Tweets
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:
What made Figma so successful?
In light of the sad news of InVision layoffs, Nathan Barry tried to answer the question of what made Figma so successful that it completely changed the design tools landscape.
InVision announced last week they are laying off 50% of their team (400+ people).
— Nathan Barry (@nathanbarry) July 24, 2022
They definitely made missteps as a company. But from the outside it seems like Figma completely ate their lunch.
What made Figma so successful?
How Figma uses Figma to build Figma?
The founder of Cron wondered about this question, and Figma’s Design Director Noah Levin came up with some great links in replies.
Haha yes totally!
— Noah Levin (@nlevin) August 5, 2022
Some relevant links:https://t.co/eOue1DHw7Mhttps://t.co/AcQYLgFQS8https://t.co/8BIf6y60QPhttps://t.co/Xd1KHqxFPi
But yeah there's so much more to it that I'd love for us to share sometime… especially how FigJam has pretty much replaced all "presentations"
Design system structure guide
Luis Ouriach walks through updates to the design system structure recommended by Figma Advocates.
Happy Monday ☀️
— luis. (@disco_lu) August 1, 2022
The @figma design systems guide has been updated (big time!), with tips for:
• Differences between each Figma plan
• 3 types of design system file
• Example organisation structures
• 4 file structure examples
• Local component guidehttps://t.co/z00j98bech pic.twitter.com/6t3Ey5uSHS
Shortcuts for working with fonts
Miguel with a few useful shortcuts for adjusting font size, weight, letter spacing, and line height.
Happy Monday! Here are some some great shortcuts when deep in the weeds of type exploration in @figma.
— miggity miggity mac (@miggi) August 1, 2022
Easily adjust font size, weight, letter spacing and line height using modifier keys and the <, > symbols. On Windows, swap out "alt" for "⌥" and "ctrl" for "⌘"#figmatip pic.twitter.com/byFfkVWUMe
Preview Figma links in Notion
Notion got inspired by Figma’s Little Big Updates and shipped a nice improvement as well.
Our friends @figma just released 20 great Little Big Updates, so our team was inspired to do one too 🌈
— Notion (@NotionHQ) August 3, 2022
Hover over any Figma link in Notion to get a pop-up preview. Neat! pic.twitter.com/ckSSBj2fRQ
Netflix icons
Bonnie Kate Wolf designs pictograms for Netflix in Figma.
Designing pictograms for @netflix in @figma
— Bonnie Kate Wolf (@bonniekatewolf) August 2, 2022
Somebody pinch me! pic.twitter.com/Z6U1DZR2Ku
Snap to shape size
Easily size shapes to the same dimensions using new guidelines to match height and width.
Last but not least, we added size guidelines and snapping to make it easier to create and resize shapes, sections and images to the same size! No more guessing or eyeballing sizes, just look out for those purple guidelines! pic.twitter.com/0doTD2mf9c
— Peter Damrongpiriyapong (@peterdpong) August 2, 2022
Connector tool stays selected
Stay in the diagram flow, with Connector tool (X) now persisting by default; hit Esc or V to return to the Move tool.
Next up, we made the connector tool persistent! No more creating one connector at a time, place all your shapes on the board, then connect and adjust with connectors all in one go! When you’re done, just hit Esc or V. pic.twitter.com/3jb2uB1Bca
— Peter Damrongpiriyapong (@peterdpong) August 2, 2022
Quick create improvements
Create shapes and stickies faster with new auto-create prompts at the top, bottom, left, and right.
I’m thrilled today to show off what I’ve been working on @figma — making diagramming more fluid in FigJam
— Peter Damrongpiriyapong (@peterdpong) August 2, 2022
First up are improvements to Quick Create! We now try to avoid overlapping with existing objects and made sure Quick Create indicators are always shown for fast diagramming! pic.twitter.com/OUARJDrtlZ
File Search improvements
Search preview now includes recent searches and a list view shows file owners.
After recently joining the @Figma product team in June, I’m super excited to share a few fun improvements to the search experience 🔎 that we’re launching today as part of Little Big Updates! pic.twitter.com/HjOy6ezMPt
— Manosai Eerabathini (@manosaie) August 2, 2022
Quick align as a group
No more group/align/ungroup — quickly align objects as a temporary group by holding Shift while pressing alignment buttons. (Option/Alt also seems to work.)
One of my favorite little big updates to drop in @figma this week is the ability to align objects as if they were a group.
— miggity miggity mac (@miggi) August 4, 2022
Hold the option (alt) key when hovering over the alignment icons to align selected objects together within their frame.
More here: https://t.co/8ZWii0Kcl2 pic.twitter.com/GbSnU5u2UB
Improved emoji support
Not mentioned in the blog post, but a very timely and important update!
We know it’s been too long — emojis have been updated in @figma (~1000 added)! While we were at it, we also improved the rendering, quality, and ease of future updates. Emoji on 🙌 pic.twitter.com/ayoAl5DwGS
— Qi Linzhi (@LinzhiQ) August 4, 2022
Annotate with a Pencil tool
Annotation is a lot smoother with Pencil strokes no longer getting clipped or disturbing Auto Layout in frames. See also Marcin Wichary’s short thread on how they got to this solution.
Sometimes I feel happier about the little fixes than the giant new features. Using the pencil tool in clipped or AutoLayout frames pretty much always did the Wrong Thing. Thanks to @mwichary for talking through all the little edge cases with me. pic.twitter.com/XKhuxXpjrX
— Michael Feldstein (@msfeldstein) August 2, 2022
Redistribute gradient steps evenly
One of my personal favorites 🙌 Organize the gradient panel faster by double-clicking on gradient stops to evenly distribute them.
This past maker week @figma I had some extra hours and worked on adding the ability to equally distribute gradient stops with a simple double click.
— trevor aquino 😶🌫️😰 (@TrevorAquino) August 2, 2022
However this wasn't my own idea. One of my favorite parts of Figma is being able to interact with the community of users.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/Pik8GXWyjy
Preserving the color of a swapped icon
Rogie comes to the rescue and explains how to preserve a fill color when icons are overridden and swapped. It’s worth keeping a layer name consistent across icons in the library if you plan to use them in different colors.
To get icon colors to preserve when they are overridden and swapped, you need to make sure that your layer names are the same. You'll see in this gif that add_circle and add_shopping_cart have the same layer name...that's how Figma knows to apply the override as you swap. pic.twitter.com/io8DZFtgBQ
— ˗ˏˋrogieˎˊ (@rogie) July 29, 2022