
👋 Oi, mga repapips, Brian Dys here! I love music, photography, and creative stuff like UX design and art. This is a place where I collect my thoughts and works. Apart all these, I’m Jaycelle’s better half and Bryce’s dad. 🥰
This semi-rabbit hole exploration started this laid-back Saturday morning when I saw that Shotcut has an update that supports JSON animations. That’s when I found out about LottieFiles where you can get free animations that are downloadable as JSON files. It’s interesting to know that I can now add vector animations in Shotcut, however, the latest version of Shotcut (22.06) has a bug that fails to export to my favorite setting which is “YouTube” in MP4 format.
This led me to wonder how I can integrate Lottie animations in Figma through a plugin and there were two things that I discovered for myself:
Next week, I have an upcoming presentation to the design team about an introduction to DesignOps. One type of visual approach that I am planning is a static timeline chart that shows how capacity planning works. Then I remembered how Prezi animates their presentations — that’s how I wanted it to be. So I created Figma components that resizes in each frame depending on the zoom focus. Then each frame is connected in sequence through the prototype instant animate.
In Figma, it works in reverse compared to Prezi in the sense that:
Here’s the Figma prototype I experimented with:
Recently, I hopped on to Spotify as an artist. I released several electronica singles under the label Weet Weew. The experience was liberating in the sense that I’ve been putting it off for quite some time and finally got to grapple with it. I got to revisit some old compositions and reacquainted with a DAW (digital audio workstation) of choice: FruityLoops.
Preparing for a (rather bleak) future when crazed fans would ask me for autographs, I thought I needed to have one. So I practiced using a big round-tip marker and settled with a 0.6 mm-tip pen.
With a trusty scanner, I scanned it with a resolution of 600 to be able to “blow it up” and properly enhance it. From Photoshop to Illustrator to Figma to its destination, Spotify — it took me around an hour to do all this.
We’re using Adobe Photoshop to prepare the material for vectorization in Illustrator.
We’re using Adobe Illustrator to convert the prepared material into vector. Sure, from the scanned material we can go straight here — I personally see the result is better when we prepare the material prior vectorization.
Figma is awesome because you can use it for free and it is web-based (use it alongside Facebook on the other tab of your favorite web browser). Really, this part is optional — it just so happened that my Spotify header image template is conveniently in Figma (you can use Photoshop or Illustor, too).
Right after I uploaded my updated header image to Spotify, I turned to see that my notebook has grown itself some robot doodles, courtesy of Bryce. Consequently, I asked him if we would like to color it in Photoshop and that lit up his face!
One of the items in the reading list is about copying and how it is inherent to design (and child development, actually). As designers, we pride ourselves of our originality — personally, to the point of stubbornness. I recall a period in my career when I avoided looking at other people’s works as inspiration — out of fear of being unoriginal. It was pride, as I retrospect.
Collaboration is key to almost anything one wants to accomplish efficiently. All of us rely on each other even indirectly. Copying is inevitable in a world where no person is an island. Legalities and what your conscience says, that’s a different story.
“Really, you’re giving it away for free?” A mentee uttered in surprise (pertaining to a solicited advice). Perhaps our session provided her with some nuggets of wisdom (as it should be). I could imagine lightbulbs flashing in her mind as we discussed about her career.
“This is also how I got them through the years,” I said, “for free”.
To all the generous folks out there sharing their thoughts, resources, and anything that helps anyone, I’m also paying it forward.
I liked the style of the copying article so I replicated it in the “Libre Sakay!” graphic design. If you would like to spin it out yourself, feel free!