step-by-step tutorial. See also another one on drawing a briefcase.
✨ How to draw a rocket icon in @figma 🚀 pic.twitter.com/QWFd4BZRtZ
— Steve Schoger (@steveschoger) November 7, 2022
Hover animation
A really cool hover effect, and a smart way to achieve it.
Made this button in @figma with no code pic.twitter.com/0TpKVYE0DF
— Nikita (@nikitakoshi) November 7, 2022
Killer Auto Layout tutorial
MDS is killing it with a killer Auto Layout tutorial. Who cares if it’s a bit late for Halloween!
I made a killer auto layout tutorial for @figma. There are three critical things you need to understand in order to use it efficiently... pic.twitter.com/x17cnAg9az
— MDS (@mds) November 8, 2022
Realistic textures with Noise & Texture plugin
Vijay keeps teasing Rogie’s new plugin Noise & Texture. You’ll notice that it’s currently in beta and requires a code to unlock, but if you look closely at this thread you may find one.
Last night, when I was bored in a meeting 😌, I made some noise in @figma using the NT plugin @rogie. With this pluign we can create cool metal, wood, and many other texture by simply combining with layer mode. Shared some tips below 🧶 pic.twitter.com/CGEw0ACebE
— vijay verma •ᴗ• (@realvjy) November 8, 2022
“It’s in Figma.”
This tweet by the design company R/GA made rounds last week. I definitely enjoy seeing all the pushback in the replies. In my Figma files the ratio of participating designers to non-designers is somewhere between 1:5 and 1:20, depending on the project — a night-and-day difference from the old days.
What they say: "It's in Figma."
— R/GA (@RGA) November 10, 2022
What they mean: "I dare you, a nondesigner, to open Figma and figure out what the hell is going on. We both know that is not going to happen. So why don't you leave me alone and you can see it when it's finished."
Mural in Figma’s NYC office
Love when folks share some of the Maker Week projects! Here is a beautiful finished mural.
maker week mural for @figma NYC in progress 🦋 pic.twitter.com/Ml8dasV1du
— dipa (@dipalua_) November 2, 2022
Scare a designer with a screenshot
I had a few good laughs from replies to this Halloween tweet.
Scare a designer with a screenshot 👻
— Figma (@figma) October 31, 2022