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What Is The Difference? Union vs Flatten In Figma

Lesson 51 from: Figma UI UX Design Essentials

Daniel Walter Scott

What Is The Difference? Union vs Flatten In Figma

Lesson 51 from: Figma UI UX Design Essentials

Daniel Walter Scott

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Lesson Info

51. What Is The Difference? Union vs Flatten In Figma

<b>In this lesson we will take a look at the difference between the union and flatten option in Figma.</b>

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Introduction to Figma Essentials

02:53
2

Getting Started with Figma Training

03:06
3

What Is Figma For & Does It Do The Coding?

03:46
4

What's The Difference Between UI And UX In Figma

05:22
5

What We Are Making In This Figma Course

09:18
6

Class Project 01 - Create Your Own Brief

04:01
7

What is Lo Fi Wireframe vs High Fidelity in Figma?

02:34
8

Creating Our Design File & Introducing Frames In Figma

08:29
9

The Basics Of Type & Fonts In Figma

10:51
10

Rectangles, Circles, Buttons And Rounded Corners In Figma

06:50
11

How To Use Color In Figma

05:45
12

Strokes Plus Updating Color Defaults In Figma

09:28
13

Object Editing And How To Escape In Figma

01:47
14

Scale vs Selection Tool in Figma

02:39
15

Frames vs Groups in Figma

09:24
16

Class Project 02 - Wireframe

03:00
17

Where To Get Free Icons For Figma

09:10
18

Matching The Stroke Of Our Icons

05:16
19

How To Use Plugins In Figma For Icons

04:31
20

Class Project 03 - Icons

03:48
21

How to Use Pages in Figma

08:31
22

How to Prototype in Figma

10:46
23

Prototype Animation and Easing In Figma

10:53
24

Testing On Your Phone with Figma Mirror

05:40
25

Class Project 04 - Testing On Your Phone

03:51
26

What is Smart Animation & Delays in Figma?

08:44
27

Class Project 05 - My First Animation

02:01
28

Sharing & Commenting on a Figma File with Stakeholders

07:10
29

Sharing & Editing With Other Ux Designers In Figma

06:58
30

How I Get Inspiration For Ux Projects

06:39
31

How To Create A Mood Board In Figma

05:33
32

Class Project 06 - Moodboard

01:26
33

How to Work with Columns & Grids in Figma

13:54
34

Tips, Tricks, Preferences, and Weirdness in Figma

07:21
35

Color Inspiration & The Eyedropper In Figma

06:34
36

How To Create A Color Palette In Figma

09:02
37

How to Make Gradients in Figma

07:09
38

How to Create & Use Color Styles in Figma

08:01
39

Class Project 07 - Colors & Columns

04:00
40

Fonts on Desktop vs in Browser in Figma

01:30
41

What Fonts Can I Use? Plus Font Pairing In Figma

06:01
42

What Common Font Sizes Should I Choose In Web Design?

11:30
43

How to Make Character Styles in Figma

06:36
44

Lorem Ipsum & Placeholder Text In Figma

04:28
45

Useful Things To Know About Text In Figma

09:35
46

How To Fix Missing Fonts In Figma

02:42
47

Class Project 08 - Text

05:19
48

Drawing Tips And Tricks In Figma

09:38
49

Squircle Buttons with ios Rounded Courses In Figma

02:48
50

Boolean, Union, Subtract, Intersect and Exclude with Pathfinder in Figma

07:25
51

What Is The Difference? Union vs Flatten In Figma

03:36
52

Class Project 09 - Making Stuff

03:29
53

Smart Selection & Tidy Up in Figma

08:40
54

Do I Need To Know Illustrator With Figma?

04:15
55

Tips & Tricks For Using Images In Figma

06:11
56

Masking & Cropping Images In Figma

09:12
57

Free Images & Plugins For Figma

02:31
58

Do You Need Photoshop For Ux Design In Figma?

10:40
59

Class Project 10 - Images

01:17
60

What Is Autolayout & Expanding Buttons In Figma?

10:27
61

Class Project 11 - Buttons

01:15
62

Auto Layout For Spacing

05:47
63

How To Use Constraints In Figma

08:22
64

Combining Nested Frames Auto Layout & Constraints in Figma

11:54
65

Adding Text Box Autoheight to Autolayout in Figma

08:27
66

Class Project 12 - Responsive Design

02:19
67

Nice Drop Shadow & Inner Drop Shadow Effects In Figma

05:56
68

Blur Layer, Background Blur & Image Blur in Figma

05:57
69

How to Make Neumorphic UI buttons in Figma

07:37
70

Class Project 13 - Effects

01:53
71

How To Save Locally & Save History In Figma

05:42
72

What are Components in Figma?

06:19
73

Updating, Changing & Resetting Your Components

07:47
74

You Can’t Kill Main Components In Figma

07:22
75

Where Should You Keep Your Main Components In Figma

05:02
76

Intro To The Forward Slash / Naming Convention In Figma

08:55
77

Class Project 14 - Components

00:44
78

How To Make Component Variants In Figma

06:41
79

Another Way To Make Variables In Figma

06:14
80

How to Make a Multi Dimensional Variant in Figma

11:13
81

Class Project 15 - Variants

01:41
82

How To Make A Form Using Variants In Figma

12:52
83

Class Project 16 - Form

01:27
84

Putting It All Together In A Desktop Example

19:44
85

How To Add A Popup Overlay Modal In Figma

03:03
86

How To Make & Prototype A Tool Tip In Figma

07:26
87

What are Flows in Figma?

05:39
88

Slide In Mobile Nav Menu Overlay In Figma

03:55
89

Class Project 17 - Prototyping

01:10
90

How To Pin Navigation To The Top In Figma

10:17
91

How To Make A Horizontal Scrolling Swipe In Figma

06:36
92

Automatic Scroll Down The Page To Anchor Point In Figma

04:50
93

What are Teams vs Projects vs Files in Figma?

05:18
94

How Do You Use Team Libraries In Figma

11:03
95

The Difference Between Animation & Micro Interactions

02:55
96

Animation With Custom Easing In Figma

25:36
97

Class Project 18 - My Second Animation

01:54
98

How To Make Animated Transitions In Figma

12:34
99

Class Project 19 - Page Transition

01:31
100

Micro Interactions Using Interactive Components In Figma

05:54
101

Micro Interaction Toggle Switch In Figma

04:23
102

Micro Interaction Burger Menu Turned Into A Cross In Figma

04:23
103

Class Project 20 - Micro Interaction

01:35
104

How To Change The Thumbnail For Figma Files

04:10
105

How To Export Images Out Of Figma

07:40
106

How To Share Your Document With Clients & Stakeholders

07:09
107

Talking To Your Developer Early In The Figma Design Process

03:55
108

Sharing Figma With Developers & Engineers Handoff

06:07
109

What Are The Next Level Handoffs Aka Design Systems

03:18
110

Class Project 21 - Finish your design

04:57
111

What Next?

06:08

Lesson Info

What Is The Difference? Union vs Flatten In Figma

Hi, everyone in this video, we're gonna look at the difference between union. OK. At the top here between union and flatten the non destructive option and the terminal very destructive but sometimes useful option. All right, let's jump in. OK. Let's talk about union versus flatten. I'm going to use this example here onto a new page. If I go to outline mode, command, Y control Y on A PC, OK? You can see all of the stuff at the top here is cool that it's still editable but it makes a really messy document. OK? And you know, it can you see in here as well if I go into this union, let's call this my firehouse. OK? There's a lot going on in here. OK? And while it would be final export just fine, OK? What I want to do is actually just smush it down into a single drawing and that's where Flatten comes in. So we're going to take this example first. Let's make a copy of it over here. Let's go to outline view. OK? So I've got this thing and it's fully editable, which is nice, but actually I'm ju...

st going to go you flatten and it just gets it back to there. It is destructive, non destructive is the union that we did or in this case, we did intersect to get this one. So often you use flat and after you use one of these, OK. So we used uh intersect to make this one and then just to tidy it up, we went flatten. It's also good. When let's say that I'm going to grab my O for the circle tool. I'm gonna grab my rectangle tool and I'm going to draw myself a little man. OK. So I've done what? 12? I think they're different but 12 point he's a very stocky. He's meant to be my account man. He's very stocky. OK? He's the bouncer slash account icon. OK? Let's line him up. Now, if I've got this guy, I don't want to export him this way because it'll be two shapes. If I say file export, now we're gonna do inspect and exporting and stuff later on. But if I want to export this fella, he's gonna export two separate shapes to my developer and he's gonna go, why is there two shapes? OK. So normally you'd go union and that you could export, you could group it and export no difference. OK? But let's say I do, I'm gonna undo that first, I'm gonna have two versions. So this one's gonna be unioned and this one's going to be flattened. OK? And they look the same you're like, what's the difference here? It comes to things like scaling. Watch this. If I grab both of these holding shift down, scale them down, watch this one who's been radius has been set to twelveish. Can you see it tries to retain that 12? Whereas this one is flat and it's like smush to bits and I can go in here and say, um, the smooshed to bits. It doesn't know that it's a rounded corner anymore. It just knows that this is the shape. I'm always gonna be, I can go and customize it. I can say click on this anchor point here. There you go. My moon face bouncer. So flatten kind of destroys it, which is sometimes helpful. And union though would be more common, just leave it editable. You can scale it. Like if I undo that there is a way of getting around that whole problem with the Stroker on the outside or at least the radius, OK? You just use the scale tool instead of the selection tool. Hold shift still. Can you see it scales the radius and that Alright. Flatten is for tidying up messy things that you want to then go and edit on top of union. Like all the other Boolean operators are non destructive, you can edit them afterwards, which is probably more common. You'll do more of that anyway, that is it for this video. I'll see you in the next one.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials

BYOL_Figma_Cheatsheet.pdf
Exercise_Files_-_Figma_Essentials.zip

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