If you’re interested in design, chances are you have heard of Figma. Chances are you have heard of Figma even if you shut down when front end development is mentioned. Figma is a powerful tool that allows creators and developers to collaborate on designs, low fidelity wire frames, high fidelity prototypes, and more.
Cross Platform? In more ways than one.
Figma allows you create a wide variety of designs, and this starts with the frame. When a user creates a new project file, they can add a frame to it. The frame can take various shapes and sizes.
Designing an app for an iPhone 8? Macbook Pro? Generic desktop? Anything else? No problem. Just select the device(s) you have in mind, and a frame will appear with the shape and size of that device. This will serve as a constraint for the elements that you wish to be displayed on the screen.
Plug me in, Scotty
Figma is meant to make your life easier. One way that it does this is through plugins. There are a lot of plugins. The Figma community is constantly developing them, and there are some really nice ones.
Need a user avatar in your design? Draw a shape in your frame. Select it. Open up the UI Face plug in and input your constraints (sex, mood, hair color, source). Voila, the plugin just filled in your avatar with a random image from the sources you selected.
The world of plug ins does not stop here. It is vast and too expansive to cover in this post. Community involvement in Figma doesn’t stop there, however. You can also collaborate with others in real time.
FigJam
Figma includes multiple tools for collaborating with others on designs. You can invite team members to a project and edit their permissions for viewing and editing the files and workspace. There is even an audio chat feature when you’re editing a file so that you can communicate with others also editing it.
One of Figma’s coolest and newest features for collaboration is FigJam. FigJam is a digital whiteboard that allows teams to brainstorm, map out work, and more. It is just another step in easing the design process in a digital world, especially a pandemic stricken world.
Putting it to use
Figma is likely to become an even more popular tool than it is currently, and if you have any interest in design I suggest checking it out. There are multiple paid tiers and even a free version available with limited features. If you are a student, you can also sign up for the first paid tier for free and use one of the best tools on the market for your (group) projects.
