7 Figma Super Tricks

For so many independent designers, it is a daily struggle to prove their worthiness and ability to perform as good as any full design teams. So I am always advocating for the lone-wolves and sharing how this is possible. We really can do this. With the right skills. And recently Figma has been my design sidekick:

1. Make shapes & charts

   No need to find or buy an entire iconset that covers all you need. Just provide a reference and it can generate whatever icon you need.

   
   

   Saved my life in this project. I needed 50+ icons for very specific medical symptoms and system messages in a certain style. It whipped them up like nobody’s business.

   

2. UX copy varitions

   Having no UX writer or a dedicated content person can be tough in a product where a single screen has 60+ variations based on user type and status.

   
   

   Have it write a first draft, then fix. Fix, ok?

   
   

   But still what it did come up with was really, and I mean really good.

   

3. On-brand icons

   No need to find or buy an entire iconset that covers all you need. Just provide a reference and it can generate whatever icon you need.

   
   

   Saved my life in this project. I needed 50+ icons for very specific medical symptoms and system messages in a certain style. It whipped them up like nobody’s business.

   

4. Batch create styles & tokens

   When you’re building your design system. Such a game changer. And it’s right inside Figma. Best part?

   You don’t end up with 100 unused styles or tokens. Only create what’s there.

   

5. Find any last hard-coded styles

   Sometimes we design something quickly and forget to check whether it is attached to a style/token and remember when we prep for dev. Best part?

   you can talk to it, you don’t have to accept the result like yu would with a plugin.

   
   

   

   
   

6. My RTL converter

   Shamelessly talking about my own plugin, because it did save me hours of work to change layout and translate to Arabic!

   

7. Animate with words

   I still can’t figure out the motion UI. But the agent is truly great, it creates a microinteraction if not perfect on first try, then definitely close to. I love this one!

   

Honorable mentions

• Shorten: Shorten command for rewriting long text layers.

• Make image: I never generate any images outside figma anymore.

• Shader fills and effects: the colorful sprinkle I always missed in any UI design tool.

• Remove BG + Vectorize: transform any PNG to a nice sharp vector.

  
  

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We may be fighting for our lives here, independent & full-time designers alike, but let's not give up on design yet!

'Till next time, lots of love and #keepdesigning!