Visual Tools
Visual Tools is a collection of Figma plugins for intuitively crafting beautiful interfaces. It's a collection of tools that lets you focus on hitting the nail rather than on how to hold the hammer.
What started out as a small side project, has grown into a suite of design tools used by more than 300,000 creatives all over the world.
![](/_app/immutable/assets/shadows-poster.df2366c3.jpg)
Beautiful ShadowsDesign tool for intuitively creating smooth, skeuomorphic shadows.
![](/_app/immutable/assets/glow-poster.d1fc92eb.jpg)
GlowDesign tool for creating skeuomorphic glows that mimic a physical light source.
![](/_app/immutable/assets/copy-rotate-poster.db507d17.jpg)
Copy & RotateDesign tool for creating radial interfaces and patterns.
![](/_app/immutable/assets/gradients-poster.af132ea8.jpg)
Smooth GradientsDesign tool for interpolating and smoothening gradients.
Field Notes: Designing a design tool
Designing a Design tool is an interesting project because it brings together lots of different areas of interaction design. Some of my personal favorites are:
- Mental models. Design tools are not used in a vacuum. They're embedded in existing workflows with strong mental models. Designing a design tool means anticipating where the user is coming from and where the user is going next – and crafting this into a experience that feels just right.
- Setting loose constraints. A design tool should be designed in a way that it allows users to go beyond the intended
goal and uncover new ideas. In practice this means choosing the right parameters, and interface elements that manipulate them.
- It's all about the details. For me, tools are all about the little details and moments of delight. There's an
wonderful opportunity to exercise craft and infuse personality and meaning.
Detail: In the shadow tool, drop shadows are tinted based on the element's background color. This creates a more realistic and pleasing result because it mimics how light bounces from surfaces in the physical world.Little detail from Glow that plays into the interface's light bulb metaphor.