Like I mentioned in my previous article, there’s no denying that Figma is already a powerful, and versatile design tool out-of-the-box.
This is helped even more with the Plugin community behind Figma that continues to thrive, with many powerful, and invaluable plugins being added daily.
In this follow-up article I wanted to share a few more of the plugins that I use on a regular basis, and that have helped me not only improve the designs I create, but have also helped speed up my workflow considerably. And I'm sure they'll do the same for you.
Let’s get to it...
Content Reel.
This is an absolute giant of a plugin, and has saved me so much time when it comes to inserting dummy content into my designs, be that text strings, icons, and on occasion images.
Sketch has similar features already built in, so when I came to Figma I felt that was one area where things were lacking a little… until Content Reel came into my life.
The great thing about Content Reel, and what sets it apart from other similar-ish plugins is that it allows you to use custom content that has been shared by fellow Figma users, as well as creating your own that you can share with the community.
Just having the ability to have different types of content such as text strings, images, and icons available in just the one plugin is great for your workflow, and highly recommend you check it out.
Figmotion.
Sketch has had decent integrations with third-party animation tools such as Principle (Have used this many times in the past) for quite some time now, but Figma? Not so much.
Third-Party animation tool integrations are improving as Figma beings to mature, but what about custom animations right inside of Figma itself? Well that’s what Figmotion is all about.
To be able to create detailed animations inside of Figma is a real time-saver, and Figmotion has really impressed me with its capabilities for a product that’s only around a year old.
Another great thing about Figmotion is that it makes the hand-off to developers a much more pleasant experience all-round as it’s built with the latest web technologies in mind.
Happy team all day, everyday!
Autoflow.
Autoflow is not the first User Flow plugin, or service to appear in our toolkits. Oh no it’s not, but I’ll tell you it’s one of the most impressive right now.
I’ve used Plugins such as Flowkit before, and as awesome as they are, and more feature-rich than Autoflow is, you still have to manually move elements around to connect the wires with your elements and create your flows.
With Autoflow you can simply select objects that you want to create a flow between and this lil’ bundle of plugin joy will magically draw a connector line between them. No need to manually drop connector lines in and move them into place.
It’s the new kid on the User Flow block but it’s already impressed me massively.
Mockuuups Studio.
Crazy plugin name. Quite easily misspelled, but as for the plugin itself… it’s awesome, and highly recommended.
It’s basically, and I’m sure you’ve come across many similar services like this in the past, a mockup generator for your designs in Figma.
Want to present your mobile app design inside of a random persons hand holding an iPhone 11? No problem! You can simply select your chosen Frame inside of Figma, and Mockuuups Studio pretty much takes care of the rest.
I’ve only used a handful of the scenes myself, but there’s something like 600 scenes currently available, with different backgrounds, devices types, etc… so you’re never going to struggle choosing a suitable scene for your product. Oh no!
No need to Google ‘Device Mockups’ anymore. Yes, I’ve been very much guilty of this in the past, and I’m sure you may have been too.
So great to have something like this as a Figma plugin. Top marks to Mockuuups Studio (it’s with 3 ‘u’s just for future reference).
Grab Mockuuups Studio Plugin here
Find and Replace.
The clue on what this plugin does is right there in the title.
It’s a ridiculously simple, but oh, so useful plugin that enables you to search for any piece of text within your design, and simply replace it with, well, different text.
If you’re working with designs with masses of text, and need to swap out say a word that’s been used in multiple places, this is the plugin to do it.
This plugin has saved me loads of time in the past, and saved on all that manual-silliness text replacement hassle.
It’s got one simple job to do, and does it well.
Grab Find and Replace Plugin here
Iconify.
Icons. Icons. Icons.
Who doesn’t drop those little pieces of vector-joy into their UIs at some point right?
In the past, and I still do when working with other design tools, I’ll call upon something like IconJar, or Nucleo when dropping icons into my designs, and they work great, no doubt about that.
But having something like Iconify plugged right into Figma makes things so much more streamlined for your day to day workflow, it really does.
The Iconify icons collection includes over 50,000 icons from many popular sets such as Font Awesome, Material Design, Jam Icons, and more, which you can easily drop into your projects as always-versatile vector shapes.
Your icon wishes inside of Figma have just been granted.
By the way, if you want to really save yourself hundreds of design hours, my Design System for Figma; Cabana is now available.
Special Offer: Use the code CABANA35 to receive 35% OFF. 👇
Thanks for reading the article,
Marc.
