I watched all the Config 2024 talks and these are my top 10

This year there were 98 talks at Figma’s annual conference, 85 from Config San Francisco and 13 from Config Singapore. I watched them all as I recovered from Covid after attending in person. 😭 I’m impressed with the diversity of material. There’s something for everyone.

If you are catching up, I recommend starting with the product launch keynote for context, to see what was released: Figma Slides, some AI capabilities, a UI refresh, some Dev Mode improvements, and native iOS and Android UI kits (finally!). The AI features are on hold after some controversy, both on how the model’s been trained so far and how Figma intends to opt some users into training on Aug 15.

Here are my favorite talks, ordered roughly by altitude — starting at the pixel level, then zooming out to collaboration techniques and founder stories. What stands out to me? Talks that provide new insight and flow well, from people who are genuinely passionate.

In defense of an old pixel

Marcin Wichary (Director of Design, Figma)

Marcin Wichary shows the evolution of the Mac menu bar

Marcin’s enthusiasm is contagious as he nerds out on pixel fonts and how much personality you can encode with so little. Soooooo many examples, beautifully presented. He even made a tool for you to make your own pixel font! Try it out.

— Lost — Found in the details

Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Jessica Hische Inc.)

Jessica Hische takes us through the details of the New York Magazine logo

Jessica Hische shares her lettering and logo work. I particularly enjoyed her investigation into what makes a timeless logo: using it consistently for a long time, avoiding trends, and paying attention to detail — all of which builds trust. She leaves us with a thought: while AI can automate some things, there’s a lot of joy and flow that we humans find in detailed production work.

An infinite canvas

Mike Stern & Linda Dong (Apple Design Evangelism team)

Mike Stern shows off the djay app

Though definitely a promo for Vision Pro, Apple does what it does best — codify interaction principles. Mike and Linda preface with a reflection on real vs. abstract design (spoiler: it’s both!), before jumping into tools for spatial design: Depth and scale, Natural input, and Immersion.

Pitching accessible design like a pro

Tregg Frank (Co-founder, CEO & Designer, Divinate)

“Sales is empathy,” says Tregg Frank

A fantastic talk on how to pitch accessibility to PMs, engineers, designers, C-suite, and clients. It saddens me that accessibility is still not well-integrated into our practice, but Tregg equips us with some great tools. The best reminder of all was the one on being high agency. This would be my advice as well—just start doing the work: design with accessibility from the beginning, hold your team accountable during QA, and spread your practice to those around you. It’s just good user experience.

The heirloom tomato org chart

Nan Yu (Head of Product, Linear)

Nan Yu shares Linear’s org chart — messy but purposeful

This one hits home. Nan Yu observes how organizations often break into even squads of 5–8 people, taking guidance from Spotify, Amazon, and High Output Management for granted. But to stay fast and focused, you have to mold your teams around your priorities, not the other way around. Shape your team structure after the shape of your product—even if it looks messier—because “you will ship your org chart” (love this articulation of Conway’s Law).

Rituals to unbreak planning

Shishir Mehrotra (CEO & Co-founder, Coda) & Yuhki Yamashita (CPO, Figma)

Summary of tips for planning

Do you feel like planning is broken in your org? Maybe you spend too much time on it, maybe it feels like a zero sum game, or maybe you don’t actually hold yourself accountable to what you planned. Shishir and Yuhki follow last year’s talk on meetings with a sequel on planning, offering tools and tips to think bigger, to focus on what’s really important, to make sure you check in on goals, and to limit the time spent planning.

A look inside teenage engineering

Dylan Field (CEO, Figma) & Jesper Kouthoofd (CEO & Founder, teenage engineering)

Dylan and Jesper with teenage engineering products in the background

A refreshing interview with the founder of teenage engineering, a dream company for many of us. Watch for unconventional takes on hiring, managing a company, and design culture, against a backdrop of beautiful shots of the work.

There’s a moment when Jesper says he doesn’t believe in user research — Dylan and the audience are stunned. Take this with a grain of salt. Dylan is using an insider term. Jesper’s “No” sounds more like an aversion to design-by-committee, than to say we should design without deep understanding. In fact, he’s been practicing the organ every day in order to design an organ. To me that’s research.

Opting for the opposite

Josh Wardle (Gremco Industries, Creator of Wordle)

Josh didn’t set out to make Wordle

Josh Wardle tells the origin story of Wordle and how he achieved success without doing any of the things you’re supposed to do. He didn’t optimize for engagement, he didn’t promote the product, and he took a 6 year break in between (a good reminder that you need to walk away sometimes). This would be an interesting thought experiment to take away, something that might help us be more ethical in our work: what would you do (and what wouldn’t you do) if you were making this product for your partner?

Why shitty robots are the antidote of perfectionism

Simone Giertz (Inventor, Robotics Enthusiast, YouTuber)

Simone Giertz on the cover of Wired

A funny and inspiring talk from Simone Giertz on how she broke out of her performance anxiety to just do what she’s enthusiastic about. Simone showcases her inventions, from “shitty robots” to viable products: a helmet that brushes your teeth, a drone that cuts your hair, a hat that is also a shopping bag, a folding coat hanger to save space. Keep watching for a fun exercise at the end.

Building a human future with robots

Jason Ballard (CEO & Co-founder, ICON)

Jason Ballard on stage sharing his vision for the future

Jason Ballard has a grand vision to solve the global housing crisis and he sells it well. Houses are increasingly more expensive but worse quality, we’re cursed with cookie-cutter developments, and 1.6 billion people are undersheltered around the world. Jason’s construction technology company ICON uses robots and AI to build houses cheaper, better, and faster to turn this situation around.

I wonder if you sense a theme from this year’s talks. The takeaway for me is to not worry about what you’re supposed to do or fixate on an end point, but follow your enthusiasm, be authentic to yourself, do side projects, design from your soul, and make it personal.

Thanks to Tobias Fried.