Videos

A talk from Stripe’s Sessions 2024 conference on why well-crafted products are expressions of care and dedication — and how that correlates to business success. Head of Design Katie Dill kicks it off by talking about the value of quality and dispelling some of the myths and common-held beliefs about craft and beauty — that it is ​“in the eye of the beholder,” purely cosmetic, and at odds with growth. In Stripe’s experience, beauty is objective, functional, and support growth.

Later, she invites the cofounder and CEO of Linear, Karri Saarinen, and the CPO of Figma, Yuhki Yamashita, to share their thoughts on craft and beauty. I like Karri’s separation of these concepts — ​“craft is the mindset and activity you do, and the quality and beauty are the output.” You can also read the recap of this talk on the Figma blog.

Elliot Tu from Zeplin interviewed me for their Design-to-Dev community interview series last week. We chatted about working on Figmalion, my new role, collaborating with developers, the future of design-to-dev tools, and how I use AI in my work.

I switched to Raycast from Alfred a while ago but felt like I was leaving most of its potential and power untapped. In the two parts of these videos, designer Charlie Deets shows a few generic and design-specific features that he uses all the time.

“The Library Analytics API, part of the Figma REST API, lets you fetch analytics data about how your organization’s design system libraries are being used. The API provides similar information to the in-product library analytics feature, but in a format that you can use to do more fine-grained, custom analysis. In this video Gerard shows how to get started with the API, and shows how you might use the data.”

Gerard walks us through the Variables API, showing how it can keep values in sync with your code base and how applications such as StyleDictionary can transform them into usable code for multiple platforms. See the repository with GitHub Actions workflow examples.

Even while the new Dev Mode replaced the old Inspect panel, all information is still available regardless of your plan, seat type, or file access. This tutorial covers inspecting designs in Figma, depending on your plan and access level.

MDS launched a free course that teaches the basics of Figma in one hour with 12 fast-paced videos. The production quality is totally bonkers, and Matt’s knowledge is so deep that even Figma experts might pick up something new.

“In this video, Jory Raphael and Noah Jacobus from Font Awesome will guide you through the crafting of their Config presentation, from initial napkin sketches to final polished slides. They share valuable insights, best practices, and tips for compelling storytelling, while sharing how they made their presentation uniquely ​‘Awesome’.”

Christine Vallaure shows how to use typography variables and modes to create responsive typography across different screen sizes. The video also covers applying multiple modes at once and automated typeface changes, such as for iOS and Android setups.

Developer Advocate Jake explains some of the reasons why product experience can be misaligned between design and development. He points out that the source of truth can vary depending on the scenario, from the design system to the code in production to the design files. To find the truth, we have to ask a few questions: ​“What do we want?”, ​“What do we have?” and ​“What is the difference?”

The second edition of the UI Battle! Watch as Miggi from Figgi aka The Notorious PNG, Pablo Stanley aka The Layer Slayer, and Mariana Pedroza aka Da Design Thunder take on design challenges, shit-talk, and throw a fantastic performance. This is the only live sport I need!

Split tabs are now available in the desktop app! Miggi shows how to get the most out of them. Keeping split tabs with raw materials in FigJam while designing in Figma is surprisingly convenient and something I’ve been doing a lot this week.

That’s a pretty cool demo of how powerful the Generator plugin is. Impressive!

Designer Advocate Hugo Raymond shows all the places where you can bind variables inside the Figma UI, including the newly released typographic variables and gradient stops.

A new episode of Lenny’s Podcast with Mihika Kapoor, a design-engineer-PM hybrid at Figma, where she was an early PM on FigJam and is now spearheading development on a new product at the company that’s coming out this June (!!!) ​“She’s known as the go-to person at Figma for leading new 0‑to‑1 products, and, as you’ll hear in our conversation, beloved by everyone she works with. Her background includes founding Design Nation, a national nonprofit focused on democratizing design education for undergraduates; spearheading product launches at Meta; and community building within the NYC AI startup scene.” See also a few key takeaways from this conversation on Twitter.

The Figma team answers FAQs on design systems and everything launched at Framework, ranging from introductory questions to more complex ones.

In this session, Verizon Design Systems Leads Talia Fisher and Kshitij Tambe explain how their team implemented variables and how it’s helping them take their design system to the next level.

Bumble, GitHub, and HP discuss the challenges their design systems teams face in connecting design to code and share first impressions of Code Connect.

Code Connect delivers code from your design system to Dev Mode, helping developers build with consistency and speed. In this session, Jake Albaugh, Figma Developer Advocate, shares an overview of Code Connect and some tips on how to get started.

Designer Advocate Ana Boyer takes us on a deep dive into typography and gradient variables, sharing best practices for leveraging these new features in your design system.