Design Thursday #53
A weekly recap of everything you need to know about tools, events, guidelines and design in general.
Vector Feathering in Rive
Rive added Vector Feathering this week that allow you to finally create blur, glow and shadow effects. This is a totally new technique they created to avoid negative performance that often happens when using blur effects with animations.
Read more about Vector Feathering
New in Figma
- The Figma AI beta has been updated with 2 new features: You can now search for designs in the Community via the action menu in any Figma file by typing a search term or uploading a similar image. Image resolution boost let's you upscale images to increase the quality.
- Lock the Aspect ratio of layers to keep the right proportions when scaling the layer or changing the size of the parent container.
- New export settings have been added for detailed or basic image sampling. This will change the way an image is exported. You can find this option in the advanced export settings.
- Enterprise accounts can now make use of the Library Analytics API (which is now out of beta) to see how libraries are used in design files.
Framer Layout Templates
Layout Templates allow you to create reusable navigation and page layouts, think of it like very big components that can be reused across pages. This way you can also reuse interactions and animations without having to update it in multiple places at once.
Figma to Webflow improvements
Webflow released a big update for their Figma plugin and companion Webflow app. You can now sync components, sections, variables and styles from Figma to Webflow to build websites even faster.
- Via the Layers tab, which lets you copy Figma layers to Webflow, you can now: sync multiple layers, copy and paste layers directly onto the Webflow canvas, review synced updates, assets will sync better and there has been a performance improvement of up to 30x.
- There's a new Variables tab to sync your Figma variables with the option to select units (px, em or rem) per variable. Full support for variable collections and modes is coming soon.
- Styles sync is a new feature that let you sync text and effect styles from Figma to Webflow classes. This way you can already setup the basics of your website in Figma, changes you make in the design file will also sync back to Webflow.
Infinite canvas in Jitter
You can now use an infinite canvas like Figma or Rive for Jitter. This allows you to use multiple artboards in a single file where you can create multiple animations at once. Great to test out different iterations, support different languages or keep track of multiple variants.
Visual search in Mobbin
Mobbin now let's you upload screenshot to search for similar screens. On top of that you can now also find similar screens to one you've selected in Mobbin. Making it easier to find inspiration faster.
Stark Accessibility Compliance Center
Stark now includes an accessibility compliance center where you can showcase your accessibility posture and share information publicly. This way customers know how you are progressing and what your accessibility statement includes. You can also include more documents to highlight your compliance. You can decide what you want to share or not publicly. Best of all, if you already keep track of your analytics in Stark, it will automatically update with the latest data.