Booleans and Shapes

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Collaborate with your team with shared components

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Design System in Figma

10:14

Basic Layout and Techniques

19:49

Constraints and Adaptive Layout

15:13

Styles and Team Library

22:02

Components and Nesting

18:44

Booleans and Shapes

13:40

Icons and Vector Network

30:29

Export, Inspect and Code in Figma

26:03

Multiplayer and Commenting in Figma

8:36

Prototyping and Interaction

11:42

Union

Union will merge multiple shapes together. You’ll be surprised to see that most icons use this technique. For example, when you combine to have 3 lines, you get a Hamburger menu.

Close Icon

Create two rectangles that's 30x2 and rotate one to 45deg and the other to -45deg. Align them to center against each other, both horizontally and vertically. Select both lines and go to Boolean / Union. 2018-09-06 13-27-37

Subtract

Subtract will subtract a single shape or multiple shapes from the main shape (the one at the bottom). It's important to note that all subsequent shapes will always be subtracted from the main shape.

Card Icon

Create a 28x18 rectangle with a rounded corner of 2. Then, create a rectangle that's 26x2 and place it 4px from the top, 2px from left. Select both layers and go to Booleon / Subtract.

Intersect

Intersect will show the space where 2 shapes meet. While this is not a popular technique compared to Union and Subtract, this is a good way to experiment with new shapes.

Eye Icon

Create 2 circles that are 40x40. Place one above the other with 30 distance from the bottom. Go to Boolean / Intersect. Then select the Boolean group and go to Boolean / Flatten. Create a circle that's 12x12 and select Subtract.

Exclude

Exclude will show the space where 2 shapes don’t meet.

Text Icon

Create a circle that is 40x40. Duplicate and place it 20 from top and 10 from the right against the first one. Duplicate again and place 20 from left, from the second circle. Select Boolean / Intersect. Create a Text layer that's about 12pt and place it in the middle. Drag the text layer to be inside the Boolean group.

Flatten Shape

Using booleans with multiple shapes can really make your icon complex and multi-layered. One of the ways to simplify is to flatten everything as a new shape and work from that.

Set Default Properties

The default light gray color may not be the best color to use for our icons. Every time we create new shapes, we have to change the Fill and that can be tiresome. Let's change the Fill to black. Then, go to the menu / Edit/ Set Default Properties. Now, the next time you create a shape, it'll be black.

Brackets

Create a square that's 40x40. Rotate by 45 degrees. Duplicate and push it by 10 to the right. Select both shapes and do Subtract. Then do Flatten. Press Enter to get into edit mode. Select vector points and set the corner radius to 2. Duplicate and rotate 180deg.

Star

The star can have infinite counts, ratio, and radius, which can allow you to create pretty interesting shapes, like the Cog icon.

Cog

Create a Star polygon that's 50x50 with 12 count, radius 3 and angle 60%. Then create a circle 24x24 and use Subtract.

Polygon

The Polygon can have a corner radius and count, so you can create any polygon counts you want, from the triangle to the hexagon and more.

Play

Create a Polygon 32x32 with 2 radius with a count of 3. Rotate -90 degrees. Then, create a circle that's 50x50. Use Subtract.

Arrow

The Arrow is insanely useful for creating flows or for simply designing an arrow icon. You can customize the stroke width.

Create an Arrow line (Shift + L) 50x0. Set the Stroke width to 5. Select one of the vector points and set go to Advanced Stroke and set the Cap to Round.

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Components and Nesting

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Assets

Design System in Figma

Complete guide to designing a site using a collaborative and powerful design system

10:14

Basic Layout and Techniques

Start with the styles and design system foundation in Figma

19:49

Constraints and Adaptive Layout

Make your design adapt to any screen

15:13

Styles and Team Library

Rules for typography, colors and gradients in Figma

22:02

Components and Nesting

Design powerful and reusable elements for your site

18:44

Booleans and Shapes

Collaborate with your team with shared components

13:40

Icons and Vector Network

Create your own vector illustrations from scratch in Figma

30:29

Export, Inspect and Code in Figma

Communicating the design system to your developers

26:03

Multiplayer and Commenting in Figma

Iterate designs and explore new ideas in a multiplayer environment

8:36

Prototyping and Interaction

Quickly create an entire flow for your app design in Figma

11:42

Meet the instructor

We all try to be consistent with our way of teaching step-by-step, providing source files and prioritizing design in our courses.

Meng To

I design, code and write

Meng To is the author of Design+Code. Meng started off his career as a self-taught designer from Montreal and eventually traveled around the world for 2 years as his US VISA was denied. During his travels, he wrote a book which now has 35,000 readers.

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