Redesigning with Figma

For the Wilmette Institute's certificate redesign I decided to try out Figma and see how quickly I could jump in to it for this short project.

I am happy with the results, and Figma has some great features I really like:

• The smooth entrance into the application if you are already signed up is excellent and essential. It really feels smooth, like opening up a desktop program. Without this feature it would be really hard to use it repeatedly. I need to make note to operate this way with any in browser tool, requiring log-in or not. If the user has already started working on something, when they come back, send them right back to their work.

• It was reletively fast to prototype. Fonts, however, felt a little convoluted with alternative names, and it was time consuming to check through them without dynamic previews.

• No matter how many frames or assets, there we no visible slowdown, very impressive for a browser based program.

The redesign was approached with two things in mind:

• Lighten the mood of the certificates. While they mark course completion they do not authorize the recipient or license them in anyway.
• Align them with the Wilmette Institute's new brand.

Here is an example of the previous version:

Here is an example of the end result:

In the end the most meaningful part of the experience with Figma was that there was no slowdown or lag, no matter how many frames or assets I loaded in. Well done Figma team.