Design Thursday #47
A weekly recap of everything you need to know about tools, events, guidelines and design in general.
Spline AI Voice
Spline already had some AI integration to build intelligent 3D experiences, but now you can also use AI voices to make the experience even more engaging. Together with OpenAI's Real-Time API you can create conversational experiences that can trigger events and actions based on voice instructions.
Rive responsive layout
It was teased earlier this year, and now responsive layouts have landed in Rive. This allows you to create interactive animations that can reflow depending on the size you are using it. Making it possible to design a single animation for a smart watch, phone, tablet, desktop and even TV.
Penpot Plugins
Penpot, open-source design tool, has a new plugin system allow you to make the tool even more flexible. There are already a few Plugins available, but you can of course create your own plugins as well.
Read all about Plugins in Penpot
Midjourney Updates
Midjourney is testing out it's new external image editor which lets you edit images outside Discord. The update also includes image retexturing and next-gen AI moderation systems.
With the image editor, you can upload a file from your device and expand, crop, edit, add, repaint or modify elements in the image. Image retexturing is a new way to apply a texture to a sketch, untextured 3D model or any other existing image. It can change lighting, textures and materials to make it look like a whole new image.
View the latest Midjourney updates
Sketch v102 beta
Sketch released a new beta version 102 which includes the option to add styles (fills, shadows, rounded corners, ...) to Artboards. The command bar has been improved to make it easier to search and insert options for Symbols, Text Styles, and Artboard Templates. There is now also markdown support for symbol overrides to make text bold, italic or underlined without having to change the text style. Alignment and text color can now be excluded from text styles for more flexibility, also the comments overview has been updated to make it easier to follow up on open comment.
Framer
Framer's October updated includes some quality of life updates like OpenType support for all form input fields, max length for form inputs. You can also set a Draggable property for images and link, sort variants alphabetically, fit content in all component instances, use control + drag to position layers in stacks absolutely and add a close overlay interaction for overlays in componentsCMS detail pages can now have Previous and Next links. On top of that there was also an update to add Previous and Next links for CMS detail pages.
Play 2.1
Native iOS prototyping tool Play has some new text features and SVG support. You can now add SVGs in your prototypes, enable dynamic type for more accessible custom fonts, make text editable and selectable.
Talking Layers
The third Talking Layers episode is now available featuring Ryan McLeod, creator of Blackbox. That’s a puzzle game/experience that makes you think creatively on how to use your phone or Apple Vision Pro. Together with Rafa they talk about designing for Vision Pro, Skeuomorphism and more. Oh and Ryan is a two time Apple Design Award winner.