iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

The difference between a bet and a strategy is hindsight

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Has anyone figured out the ROI of liquid glass yet

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I can’t stop thinking about how maybe semantic tokens should be a single mode A codified name to consolidate a cascade of (aliased) decisions - Light/dark are system changes - Brand is a change at the primitive level

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Published a new plugin 🤖 "Import CSS shadows, create Figma styles" allows you to do just that. You can create variables too Recently I was building a UI kit from an existing website and rebuilding shadows from CSS was really slow, so built this! www.figma.com/community/pl...

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

New plugin published: batch rename variables It allows you to rename by: • Find & replace • Add prefix • Add suffix • Change case You can also revert any name changes. Should hopefully save a tonne of time! www.figma.com/community/pl...

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I've updated the CSS variables Figma plugin! Noooow, you can export AND import CSS variables. Copy, paste, or upload a CSS file, and it will generate your variables including aliasing ◇ Hopefully makes variable migration a lot easier www.figma.com/community/pl...

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Weirdly, I was thinking about "design systems limit my creativity" over the weekend and @donnie.damato.design drops this: blog.damato.design/posts/done-w... Innovation requires deviation, and locking down experimentation is where alignment fails. Maybe we don't need component arbiters anymore?

blog.damato.design

Done with components

Component libraries aren't design systems until people start caring.

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Enjoying playing around with opacity layering to try and reduce the amount of variables you need to support

A mockup of a table in Figma with a collapsed and expanded version. The expanded row version shows inner content, containing a description and a few pills. There are arrows pointing to the background color of the expanded row, the content block, and the pills. The arrows all have the same label of "Black 4% opacity".

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Google’s search results page is an obstacle course

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Registration is one of the first user experience contact points of your software, but a really neglected opportunity for delight

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

New cool color contrast picker on Figma

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Figma's UI3 is now available to browse in the community ❖ www.figma.com/community/fi...

Snapshot of the file, showing frames for elevations, typography tokens, and background colors

Snapshot of the file, showing template screens for the Figma editor, FigJam, and dev mode

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Performance is a feature

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

You don’t need a “design system” if quality is a non-negotiable company value

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Sat down with the Figma team to talk about craft – what is it, how do we define it, and how can you get better at it? This is part of a mini series called Blend Mode, with two other videos on the design process and users coming out in the next few weeks www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXQZ...

youtube.com

Blend Mode: Craft | Figma

YouTube video by Figma

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Published a plugin! It allows you to copy CSS variables from Figma in either design or dev mode 🧑‍💻 www.figma.com/community/pl...

Screenshots of the plugin, showing the interface in its loading and complete state.

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Aspect ratio is now live* on Figma 🙈 *rolling out today

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

What does the word "wireframe" mean to you? What level of fidelity is it?

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Because Read.cv is shutting down, I'm moving all my blog posts (back) to Medium: medium.com/@disco_lu

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Are design systems just internal support with a different label

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

First blog of the year is about "staging component libraries" and how they can enable fast iteration of designs, prevent bottlenecks in design systems, and encourage experimentation read.cv/disco_lu/sta...

read.cv

Loose thoughts: Staging component libraries

By Luis

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Polish level 10/10, put your sound on. contra.com/project-rate...

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Really like this spec for "Accessible cross-platform UI standards" by @iknowdavehouse.bsky.social 👏 dashouse.github.io/accessible-c...

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Curious icon size to text size ratio going on over on PayPal

Screenshot of the PayPal settings screen on iOS

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Reposted by Luis

Lukas Oppermann @lukasoppermann.com · 30/12/2024

Interesting thoughts on how to #version #designSystems in Figma by @discolu.bsky.social buff.ly/3ZqQVFw This is a tough one. Figma could (should) solve this technically. Until then, we need to find other ways. So, get inspired, try them, and tell me which one did or didn't work for.

buff.ly

Loose thoughts on versioning in Figma

By Luis

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

I've been building a shadcn Figma kit for a little while and it's now ready to use 🕺 Included: • Tailwind colors • Semantic colors in light/dark • Typography variables and styles • Effects • shadcn components • Example pages • Padding, margin, gap utility variables www.figma.com/community/fi...

Zoomed in view of the example block components page

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

AI won’t replace your job, it’ll mean you get less colleagues

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

The case for primitive semantics 🔵🔴🟡 read.cv/disco_lu/pri...

read.cv

A case for primitive semantics

By Luis

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Latest 🌶️ thinking is that light and dark mode shouldn't live at the semantic level Perhaps we need a system level token, which handles modes. Then themes are handled in the semantic layer (Brand A / Brand B / Halloween / Summer)

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Reposted by Luis

Dima Belyaev @blvdmitry.me · 06/12/2024

Are there design systems out there that have opacity design tokens with different values for light an dark mode?

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

I (still) don't know what craft means. Here's 1800 words on why I struggle to know what the word "craft" means in our industry, and how it might be a pseudo science read.cv/disco_lu/craft

read.cv

I (still) don’t know what “craft” means

By Luis

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

As I'm on a shadow kick at the moment, I published a file with 15 example shadows that I think are pretty common across modern software products I've also created some semantic-ish naming conventions. My favourite is a "peck" shadow, for a teeny nudge 🐤 www.figma.com/community/fi...

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Figma's layer panel now scrolls 🤫

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I'm currently tinkering away on another (I know) UI kit, called Minimal Viable Tokens, as an experiment to see how few a modern software system can get away with I'm experimenting with opacity in this one too, as well as renaming "primitives" to "mode" 🎨

Screenshot of the Figma desktop app, showing a log in form in both light and dark mode. To the left of the forms is the Figma variables window, showing a list of colours

Screenshot of the Figma desktop app, showing a design for an email app on desktop. To the left of the screen is the Figma variables window, showing a list of colours

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

No variable is an island, and that's why I think we've gotten semantic naming conventions all wrong* read.cv/disco_lu/var...

read.cv

💡 Loose thoughts: No variable is an island

By Luis

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

A call is worth a thousand prototypes

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

The best designers you know are the ones stealing like artists

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Answer more questions than you ask

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Reposted by Luis

Stuart Robson @sturobson.com · 22/11/2024

🔎 Looking for the best insights on #DesignSystems? 🚀 Subscribe for handpicked articles, tips, and tools. Perfect for designers, developers, and anyone building scalable, efficient systems. Sign up: news.design.systems Archives: news.design.systems/issues RSS: news.design.systems/issues.rss 🙏🖤

news.design.systems

Design Systems News

A publication full of interesting, relevant, and curated links.

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Design systems are digitally transformative in that they are a bandaid solution for long term debt, due to a lack of interest from leadership in setting up and maintaining high quality bars

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Introducing the grossest button I've ever seen

Gmail with a red arrow pointing to the "compose" button

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Let me guess, design systems are about people

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

1:1 design and code parity is the target of a team working in waterfall

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

This evening I'm playing around with the idea of tinted color ramps and components 🎨 Published them as a file if you'd like to play around: www.figma.com/community/fi...

A toast component presented in various tinted color options.

A color ramp for tint, border, text / soft, and text, set in shades of white, red, yellow, green, blue, and purple

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Luis @discolu.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

No amount of user testing can replace having good taste, obsessive expertise, and gut feel

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