Note: If you have a different UI than in the course, you can change it back by clicking the '?' in the bottom right corner of Figma and select 'Go back to previous UI'. Happy Figma'ing!

What spacing should I use for web & app design in Figma

This lesson is exclusive to members

Course contents

Questions

0
0

Course info

177 lessons / 16 hours 46 quiz questions 21 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Hi there, aspiring Figma enthusiasts! Are you ready to embark on an exhilarating journey with me, Dan Scott, as we unlock the full potential of our Figma skills in the dazzling realm of UX/UI Design using Figma Advanced?

Try Figma for free by clicking here.

This course is tailor-made for those who have already mastered the fundamental principles of UI/UX Design using Figma. If you've triumphed over my Figma Essentials course or have a sneaking suspicion that there's a treasure trove of unexplored tools, tips, workflows, and updates awaiting your discovery, then look no further! This course is your golden ticket to taking your UI/UX prowess to the next level.

Together, we'll start by delving into the depths of multilevel nested autolayouts, and unravel the secrets used by UX professionals by learning:
- Workflow techniques, managing design assets, styles, components, grid and column layouts like true virtuosos.
- Learn how to use Variables and put them to work creating even more complete prototypes.
- Use variables to make Light & Dark Modes + Compact & Comfortable spacing versions of your components. 
- You’ll then take your new knowledge of variables to understand and create your own Design Tokens. 
  • - Unleashing the magic of advanced animation techniques, captivating users with animated background gradients and Houdini Text.
  • - Harness the power of Lottie animation files, breathing life into your designs.
  • - Crafting responsive elements that effortlessly adapt to any device, proving your design prowess knows no bounds.
  • - Unleashing the full potential of powerful images & video masking techniques, amplifying the visual impact of your creations.
  • - Mastering advanced typography features, transforming words into captivating works of art.
  • - Embracing the realm of AI, infusing your process with its genius to elevate your skills as a UX designer.
  • - Elevate your prototyping game, conducting user tests with finesse using advanced techniques.
  • - Unveiling sticky scroll buttons that stack, animated anchor points and booleans, and a host of other captivating effects.
  • - Creating enchanting dropdown menus, hover grow effects for images, and expanding search bars.
  • - Discovering the right accessibility tools & techniques, ensuring inclusivity and usability for all users.
  • - Becoming a variant boss, expertly taming unwieldy variants to just 1 or 2.
  • - Unveiling the secrets of seamless collaboration with designers, developers, and stakeholders.
  • - Mastering the art of exporting production-ready assets, bringing your designs to life beyond the realm of Figma.
  • - Unearthing professional workflow tricks & shortcuts, saving you precious time and skyrocketing your efficiency.
  • - Plus much more exciting advanced Figma goodness along the way!

As you journey through this course, you'll acquire the skills wielded by UX professionals, gaining a profound understanding of the UX Design industry. From concept to a highly polished finish, you'll confidently manage your own UX projects ideal for your portfolio.

Throughout the course, I'll assign assignments and projects that nurture your skills and empower you to create your very own unique UX design masterpiece for your portfolio. Don’t worry if this all seems overwhelmingly advanced right now, because the BYOL crew stands ready to support and guide you, ensuring your questions get answered.

It's time to embrace the call to upgrade yourself and transcend from being a good UX Designer to a bona fide Figma UX Superhero! Unlock your potential, save the day, and let your design prowess soar!

Requirements:

- A copy of Figma (a free plan is available on the Figma website).
  • - Basic knowledge of Figma is required. I recommend watching my Figma Essentials course prior to embarking on this epic adventure.

Who this course is for:

  • - UX/UI adventurers who already have a basic understanding of Figma.
  • - Self-taught Figma enthusiasts yearning for structured guidance.
  • - Graduates of my Figma Essentials Course, hungry for more knowledge and skills.
  • - Visionaries who have developed their own unique Figma approach but crave exploration of the vast universe of tools, updates, and time-saving techniques.

What you'll learn:

  • - Diving deep into multi level nested autolayouts. 
  • - Robust components that are easy to update and hard to break. 
  • - Component properties. 
- Variables
- Design Tokens
- Advanced Prototyping using Variables
  • - Learn Workflow tips and tricks for managing your design assets, styles, components, grid and column layouts.
  • - Advanced animation techniques
  • - Animated Background gradients. 
  • - Houdini Text
  • - Animate along a path in Figma
  • - How to add Lottie animation files in Figma
  • - Build responsive elements ready for any device size.
  • - The best shortcuts & plugins to make you a more efficient UX designer.
  • - Absolute Positioning of Autolayouts. 
  • - Powerful images & video masking techniques. 
  • - Advanced typography features. 
  • - Learn to use AI in your process to make you a better UX designer. 
  • - Advanced prototyping techniques to level up your user tests. 
  • - Make prototypes better and faster using tricks & shortcuts. 
  • - Sticky scroll buttons that stack. 
  • - Video playback controls. 
  • - Animated anchor points and booleans.
  • - Create a Dropdown menu
  • - Create a hover grow effect for images.
  • - Create and expanding Search Bar 
  • - Learn the right accessibility tools & techniques  
  • - Become a variant boss. Cutting down those 100 variants to just 1 or 2. 
  • - Learn the best ways to work with other designers, developers and stakeholders. 
  • - Build a UX project from beginning to end ready for your portfolio.
  • - Export production ready assets.
  • - Learn professional workflow tricks & shortcuts.
  • - Forum support from me and the rest of the BYOL crew.
  • - All the techniques used by UX professionals
  • - 160 videos of detailed Figma Advanced Content.
Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Certificates

We’re awarding certificates for this course!

Check out the How to earn your certificate video for instructions on how to earn yours and click the available certificate levels below for more information.

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hi everyone, let's talk just a tiny bit more about what spacing should be... I've given you some generic stuff in the last one... where did I get that magic from, how do you get better at it? If you are already quite proficient at your spacing, you can move on... but if you want a little bit of... I don't know, help to make sure things are consistent and easy...

to work with your developer, when you hand off your app, not causing problems... or at least being mindful of the developer... and what they're going to be working with, watch this video. So there are lots of places that your app or website are going to end up... and what will end up happening is, your engineer, your developer... whoever you're using to make it...

it might be you, it's highly likely to be built... on top of what's called a Framework... your developer, she's not going to be going through... and putting all the naughts and zeros... they're going to be building on top of things... that are built on top of things, that are built on top of things.

So if you're an iOS developer, the developer is going to be using... the pre-made, or at least, guidelines from Apple... if it's Android it's going to be, this Material... that's what they call their design system... and they give you lots of helpful things about how things should be spaced apart... if you're going to web it might be Bootstrap, it might be Tailwind...

so talk to the developer, figure out where it's going, what they're building it on... and then have a little read around, it can be confusing... but we need to get started in these sorts of things so that you can actually... I don't know, begin your understanding of... maybe a little bit of CSS, a little bit of code... so that you don't throw your developer a spacing of 7...

because 7 is tricky, because you can't divide it in half... you can't have half a pixel... you can divide 8 in half, you can have 4 pixels... let's have a little look at why 8 is good as well. So let's look at Material for Android, I'm in there, material.io... I'm on their version 3, in the future you might be at version 4 or 5, check it out...

I'm under 'Foundations', I'm looking at 'Layouts', 'Understanding Layout'... and it's just really nice to go through and say... space between columns is a default of 24 DP... which is essentially pixels... sure for device independent pixels... they use this because lots of different phones have different...

like pixel densities... just consider it pixels, if you understand that... and when you're designing in Figma, DP equals PX. So they're using spacing of 24... so make sure, when you're building out your little spacer block... and you're going to Android first, make your gap 24, that's the default...

it's happily divisible by 8, not by chance... or at least it's a really common spacing for the moment. Let's have a look at iOS... have a read through, what they do... I think they're using 20 for their margins on their sides... they have some different defaults to a lot of other ones...

and the thing with iOS is, there is... both, phone, there is TV, there is gadgets, there is watches... so have a little look, whatever you're designing for... there will be documentation online... if you're going out to web, so you're building a website, or web app, find out... is it WordPress, is WordPress using Bootstrap?

Bootstrap is a framework that helps developers work fast... and what they'll end up doing is, let's have a little look... I found this, the gutters is what they call it, the space between stuff... and the default gutters are 1.5 rem... and you can see there, they're set 24 pixels, the same as Material... so if I use 24 as my spacing...

the developer is going to like it because it's kind of consistent with Bootstrap... and it's consistent with Android, depending on where you're going. Now there are a hundred different frameworks... Tailwind, people are using this a lot to help with their styling... you can see in here, I found, under Gap, Bootstrap calls it Gutter... Tailwind calls it Gap...

it's all useful to know, as a UI designer, you can see here... what a developer will type in, is they won't actually type in the number... they'll just hopefully be close to one of these... so they'll put in spacing when they're coding, to say... Gap is 0, which is 0, Gap is 1, which is 0.25 of a rem... a rem by default is 16, so 0.25 of 16 is 4 pixels...

So remember that little spacing we had before, that's the minimum one here... it's a good rule to not go 3, you know, the divisions become tricky... and your developer is going to have to go and override... a lot of the framework defaults... you can do it, but your developer probably just ignore it... and use some of the defaults, unless you force them...

let's have a look, so 16, 6, 8, 10, oh, there's a 10... you might decide that in your design, that you need a 10... where was it, we don't have a 10, we've got 4, 6, 8, 12... there's no real hard and fast rules on what these can be... but if you design for Frameworks, or understand them a little bit... especially, if you know where it's going...

if you know the developer uses Tailwind, great, type out all of these. So the big takeaways is, multiples of 8 are good... but really, you should check out how it's getting made, and copy that... it'll make the transition from Figma... to the actual design and development a lot smoother  and you don't have to, but I've got a Web Essentials as well... which covers a lot of, the kind of things that we look at here...

like what is a rem, what is a DP, what is Bootstrap, what is Flexbox? There's all sorts of good stuff that you can learn... that will inform your design, when you're in Figma... but kind of outside of the scope of this course... but a little bit of HTML and CSS, and framework knowledge... makes you a better UX designer, in my opinion.

All right, was that confusing? A little meandering... anyway, let's get on to some more hard skills in Figma.
  • Powered by Marvin
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy policy
  • © Bring your Own Laptop Ltd 2025