FigCraft — The Open Source Figma Replica

Figma opened up the market for many competitors, but nobody saw this one coming. FigCraft is a free, offline and open-source tool that is basically a Figma “clone”. This is from the same developer who made the entire Adobe suite of tools open source and went mega viral.

The interface is essentially a one-for-one replica of the Figma interface — the same properties, layers and canvas we’re all used to. Even the features are similar when it comes to auto-layout, animation features, and design-to-code, among others.

What’s crazy is that the tool also has multiplayer design features that allow teams to work together in real time. You don’t have to create an account and can quickly host it on your own server or computer.

For those who are hesitant to try this out because it might not have AI features, it actually has MCP support, so you can use your own AI agents with FigCraft.

Try FigCraft for free.

iPhone Duo Prototype on Artboard Studio

Whether you want to create realistic iPhone Duo mockups with your UI designs or create smooth mockup animations with detailed keyframes.

You can even edit the 3D mockup with different colours, scenes, and lighting. Export these animations as an MP4 or WebM video for your website or share them on social media.

Since the iPhone Duo and its apps are going viral, it makes perfect sense to have this tool on this list.

Try out Artboard Studio.

Envato MonoDesk & Burst Mode

Envato was on a roll this month, with two new tools that will perfectly slide into our daily workflows.

The first one is MonoDesk, an all-in-one project and client management tool for creatives and freelancers. With this tool, you get a slew of useful features like:

• A proposal maker that lets you design and send proposals.
• An invoice creation and tracking tool to keep track of payments and invoices with multiple clients at once.
• An AI-powered research tool that compiles information about a certain company before you reach out to them or start working with them. It’s always good to know who you’re going into business with.
• A project planner (reminds me of Trello) and task manager to keep yourself and your team’s efforts in check.

All this and much more. You can learn more about MonoDesk here.

Burst Mode is where I got really excited! Envato has tried to solve a major issue with AI design tools, and that is heavy credit usage. With Burst Mode, you can essentially get 6 variations/outputs of your requirements with one single credit.

You can select the best version and use that as direction for future generations and even set how “wild” you want the AI to go with creations.

Check out Burst Mode.

Contra Creative Intelligence Report 2026

This isn’t exactly a “tool” per se. However, a resource which is perfect for understanding how companies and designers are adopting AI into their creative workflows.

Highlights from this report include how clients want to pay for AI work, which tools professionals are using AI inside (Figma, for example), and even barriers to AI adoption.

There’s also a useful comparison of different AI models we have at our disposal and what the future has for us.

Also, Contra made a beautiful website with all this amazing data. Check the website out here.

Mckp.live — Cinematic Animated Mockups

This is the most powerful 3D mockup creation and animation tool online right now. You can choose from many different pre-made mockups and scenes and just upload your UIs as images into them.

They have an easy-to-use animation tool where you can add keyframes and smoothly go from one mockup view to another.

What makes these mockups cinematic is the way you can change the camera angles, lighting, the area of visual focus, screen glow, and even camera modes like fisheye!

Each mockup is super detailed and has some unique settings.

Check out Mckp.live for free.

Riffs — Figma’s New Playground

Figma just rolled out a brand new section inside their app to help us explore the coolest apps and experiments the community is building.

This includes animated loading elements, interactive UIs, custom cursor animations, sections & layouts and much more. Each of these is free, and you can freely copy them into your projects.

These riffs are made with Figma Make and Figma Motion, so you get something ready to use.

Check out Figma Riffs.

Canva Craft

Canva just released its own AI model to the public. This model is unique. Not only is it the 4th most advanced image generation model in the world, but it also works differently.

Canva Craft creates a “first draft” after you submit a prompt, instead of generating a final image at once. This reduces the space for assumptions and errors. As a result, you spend fewer AI credits and get more accurate results. Since it's in Canva, everything from the text to visual elements is editable.

Try out Canva Craft here.

New UX/UI Design Tools You Must Try was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Figma has grown and evolved into an all-in-one creative tool, and so have plugins! You can now find plugins for every purpose and workflow — from AI design companions to motion design tools.

Here are my top 7 new Figma plugins that I can’t stop using.

MotionFX — a plugin to speed up Figma Motion

Figma Motion is incredible. It brings the power of motion design tools like After Effects and LottieFiles to the Figma canvas.

But it has a huge learning curve, and you spend a lot of time on small interactions. MotionFX is a free plugin that solves this.

It has a large library of small interactions and animations that you can instantly add to any element on screen. This adds all these animations to the Figma Motion timeline that you can tweak and edit.

The preset library has loading animations, click interactions, nudge motion, and even complex icon animations that can be applied with one click.

You can even combine interactions and save them as a preset with a custom name and an option in the library. The creator is also adding a motion marketplace soon.

Try out MotionFX here.

Mockey AI — the most flexible mockups plugin

If you want to show off your design work to your team or on social media, this is the one plugin you can rely on.

Mockey has 27,000+ mockup styles, super unique scenes and even video mockups to add some cool effects to your static work.

You’ll find everything from iPhone mockups to laptops and app icon mockups. For those who want to design T-shirts or mugs in Figma, this plugin features a large selection of physical products.

What stood out was the built-in AI studio. This is a simple AI generator that creates custom mockup scenes, adds animations to static mockups, and even generates designs from scratch. You can even convert your product into product-shoot photos.

Check out Mockey AI for Figma.

“This” to Figma by divRIOTS — they fix all your problems

divRIOTS is my favourite Figma plugin developer. They have a plugin for every kind of import need. From importing entire website projects as editable Figma files to importing Photoshop files with all the layers and effects intact.

They also have plugins for niche designers—like the CAD-to-Figma converter or the EPS-to-design importer.

My favourite one from this developer is the image-to-design tool. You can literally convert UI screenshots into an editable design with proper font accuracy and even SVG icons you can use in your project.

They also have a slew of AI plugins in their library. You can upscale images, import PDFs as editable files, remove objects from pictures, replace subject backgrounds, and even generate custom maps for your UI designs.

I highly suggest using their plugins, and even grabbing their premium plugins, which can help you save a lot of time and money in the long run.

Check out the DivRiots Figma plugin collection.

AI design reviewer — the only useful AI tool for UX

There aren’t a lot of AI plugins that do something genuinely useful. AI design reviewer is a multi-purpose AI tool for valuable UX audits and helps improve your UI designs. This tool is built by the team who built Siri!

You can select up to 10 screens at once and, with one click, generate a UX critique (find usability fixes), Audit UI designs (catch UI issues), figure out edge cases (something most designers miss), find out accessibility gaps, and even come up with new ideas for your work.

You can even upload/add your own prompts and guidelines for the tool to work for your specific issues and project.

After the plugin generates an audit/review, it saves all your reviews in one organised space. This makes tracking problems and design issues better for you and your team. As far as privacy is concerned, the tool claims that it doesn’t train its AI on your designs.

This also has one of the most affordable prices for any AI tool in Figma. It gives you 20 free credits every month. This is great for most small and personal projects. After that, you can upgrade for a simple $5-a-month price tag or try the premium plan free for 7 days. Pretty generous!

Check out the AI design review plugin.

Shader effects beta — custom effects made by the community

Figma recently introduced Shaders, and then they opened the tool to community-designed shaders. I love the design community!

Some of my favourite community-built shaders are:

• Dither paint:
  A shader that applies a physical painting-like style to any vector element on screen. You can adjust the style and strength of the dither effect. Check it out here.

• Pattern refraction: this adds a glass refraction effect to any image or background. I suggest adding smoothing and tweaking the dispersion for an insane retro effect. These effects are so in-trend right now, and this makes it easier to apply in Figma. Here is the plugin.

• Simple ASCII: ASCII art is in a league of its own. This plugin instantly converts any element into ASCII art with loads of customisation options. This works so well with simple images with a single subject. Try the plugin.

Craftwork — beautiful illustrations inside Figma

Craftwork has been one of my favourite illustration libraries ever. Their team makes custom illustrations, 3D assets, icons, and graphics for any type of project. How some of these packs are free is beyond me.

With this plugin, you can quickly access all their free and pro design assets in one place. You can filter through many different types of graphics with a minimal interface.

They also have a little bookmark tab that allows you to save illustrations for later. All their high-quality assets can be accessed via hundreds of different collections and packs that are present inside the plugin.

Here is the Craftwork plugin.

Figma Weave plugins — a new kind of powerful plugin

There is a high chance that you have never used or even heard of Figma Weave — their new node-based AI design tool. They’ve recently made accessing their special AI tool much easier from inside Figma.

These tools can be accessed from the Tools tab on the left in Figma. Here are some very powerful and useful Weave tools:

• Add logo to product: this Weave tool allows you to select any design, preferably a logo, and describe what you would like to put that logo on. This could be a tote bag, a billboard, or any other mockup you can think of. Try it out here.

• On-brand icons: you can generate hundreds of custom icons based on your brand or business. You just add your logo or any element that shows off your brand/style and add a description. This tool tries its best to generate relevant icons for your project.

• Sticker pack: as the name suggests, you can convert your designs into cute stickers that look like real-life physical stickers. Check it out here.

Weave tools are mostly visual design and graphic-design-centric.

Hope you enjoyed this new list. For more such articles, I suggest following me here and hitting the *clap* button!

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Figma Plugins You Will Fall in Love With (And Never Stop Using) was originally published in Muzli - Design Inspiration on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Foldable phones have improved a lot over the past 7 years. Apple’s new device – the iPhone Duo has achieved a lot of things that other foldable experiences just don’t get right. But everything good in design comes with some caveats.

The folding animations are pure bliss & not just cosmetic

Most folding phones have very straightforward, almost boring opening and closing animations. It feels sudden and jittery, sometimes even breaking the flow when in apps or completing tasks.

The iPhone's folding animations use a nice directional, progressive blur with a depth effect from the left. This almost gives the illusion of the interface sliding from the small to the larger display.

Apps also adjust much more seamlessly. The example above displays how the gallery app goes from a small preview to a full-width display without any stutter or lag. The folding animations also help in hiding any initial expanding issues (if any exist in the future).

I'll cover a few issues with the opening and closing transitions later in this article.

The sub-par multitasking experience makes me wanting more

This is the first iPhone with multitasking features. The inner display finally supports opening two apps at once and even drag-and-drop content from one app to the other.

What’s very cool is the “sticky app” experience. Two apps can stick together to form these groups, which you can switch between just like you do with normal apps.

One of the few things I felt could be improved was the lack of multitasking on the smaller screen. The Duo just opens one of the apps you were using when you fold the phone mid-use.

Of course, split-screen apps aren’t ideal for smaller displays, but some solution could have been researched and worked on. After all, Apple has been working on this for a while now.

There is also a lack of a floating dock when apps are opened. Companies like Oppo and Samsung allow you to have an extensive dock fixed to the OS when navigating apps. Something like that could have made the iPhone Duo more tablet-like, and in my personal design experience, it was a basic user need.

I know I’m being picky, and yes, a floating dock would take up too much vertical real estate on a shorter display; but there is always a better solution (like an action to unhide a hidden one).

Seated & Standing Experiences

This is such a clever implementation of a smaller app experience when you have your phone folded or half-folded.

You can use the folding mechanism to make the phone sit on a table in front of you. On the top half, you have a video or the main content, and some useful controls or a certain set of actions on the bottom half.

A great example of this is Netflix. The video can run on the top half, while video scrubbing controls lie at the bottom without being a distraction.

The real star was the “standing” mode, where you can get a mini or micro app experience. If you have the clock open, you’ll get a table-side clock style. If your alarm pops up, the inner screen will glow a nice orange, adding another layer to the immersion.

Developers and designers can create completely separate experiences for both! My inner designer is so excited to see what people create.

These are initial bugs that we’ll see with the Duo. Users will have to wait 9–12 months before most of the mainstream apps support these modes.

The hinge is actually interactive!

This got me excited like a little kid. Developers and designers will be able to detect how much the hinge is closed/opened.

A great example of this is how a guitar app can allow the user to adjust the hinge to create a unique sound, like with an actual guitar whammy bar.

Check this out:

This opens a whole new set of opportunities for developers to provide a deeper, more meaningful experience with the hinge. This is for sure the first time I’ve seen such an implementation of motion interactions.

Everything sticks to the edges

They’ve moved the toolbar and tab bar to the right by default, where they stick persistently without moving.

The status bar is also now on the right above the other controls. Instead of having three status bar icons, you have a collapsible icon that opens to display the others and changes to show status.

The whole idea is to make everything accessible with one hand and one finger. A wide screen makes one-hand usage tricky, so the side action buttons will be useful.

The iPhone Duo also lets two apps have two different controls, stuck to the opposite side of the screen. The app on the left sticks the controls to the left, and the right one to the right.

They hid the front camera

The inner camera on the iPhone Duo is actually hidden from plain sight. You can barely see the little camera notch in most lighting conditions, but it’s a behind-the-screen camera. This only shows up when the camera is active.

This gives the feeling of immersion even when inside basic apps like iMessage and keeps things distraction-free.

If you enjoyed the article, make sure you hit the *clap* button to show support and leave a comment about what you think of the user experience on the iPhone Duo.

iPhone Duo’s UX Design Finally Makes Foldables Useful — But Misses The Mark was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Companies like Figma, Canva, Contra, and Designer Fund have recently released real usage patterns and trends that show how designers are actually using AI in their workflows.

These reports also reveal how roles, jobs and career paths are actively changing as the industry evolves.

I’ve summarised all these findings and revealed the true reality of how AI is impacting design careers so that you can move forward with confidence and the truth in mind.

*Take these numbers with a pinch of salt. Some metrics and findings can be biased and might not reveal real findings from every country or industry.*

Figma’s 2026 AI Report — A Shift in Expectations

Based on deep research of 8,403 participants and 600+ qualitative interviews all around the globe, Figma has revealed some interesting findings.

• 85% of designers say they are more efficient thanks to AI.
• 6x product builders say their teamwork has been significantly impacted because of AI, as compared to 2 years ago.
• 16% more developers participate in design workflows, whereas a whopping 32% more designers are participating in development tasks.
• Surprisingly, 40% of teams spend the most time in the open canvas, which makes sense since a majority of AI tools are implementing canvas-like UIs into their products. Claude Designer comes to mind, or the integration of an AI agent into the Figma Canvas.

These numbers hit close to home. Based on hundreds of designers I get to interact with, there is a clear dilution of product and design roles — with developers still focusing on code and debugging.

“[When companies invest in AI training,] it starts to demystify some of the concerns people have around AI replacing them.” — Product Manager & Research Participant

However, Figma’s report also showcases new trends in the designer’s job and role.

• 57% of designers say design is more important than it was before the introduction of AI. Is this a coping mechanism, or real confidence in the field? Let me know what you think in the comments section.
• There is almost a 2x increase in companies training their employees in AI.
• 29% increase in teams working on AI products or features. AI features are more difficult to design, so UX becomes more crucial.

Many non-design-focused reports also indicated people who were being “replaced” by AI are now being rehired to fill important roles. These two metrics could be correlated.

I remember a time designers were trying to prove their importance in a world where UX/UI design was still a new concept. We’re still doing it, but we’re now arguing why AI can’t replace us. A few days of using AI instead of hiring a designer often proves our argument.

I suggest reading the complete report that Figma has put out for free.

Designer Fund Report 2026 — A Report Funded by Top Companies

Based on a 900-designer sample size, this is a more detailed report based on a plethora of people from startups and enterprises in 60+ countries.

Some trends and indicators:

• 91% of participants use AI at least once a week, which is a bump up from 54% just last year.
• Out of these people, 75% use AI tools and software daily, which is a huge adoption statistic.
• The number of AI tools people use also increased by more than 2x.
• 76% of designers claimed they have used AI coding and vibe coding tools, which again confirms dilution of roles and increased expectations.
• 62% of participants said the biggest problem with AI tools is inconsistent results and is a challenge to their workflow.
• Almost half (49%) of these designers are still searching for a reliable tool and are not completely confident in their current workflow. This shows that AI might be the need of the hour, but isn’t a favourite.

These numbers show an overview of what AI might look like from a day-to-day perspective. However, what are some real contributions that AI has made to design projects?

Here is what this research found out:

• 50% of designers have actually shipped AI-generated code to production, but only 20% identify their role as a design engineer. There is a clear separation between responsibilities and roles.
• Roughly 80% of participants still choose to trust their own judgement over AI when it comes to quality, visual polish and, of course — creative direction.
• 20% of designers say that collaboration with their teams has actually decreased, which leads to more isolation, but helps them lead their own projects as a result.

Based on the chart below, we clearly see large-scale organisations investing more into building their own internal tools, rather than depending on enterprise-grade tools to take over.

Statistics like these indicate that there are pros and cons to this new trend. But when it comes to teams adopting AI, these indicators shift a little:

• 87% of designers say that their organisation supports and helps in adopting new AI tools and workflows; this is very positive.
• Roles are truly blurring: 73% of designers say that they are doing more PM/development tasks, while 40% of people said that PMs are doing design work. This evens out any extra work amongst teams.
• About 50% of team leaders indicated that they give importance to AI fluency while hiring now.
• 60% of design leaders expect to keep or even grow design teams, while a good amount claim design teams will stay the same size, but will have more/better output.

While expectations from designers went up for 73% of designers, formal organisational policies only changed by 28%. This means that company structures have still not caught up in reality.

This report is a reflection of what we see happening all around us, instead of tool-specific research, which showed us a smaller use case. Whether you’re getting into a startup or a large-scale organisation, some of these numbers will matter when considering learning or adopting new tools.

Go through the complete study yourself to find out even more about these trends.

2026 State of Design & Make by Autodesk

Autodesk is behind some of the most used creative tools worldwide (SketchBook, AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds MAX and more). This report by their company shows us a broader perspective of creative fields in general — and not just UX/UI and product design.

This is what I found based on data Autodesk collected from 2,500 global leaders:

• 80% of companies increased investments towards AI in the past 1 year, developing AI features and building new products (which requires more AI-forward designers).
• Companies like Gearbox Software increased focus on creativity and creative roles and spend less on logistics now. So spending is clearly moving to creative & business roles.
• Companies and leaders say there is a 47% gap between available roles and skilled designers in the market. This also comes with the fact that only 59% of people say that there is sufficient training for AI-based skills.
• 2/3 of participants have adopted tools from outside their industry. This means a web designer might start using a motion design tool, since it can be used with AI (without learning things from scratch).
• Graphic visualisation tools were the most explored or used by people outside the industry, clearly indicating an uprise of creative tools across the board.

This study clearly indicates movement towards more creative exploration by companies, whether it be in their current workflows or real changes in investment in creative areas.

I believe this study also highlighted real gaps in the current market, where designers are not fully equipped with what is truly required right now. There is a huge demand, but less supply that meets it.

You can read the complete study here.

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AI is NOT Killing Design — It’s The Opposite was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everything they launched at Figma Config 2026

Figma just announced some mind-blowingly big updates and changes at their famous yearly event — Config 2026. Here is everything you need to know and can add to your workflow.

Figma Motion

At Config, the crowd went wild when they first showcased Figma Motion. It’s high time they brought more animation capabilities to the workflow.

With the click of a button in the action panel, a timeline window pops up at the bottom. This allows designers to play around with keyframes and add motion to any layer with a few simple steps.

You can quickly start a new animation without creating complex animations first — using motion presets.

Another quick way to create complex animations without a long process is to ask Figma Agent to animate layers for you with a simple prompt that explains your vision.

Exporting these animations for production is also pretty straightforward. There is a code tab that shows you the CSS code for your animated layers, which you can export or copy, right into your coded project.

Also, comments are here in the motion tool! Your team can leave comments on your animation timeline to give you more precise feedback. This might be a great feature for some, but a weapon for micro-managers.

They have also added an “Animated” tab to export options. These include MP4, WebM, GIF and SVG options.

You can build a “Motion System”, which essentially is a set of pre-set animations that can be copied over to different elements across your project. Think pre-made effects, but for animations.

Learn more about Figma Motion here.

Generative Plugins

Imagine creating your own plugin in Figma. Now, imagine doing this without any code, with a single prompt.

They realise the importance of custom plugins, so Figma is adding a new feature to Figma AI and Agent, which allows you to ask their AI to build a custom plugin and start using it in your team or launch it for the community.

For example: “Create a plugin that converts data into beautiful graphs” and it’ll generate a graphs plugin — which you can iterate and build on.

Unlike plugins you install from the community, these plugins will lie inside the new fixed panel on the left, organised inside the “Tools” menu.

For now, this is available only to paid plan users, since you can do this with Figma Agents or Figma Make.

Code Layers Inside The Canvas

Yup! You can now seamlessly interact with Figma Make and Agent to add functional code layers inside the canvas. This means no more static content or sections; you can ask their AI to create anything or add any effects without writing the code yourself.

What’s actually cool are the controls that come with each code element. You can edit the added effect or functions with sliders and options that can help you tweak the properties instantly. That’s neat!

Custom Shader Effects & Fills

Figma seems to lean hard on shaders this time around. Custom shaders are now a permanent trend in the design industry, with cool background effects and image overlays; we see them everywhere now.

Figma shader fill is a new option anytime you pop open the fill property, which allows you to add pre-made shaders to any element. These effects include mesh gradients with custom properties, clouds, fractal noise, moire, glowing waves, nebula, pattern grids and many more.

You can now import any image into this feature to create a custom shader fill or even explain an effect inside Figma AI to make something unique.

Figma Weave Tools Inside The Canvas

Inside your canvas, you will now find Figma Weave options spread across different tools. You can select any image and add cool Weave effects, which make your material stand out.

You will also have any material that you’ve worked on inside Weave, now in your Figma Canvas. This wasn’t a much-awaited feature, but it’s good to have for people who really do use Weave in their workflow.

You can read more about the Weave integration here.

I hope you liked this quick overview of everything launched/announced at Figma Config 2026. Make sure to leave a *clap* to show support!

Figma Just Created History — Is It Finally Our Dream Tool? was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.