Designer's Coffee #02: Growth Design, Figma Updates, and User Privacy

Hey guys! 👋

As (I hope) you know, design is more than just pushing pixels, and this time I have some interesting topics that crossover between design and ethics, privacy, AI, and marketing, featuring:

• An intro to Growth design, an emerging career opportunity that could make you stand out.

• A case study on Instagram Threads user privacy.

• Designing for AI - a new frontier for designers.

You will also find a few of my favourite font resources, the Design Thinking 101 episode with Mike Monteiro - an advocate of honest and ethical design, and a YouTube discussion on a “simple” way to achieve excellence as a designer.

But let’s start with something bite-sized, “Little Big Updates” from Figma, now on a weekly basis.

Design news

Every week, the Figma team releases a new batch of “Little Big Updates” - small improvements to make day-to-day tasks in Figma easier.

Some of my favourite updates from the past few weeks are:

📁 Improved version history

Instead of restoring (or duplicating) the old version of the file you can copy any object, element or deleted screen to the latest version. Yes, it’s that simple!

📐 Indicator lines for max and min autolayout values

Now you can visually see when you hit the max or min width (or height) that you set up for your autolayout. If you don’t know how to add max/min values to your autolayout check this tutorial.

To see the full list of updates, check the community file. You can also stay tuned via Figma Instagram reels or YouTube overviews by UI Collective.

In other news:

🤖 ChatGPT can understand images, and speak

You will soon be able to upload images to ChatGPT and ask it to explain them or do something with this information. The most exciting example for us is probably generating code based on a design. I can also imagine using it for design feedback.

The feature is rolling out in the next 2 weeks.

💰 Framer’s $27M Series C and shaping the future of web design

Framer, a popular tool for designing and publishing responsive websites, has raised a $27M Series C funding round led by Meritech Capital. The company plans to further scale up its product and commercial teams, especially in Europe and the U.S.

I have played with Framer quite a long time ago. So I’m planning to test it again, especially their AI website generator. I will keep you posted in the upcoming newsletter.

What to read

My favourite articles, case studies, books and posts this month.

Watch or listen

My favourite YouTube tutorials, movies, podcasts and reels this month.

My favourite free font resources

📚 And if you struggle with choosing the correct fonts, check out Practical Typography (free eBook), by Matthew Butterick.

Who to follow

Here are some cool designers, communities and websites that are worth checking.

Social picks

1. 4 mobile design resources to find inspiration by @zanderwhitehurst

2. Powerful questions to ask in a job interview by @ADPList

That’s all for today! If you found the newsletter interesting, don’t forget to share it with your friends 😉. And if you have any cool links to share - drop them my way. 📮 

See you next time!
Kristina

P.S. To ensure you don't miss any future editions, consider adding my email to your contacts, primary inbox or whitelisting it. I promise, no spam - just a good cup of Designer's Coffee each month! ☕