I would like to share about a Figma plugin that I have been using lately and would like to share on ABDZ for your workflow. It's an Email Generator by Grigoriy Mashkovtsev. It's a useful plugin where you can design your own email template and export the HTML code from a frame. Simple as that! A little while ago, I took the liberty to share feedback on how Grigoriy can improve his plugin where I thought has a lot of potentials.
It used to be this way: If you didn’t have the time or technical knowledge to create a fully custom online portfolio, your only other choice was a limiting template. The new Carbonmade 4 changes that. You might be familiar with Carbonmade from years ago (it’s helped more than 2 million creatives put their work online since 2005). Carbonmade 4 is still the easiest and most fun portfolio builder out there, but the experience is a whole lot different.
As we are continuing our efforts to bring ABDZ into your inboxes! Nowadays we are grateful to be surrounded by such a wide range of incredible design tools and it's getting quite distressing to keep track of every single one of them. So for the past weeks, we have been experimenting and introducing a new formula with a roundup of design tools only available for our subscribers. We have been getting an amazing response so far and would like to continue this initiative. Aside from the Weekly Digest, we will additionally bring more exclusive articles like tutorials, giveaways and more.
Adobe XD has shared their August Update and it's packed with updates for CSS Code Snippets in Design Specs, Improved Integration with Photoshop, and a New Frontier for XD Plugins. Their biggest update is obviously the completely new way to use 'plugins' within the 'Plugins Panel'. It's also enhancing the integration with other apps like Photoshop. They also improve the 'Component bounds' to help you create experiences faster and easier. We shared a couple of their updates here on ABDZ, let's check them out.
Last week, we have witnessed an introduction to a new design tool. Yes you have heard me! Whatever you think if it's a necessity or not, I decided to give it a feature and share an introduction. Say hello to Drama App which is an all-in-one design, prototyping, and animation tool. From the creators of PaintCode, Drama App is currently in BETA version and you can easily give it a spin yourself. I know I will, purely just as an exploration.
You must have heard the news by now and Figma Plugins are here! I have to be honest, it's a lot more than what we were expecting during the past weeks with teasers and articles on #behindtheplugin. Backed with experience and facing daily problems that current plugins have to actually push our workflow. They found out that (in their words) design plugins are not always reliable or secure. They’re often built on not fully-supported APIs.
Another great design tool Artboard Studio have just released 'Delicè', a brand design concept as a free and customizable series of templates can be used on their platform. For those, you never heard of Artboard Studio, we have featured them before on ABDZ as 'The last Mockup Creator tool you will ever need.
The kind folks from Webflow have just released their kickass and free comprehensive course that teaches you how to succeed as a freelance web designer. It doesn't stop there, it's going all the way from first of all 'getting the clients', 'proposal research', 'pricing your work' and a lot more.
Figma shared their latest updates and I have to admit. They are killing the game! ⚡ I am a big fan and it has definitely sped our workflow at ABDZ. This monthly update includes GIFs in prototypes, Figma plugins (coming real soon!), Text improvements within one click and more. Some are big and others are smaller enhancements BUT it overall this design tool is getting better and better. If you haven't tried Figma yet, I strongly advise you to give it a try. Like now!
Back in October, Adobe XD released their biggest addition's feature yet: Auto-Animate. In the world of prototyping, creating simple interactions is a thing shared by many design tools. But creating immersive animations are another thing, making transitions between your artboards with a flair.
Our friends from InVision recently released the latest from their Design Genome Project Report in collaboration with Intuit: Designs for delight. A perspicacity on how the teams from Intuit work together to empower their customers through storytelling with insights that would shape strategy, action and things you would do for your consumers.
Our friends from InVision have launched two things recently! First of all, they are introducing a new design of their blog now called: Inside Design. They are also sharing a free wireframe kit, to celebrate their launch as well, how cool is that?! Introducing Form: a free wireframe kit from InVision, it's 190 templates ready-to-use for your next/current design project.
Adobe has recently announced huge news with the introduction to their Open Platform. With the month of September, Adobe XD has released new tools to help you design multiple screen sizes, timed transition elements. With responsive design of being now an industry standard, I am more interested in the new timed transitions. It will allow us to simulate the effects of loading states, looping animations and more.
Adobe has announced big news with Adobe XD where they are opening its platform to enable users to customize their tools through an ecosystem of community and partner-built plugins. Leveraging their APIs, developers can now build on top of XD, adding new features, automating workflows and connecting XD to the tools and services designers use every day.
Our friends from InVision took us by a storm today with the announcement of #InVisionStudio Platform. What is it? Well, it's simply to create the best screen design tool on a daily basis to achieve greatness. Cheesy?They believe that together we can build a unified work design environment for everyone. It's really nice seeing InVision engaging different companies too who really have the same goals at the end of the day.
We are very close to the end of the year and the mighty team from InVision are still sharing a preview of what is coming for 2018. The new year could be easily one of their biggest years to date, we are quite excited for them. We can't wait to get our hands on their latest so we can share our feedback with you guys. Today we are introducing a sneak peek the new InVision, please take some time to watch the video. It comes with new features like up to 8x faster, new design, introducing spaces, powerful sharing and more. Give it a look!
Let me start by saying that the awesome folks from InVision are literally on fire lately. In a very good way, they are bringing their tool with more features and changing our way of working in this beautiful industry. Last week, we've featured their latest InVision Studio and now they are back and introducing InVision Design Manager. What is it?
On a very quiet Wednesday, the awesome folks from InVision took the whole design community by the storm by announcing their latest game-changing screen design tool. Introducing Studio, a desktop app where you will be able to design responsive apps, sites from the start to finish. I am talking from screen design, prototyping, advanced animation and a lot more. Imagine having everything in one place where you can also collaborate, handoff and create a design system.
We would like to share exciting news from our friends over Figma where they are introducing their newly 2.0 packed with features including Prototyping and Developer Handoff. This is pretty huge! I can't wait to give it a try myself and maybe share my thoughts on ABDZ. Meanwhile, let's take a look at what they offer with real-time collaboration, the end of versioning and more.
UXPin is introducing Design Systems, a tool to fix our design inconsistencies. We all have experienced within a project, the back-and-forth between us designers and developers for inconsistencies with the font, colours and etc. Well, UXPin has made a tool to remedy just that integrates with Sketch. You'll be able to create libraries and change to "master" elements that updates everywhere. It also includes a Sync for your documentation and enhance your collaboration with a standardized design where both can approve on principles, patterns and etc.