Figma is one of the most popular tools amongst UI/UX designers. It is easy to use and comes with a lot of perks like a Plugin, correction of words and easy to navigate amongst many other perks. The Figma community is likely underrated in the world of emerging UI/UX Designers. In this article, I will discuss what the Figma community is, why you should join its community and how to join, participate in the Figma community and generally make the most out of the Figma community.
WHAT IS FIGMA COMMUNITY?
Figma defined its community as a space where people, teams, and organizations can publish files, plugins, and widgets to discover resources and support other creators.
It is a place where there is easy access to design from all around the world and builds a creative network.
On Figma, you can explore, search and utilize so many design features like UI Kits, Design systems, UI design, Design Portfolio samples and many more. One can also comment, like, and publish any files or plugins on Figma Community. As a community member, you can follow creators you fund to be interesting.
JOINING THE COMMUNITY.
As a community member, you have access to many files of other creators. As long as one has a Figma account, it is easy to join the community regardless of the plan being used. To join the community, register your profile handle;
Go to settings from the account menu.
Click set profile handle.
Put in your preferred username or handle.
Click on submit.
After creating your profile, you can also add more information about yourself or team or your organization.
Cover artwork: Hover over the cover photo and click to upload cover artwork.
Profile picture: Put a face in your profile picture to represent who you are. Click on your profile picture to upload a new image.
Bio: Add a piece of brief information about yourself. This could be what your vision is and anything to sell yourself and attract other creators to your profile.
Location: Add where you are located at.
Websites: Add a website URL where more can be known about you. It could be your portfolio link, mail address or social media handle.
PARTICIPATING IN THE FIGMA COMMUNITY
Applying to be a community advocate for Figma is of the ways of participating in the Figma community. As an advocate, you aim to spread awareness about Figma by passionately running user groups or moderating the Friends of Figma Discord. There are two types of Figma community advocates. They are:
Group leaders: They connect people in a particular geographical location by organising both physical and virtual meet up once every three months.
Group moderators: They work side by side with the group leader to run the discord community. They post and share engaging content, and answer questions about Figma in the discord channel.
As a community advocate, you have the advantage of getting Figma swags, participating in Figma events, and having a close engagement with the Figma team and their product and an official title.
Figma ambassadorship is a massive way to have exclusive access to Figma resources, early access to new features, and invitations to events. As an ambassador, you will give plenty of time commitment, to attend events, meet with customers, and generally be available to talk about Figma. To become an ambassador, participate in Figma events and be on the lookout for invitations or opportunities that arise in the community.
As a member of the community who is passionate about shaping the design work, you can always publish your designs in the community and let others benefit from your ocean of knowledge. When people search for a design in the community, published designs come up and other designers can duplicate the design and edit it to their taste. One can publish not only designs but also design systems, plug-ins, widgets, icons, illustrations and lots of design accessories.
Also, as a publisher, you have the will to make it free or paid. This means you can secure some income when your published design resources are purchased in the Figma community. Publishing paid resources are only available for approved design creators and they will be reviewed by Figma before being released for publishing.
Figma community serves as one of the ways to showcase your design online, it means you can secure a client from there. Figma is not only for designers, many other professionals are on Figma too. Your amazing work might catch someone’s eye and you get contacted for a job from there.
In conclusion, the Figma community has a lot of benefits that can only be fully maximized as a member. It saves time when designing because it has a lot of existing designs to seek inspiration from. One does not have to always create design kits from scratch when there is a standard place to have access to one without copyright infringement.
It is a friendly community where one can ask questions relating to design affairs and get various unique answers from designers with different perspectives and experiences. This will make one to be up to date about the design world and its practices.