Framer isn’t the newest prototyping kid on the block, but it’s one of the more innovative of the bunch. Created by three ex-Facebook product designers, this tool is built to bridge the gap between designers and developers by focusing on the interactions and movement that bring our concepts to life.
Day to day, designers can often get caught up in the pixels – earnestly wanting our static designs to sing in their stationary forms. As the design industry has grown, evolving technology and tools have given way to whole new levels of visual fidelity and feeling — so much so that our designs can no longer be told in still picture, but in fully interactive prototypes. Enter Framer. Building through CoffeeScript, the most vanilla flavor of Javascript, allows designers to quickly explore new interactions and effectively communicate their ideas to their partners in engineering.
Just a couple of years old, Framer has built a rich community of collaborators – from London, to Amsterdam, to New York, and even here in Seattle. Every month, designers and coders get together to share their latest Framer project, answer questions, and walk away inspired. Just recently, Deloitte Digital’s Seattle studio opened its doors and played host to our friends at Framer. A mix of local creatives from Amazon, Substantial, and our own studio gathered ‘round and dove into the nerdy design abyss.
We witnessed Jordan Robert Dobson and Stephen Crowley bring the Twitter bird to life in two very different ways. We gawked at Niko Simonson building a dynamic heartbeat through Bluetooth capabilities, and avidly listened to Arturo Goicochea help some Framer newbies animate Instagram from scratch.
All in all, we had a blast connecting with the Framer group while adding a new prototyping skill to our design toolkit.
Big thanks to Jordan Robert Dobson and Stephen Crowley for being awesome Framer coordinators and hosts to this community.
Take a peep at some of the photos from the meetup!
And check out the tool for yourself.
Megan de Castro is a visual designer at Deloitte Digital. Cheese Lover. Yoga Enthusiast. Forever in search of the perfect Bloody Mary. You can find her illustrating, meticulously organizing folders in her Sketch files, or snapping on her Instagram.