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Asia Asberry, Senior UI Designer at Acuity Brands, sought to elevate her Figma skills to handle complex design tasks more efficiently. She enrolled in our Advanced Figma course, hoping to gain skills specifically around auto layout and building her own reusable systems for design. After completing the program, she’s become more adept at complex Figma functionalities and can better support her team.
Background and Current Role
Acuity Brands is one of the world’s leading providers of building management systems, and Asia works specifically within the commercial lighting sector.
“We do lighting for commercial spaces, such as airports, classrooms, and offices. We have a smart lighting aspect to our product, where a lot of our lights are Bluetooth enabled and you can actually control them using our apps. My role as a senior UI designer is to design the apps that you would use to control the lights, or create digital mapping used to install the lights.”
Asia’s Motivations for Upskilling
Acuity has broad offerings under its umbrella, and the design systems across its brands weren’t cohesive. With an ongoing effort to unify these systems in the company, Asia recognized a need to upskill in Figma to keep pace with her colleagues and contribute more effectively.
“When my team met with the other teams, I realized that they were a lot more advanced in Figma than I was. I didn’t understand a lot of what they were doing or the terminology they were using.” Motivated to close this gap, she approached her manager with the Advanced Figma program and was approved to enroll through Acuity’s learning and development program.
The Learning Experience: Building Tangible Skills
Asia enrolled in Advanced Figma with clear goals: to enhance her efficiency in design, to better understand Figma’s more advanced functionalities, and to improve the overall elegance and coherence of her designs.
One of the key elements of the course that Asia appreciated was the way it built on itself, week by week. “We started with responsive layouts, learning how to use ‘fill’ and ‘hug contents,’ and then moved on to building components and variables with those concepts in mind. It was great because every week built on what we learned the previous week.”
Asia also found the course's structure—offering a combination of written lessons, video tutorials, and active project work—particularly helpful. “The course was jam-packed with information, and the resources are so valuable.” Although it lasted only four weeks, Asia felt she gained more knowledge than she expected in such a short time.
The Value of Mentorship & Peer Groups
Having a mentor was instrumental for Asia. With the help of her mentor, Helena Bukovac, she was able to dive deeper and therefore better understand the course content. Asia appreciated her willingness to thoroughly work through concepts in real-time. “She really took the time to get in the weeds with us, and really communicate with us. She would often give an explanation, an example, and then build something in front of us to demonstrate.”
Since students meet with their mentor for regular live sessions, Asia was more motivated to stay on track. “Meeting every week holds you accountable in a way—you know you have to get things done by then, and you also want to be able to bring questions”. She also enjoyed having the option to take advantage of Discord, finding the community responsive and happy to offer advice or support when other learners had questions.
Key Takeaways to Use within Her Role
For Asia, the true goal of the learning experience was to meaningfully impact her work—and Advanced Figma delivered. “I don’t feel so slow in our meetings anymore,” she says, “and I’ve been able to redesign a lot of our old components and variables that were done poorly, either by me or by others.”
Auto layout is at the core of everything I do now. It makes everything more responsive and flexible.
One of the most significant skills she gained from the course was a deep understanding of auto layout, one of Figma’s more complex functionalities . “Auto layout is at the core of everything I do now. It makes everything more responsive and flexible.”
Asia has also integrated building component libraries heavily into her design workflow. “I really enjoyed the components side of the course. To have all your properties, color names, and values set up—it’s so helpful. I tried in the past, but I had no idea what I was really doing. So to see someone actually break it down—it’s a complex process, but now I know how to do it.”
Building these skills has allowed Asia to be a more efficient, elegant, and effective designer, and put her in a position where she no longer feels as though she’s behind the previously more advanced members of her team.
Since I took the course, my boss has designated me as the Figma expert or the UI girl. If someone has a UI question, they go to me.
Learning and Growth Amongst Her Team
Asia has also been passing the learning along to other members of her team, referencing course materials or sending along parts of the readings to help explain complex concepts to other designers who may be unfamiliar. Her hard work and new skill set also haven’t gone unnoticed by her manager. “Since I took the course, my boss has designated me as the Figma expert or the UI girl. If someone has a UI question, they go to me. And that’s really what I wanted.”
Asia has encouraged other team members to participate in Advanced Figma, and looks forward to continuing to grow her design skills in the future, potentially in prototyping, which she made note of as an area where she’d like to improve.
Overall, the Advanced Figma course helped Asia meet her goals, increasing her competency with Figma and enhancing her ability to contribute meaningfully to her design team.
Looking to take your Figma skills to the next level and become a more efficient and effective design? Learn more here.
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