Why your brand colors aren’t working in digital spaces

Color for brand designers working with product teams

Fictional Brands Archive

Slide showing atoms as individual lego pieces, molecules as lego trees using the atom pieces, and a lego forest, using the molecules.

Great Dane, Mr. Willis, weighting I’m at 117lbs, tucked under a blanket with his head rested gently on a pillow.

Whether you’re a brand designer putting the finishing touches on a color palette or a product designer laying the foundational work for a…

How to create a color ramp used in design systems

Learn how to build a dual range slider that is adjustable using auto-layout so you don't have to create a ton of variants to show different options.Create an...

Create an adjustable progress bar in Figma

White ceramic cup with subtle dripping texture like it’s melting on the outside.

How and why our remote UX design agency moved to a 4-day workweek without a reduction in pay or benefits and without increasing rates.

Forge Blog | Why we moved to a 4-day week

https://www.forge.is/post/why-we-moved-to-a-4-day-week

Using modifiers to create color ramps can significantly reduce the tedious work that comes with creating color ramps.

Create a color ramp using color modifiers in Tokens Studio

https://medium.com/@katiecooperco/create-a-color-ramp-using-color-modifiers-in-tokens-studio-8222cf735242

Laptop on conference room table with 40% mechanical  keyboard and gamer mouse.

CHUNK is a set of 600 consistent & commonly-needed glyphs, all tailored to look nice and sharp at 16px.  Let me know any feedback or requests for future additions 🙂  New in v3 (1/11/2024)  Chunk now comes in 3 fresh flavors: Filled, Hollow, and Duo!All 300 glyphs from v2, many redrawn for consist...

Chunk Icons | Figma Community

We create platform-agnostic multi-brand design systems that help teams create more consistent user experiences and ship features faster.

Forge Studio | Multi-brand Design Systems | Design Tokens | Component Libraries | Governance Process | Design Operations

https://www.forge.is/taking-on-design-system-projects

Kanji characters for “national treasure.” Other meanings list consisting of Nicolas Cage.

There is no longer a need to create every size you may ever need for each and every component. We will do this for our most atomic component and then create ...

Flexibility through Component Sizing

I've noticed over time that there can be a sense of being overwhelmed by all that design systems can be, so I'd like to do something to help people on their way.

I'm looking to run some workshops based on all kinds of aspects of design systems from the problem space, audits, componentisation, design tokens to adoption, communication and contribution. Covering a lot of topics aims to give that introductory level awareness of each topic so people of all disciplines can feel more confident starting or improving their design system.

This form is to give me an idea of the format(s) that might work for people and what parts of the UK & Ireland I should look to run them in.

Any question, drop me a line at dan@hereinthehive.com

Thanks, Dan

Intro to Design Systems workshop interest

Our color set-up in the Tokens Studio plug-in for when managing light and dark mode within the same file. Showcasing how you can also use color mixing to cre...

Color Setup in Tokens Studio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwSX4myC5AM&t=3s

Two handmade ceramic cups stacked. Cream in color with a polished matte finish and a glazed clear coat band around the center.

I got in the habit of checking twitter more than this platform and I regret it.

foundcolor.co

found this tool today 💙

Brand designers, I have finally finished my article about what to consider when creating color palettes for digital mediums. I hope y'all find this helpful, and I'm always down to answer any questions.

https://tinyurl.com/3vu766rx

Why didn’t I think of this? An archive of fictional brands from famous films and series! 🤯

fictionalbrandsarchive.com

Anyone here who is also learning Japanese and would want to have elementary school level text conversations with me?

Experimenting with coloring my clay body. This will likely fire darker. Excited to see how it will turn out!

I am prepping for my Intro to Figma workshop for the Creative Works Conference next week! I love using Lego as an example to teach atomic design principles because it's familiar to almost everyone.

Can’t wait for my Spotify wrapped to tell me how much white noise I listen to.

Every day I check this app and see some amazing creative work. Y'all are so talented!

🥰 The support y'all have shown for my article writing debut gives me all the warm fuzzies. I'm working on my third color article about how to take primitive color sets to define semantic color sets. It will come with a great Figma Community resource file. Stay tuned!

Anyone else getting a beta expired message when trying to open the native app? Posting this via browser.

I'm starting to work on a how-to for brand designers creating color palettes that need to be used across digital experiences such as product and web. What do you wish they knew?

Omg, I'm so behind on my Kanji reviews! This number is really like 812 because it's front and back. SOS!

Working with Webprints has been so fun. I'm super excited about where things are headed for this product. The 3D printing community better buckle up! Here a peek at the discover page we are currently working on. @julia_gale has done an awesome job on the look and feel.

Looking to getting into 3D modeling because there are so many things I want 3D printed (by someone else) and I can never find anyone to model them. If you have any resources I’d be grateful! 🥹

Curious about how to make a color ramp? 
Color ramps are essential for keeping your brand consistent because they are utilized throughout all branded assets. Not every color will be used, but this process helps you scale easily.

https://tinyurl.com/yck4hv4h

The skip 10 seconds and playback speed were instant slam-dunk features. Every time I stream videos, I'm happy they exist and want to kiss whoever brought them into existence.

Learn how to make a dual-range slider in Figma that is adjustable using auto-layout. This allows you to adjust two points on the slider to exactly where you want them without having to create variants.

https://youtu.be/4oQcEPtYvj4

Anyone else’s dog get mad when you’re being too loud and the lights are still on?

Practicing my prototyping skills in Figma! @forge is currently taking on new design system and product design projects. I’d love nothing more than to help build those out for you. Reach out to hello@forge.is.

finally unloading a glaze firing and super excited about it! do some of them have cracks in the bottom? yes, but I’m still pumped because that’s something I can fix. this was my first time firing this type of clay body.

What would you do with an extra day each week? 

I put together a few thoughts on why Forge Studio moved to a 4-day workweek earlier this year. I'll post updates a few times a year to share how it's been going (with data). https://www.forge.is/post/why-we-moved-to-a-4-day-week

If you're into design systems and color, I wrote a lil something about how to create color ramps in using color modifiers using Tokens Studio. 👀 
https://medium.com/@katiecooperco/create-a-color-ramp-using-color-modifiers-in-tokens-studio-8222cf735242

🚨 Attn friends and colleagues 🚨
Forge Studio is actively seeking new clients and projects for the remainder of 2023. 👉 http://www.forge.is 👀

Clients: Instacart, Salesforce, Guideline, Airtable, Grammarly, Affirm, Handshake, AWS, Caper, Workrise, and startups of all stages.

I’ve got the nerdiest little set up for my Intro to Figma workshop. I’m so excited to teach some fellow nerds!

I just rediscovered デザインあ (Design Ah!), and its intro makes me so happy.

Bad news for me today 🙁 All the companies that I’ve had late stage interviews with has decided to pass on me

Feeling terribly disappointed and disheartened, it’s really – really hard out here

If anyone has any leads for a senior frontend software engineer please let me know.

After much teasing, Chunk Icons 3 is out in the wild!

http://chunkicons.com

I think, as ICs, we should start calling ourselves—the talent. ✨💅🏻

Mmmmm, today is a good day! I'm kicking off a new multi-brand design system for a client with many products, and I'm so excited about all the big and little problems we get to solve.

How are y’all doing in the brutal market?

Forge is taking on Design System projects for 2024! If you're ready to implement a new system or need help getting unblocked, we'd love to help!

I can't believe I've built 4 since joining the team 1.5 years ago! 

https://www.forge.is/taking-on-design-system-projects

I’m learning Kanji and WaniKani listing Nicolas Cage as an addition meaning is sending me.

Dabbling in animation to help support my product design work and it’s been a blast. Here is a logo animation I did for one of our clients Cardinal at @forge. If you’re in need of product design, design systems, or branding work reach out at hello@forge.is!

People don't know what they could be getting into when they ask me about my saltwater aquarium. I could go on for hours about this water community, their personalities, and the drama between each. Not to mention the nerdy water chemistry!

I created this animation to show our process for building design systems at Forge Studio, which I'm pretty proud of! We are currently taking on new design system projects. Learn more about our approach at www.forge.is/design-systems.

Anyone else who works from home with an office, do you feel like you can’t be in your home office on off hours or you feel like you’re at work?

At Forge Studio we've recently changed how we approach having a variety of sizes for each component we build in a design system. We have found this strategy to be easier to maintain, has a better UX for designers, and keeps our file size down. https://bit.ly/41rFVGp

“Accessibility is the goal, inclusion is how to get there”

Whenever I set up a new shortcut on my Planck keyboard, I feel like I have superpowers. I just set up some macros to launch specific plug-ins in Figma with one key tap, so I no longer have to search for them.

Duolingo got me all upset about how they updated their Japanese course, but I’m kind of glad because I never would have tried Busuu. The content is much better and it actually explains use and grammar.

UK & Ireland folks: I've been looking to run some 'Intro to design systems' workshops so looking to gauge interest

Open to people in any role and any level of experience & I'd aim to keep them affordable. Let me know if you'd be up for this!

https://forms.gle/4TXEMfo3ba3dgqgq7

Sharing how we set up and manage color using the Tokens Studio plug-in within Figma. I demo how we are experimenting with color mixing to automatically create our states for really easy theming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwSX4myC5AM&t=3s

I think this app has been my favorite twitter alternative. The design is super clean and simple and all y’all seem like big nerds which is right up my alley.

I made these low-ball fidget cups! Obsessed with the subtle glossy band. I’m going to experiment with making these with colored clay bodies. There are a few available on my website. katiecooper.co/the-studio

This ham has to stay at the vet overnight to monitor some bloating. 😭 He should be fine, but I miss him!

I wanted to practice my animation and prototype skills, so I explored brand and mobile app design on one of my favorite apps, SoundPrint. The app measures and tracks any venue's average decibels via user submissions. This allows people to find quiet places to dine or hang out.

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