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The wait is almost over – Nintendo’s Switch 2 officially ships starting today, and the gaming community is electrified with anticipation. With its announcement sending shockwaves through the industry, the Switch 2 promises upgraded hardware, enhanced graphics, and a fresh wave of exclusive titles that have fans and newcomers alike counting down the hours. Social media and gaming forums are buzzing with unboxing plans, early impressions from pre-release units, and speculation about which features will define this next generation of hybrid gameplay. As any veteran Switch owner knows, the right accessories can dramatically enhance the gaming experience, and the Switch 2 is no exception. Whether it’s for extended play sessions at home, on-the-go protection, or boosting multiplayer fun, accessories are the unsung heroes that maximize the console’s potential. From ergonomic thumb grips and bumper cases to game-cartridge-holders, a well-equipped setup can make all the difference – and JSAUX seems to have everything sorted. Designer: JSAUX 1. JSAUX Carrying Case for Nintendo Switch 2 No one wants to risk their brand-new Switch 2 rattling around in a flimsy pouch. JSAUX’s Carrying Case ditches the generic for a custom-molded fit, wrapping your console in thick, dual-layer EVA hard-shell that shrugs off drops and shields against everyday scuffs. The plush microfiber lining is a small luxury, keeping your screen pristine even after you inevitably toss the case into a crowded backpack. There’s room for everything you actually need: 15 game card slots, a mesh pocket for cables and earbuds, and enough space for your Switch 2 with its own protective case attached. JSAUX nails the details with a smooth dual zipper, a Velcro strap to keep your console locked in place, and an adjustable stand that turns any table into a mobile gaming station. Whether you’re heading out for a weekend or just want to keep your gear tidy at home, the comfortable handle and detachable shoulder strap make carrying a breeze. It’s protection, organization, and a flex of practicality, without the bulk. Why We Recommend It This is the Switch 2 case for real-world gamers – the ones who actually take their console outside, swap cartridges in weird places, and need gear that isn’t just stylish, but built for chaos. The customizable storage and soft-but-tough protection mean your Switch 2 and accessories survive every bump, drop, or accidental coffee spill. It’s the kind of case that lets you focus on the game, not what’s happening to your hardware. Click Here to Buy Now: $14.39 $21.99 (34% off, use coupon code “JSSWITCH2”). This code can be stacked with existing product deals or discounts. Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours! 2. JSAUX 3-Pack Tempered Glass Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch 2 You know the moment you peel the plastic off a brand-new console? That pristine look deserves to last. JSAUX’s Tempered Glass Screen Protector for Switch 2 nails that first-day shine with edge-to-edge coverage, engineered specifically for Nintendo’s 2025 flagship. The guide frame makes installation foolproof – seriously, it’s almost impossible to misalign or trap bubbles, even if you’re all thumbs and shaky from launch-day excitement. Once on, the 99% transparency keeps every pixel crisp and colors vibrant, so Breath of the Wild 2 or Mario Kart pop just like on day one. Built from dual-tempered 9H glass, it shrugs off scratches, rogue keys, and the random chaos of backpack travel. The 0.3mm thickness is as subtle as it gets – no loss of touch accuracy, no weird drag. And thanks to a nano-oleophobic coating, smudges wipe away quickly, so you’re never gaming through a fingerprint haze. Whether you’re marathon grinding or passing the Switch to a pizza-fingered friend, this protector is ready for real-world gaming. Why We Recommend It Forget triple-checking your bag for sharp objects – this JSAUX screen protector means your Switch 2 just isn’t precious anymore, it’s practical. Installation is stress-free, the display stays flawless, and your frantic touchscreen mashing never feels laggy. For anyone tired of treating their console like fine china, this is the protection that lets you just play. Click Here to Buy Now: $5.59 $9.99 (44% off, use coupon code “JSSWITCH2”). This code can be stacked with existing product deals or discounts. Hurry, deal ends in 48 hours! 3. JSAUX Protective Case Compatible with Nintendo Switch 2 Skip the bulky bricks—this JSAUX Protective Carry Case is precision-engineered for the Switch 2 and the Switch 2 only. You get a snug, movement-free fit that feels purpose-built because it is, and it won’t work with any extra shells or cases. The hard PC exterior shrugs off scratches, dust, and splashes, holding up under café tables and cross-country flights alike. Inside, soft silicone strips keep your Switch 2 floating safely, while the clever raised sections mean your joysticks never take the brunt of an accidental bump. Traveling light? The detachable wrist strap is a small convenience that makes a big difference, and the slim profile means this case slides into any backpack or shoulder bag without hogging space. Built-in game card slots are a thoughtful touch – no more loose cartridges rattling around or getting lost in the depths of your bag. It’s the kind of accessory that makes daily Switch 2 use seamless, keeping your console clean, protected, and always ready to play. Why We Recommend It No-nonsense protection, zero wasted space. This case is for people who toss their Switch 2 into a bag and actually live life. The fit is tight, the shell is tough, and the joystick protection is smarter than most cases twice the price. Game card slots mean your library travels with you, not in a Ziploc. It’s the everyday armor you don’t have to think about, but you’ll notice the moment you need it. Click Here to Buy Now: $13.59 $25.99 (47% off, use coupon code “JSSWITCH2”). This code can be stacked with existing product deals or discounts. Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours! 4. JSAUX Thumb Grips for Nintendo Switch 2 If you’ve ever wished for a thumbstick upgrade on the Switch 2, these JSAUX Thumb Grips are as close as it gets to pro-level control, without needing a soldering iron or a warranty-voiding moment. Designed specifically for the Nintendo Switch 2, they snap on with a reassuring snugness and stay put through frantic boss fights or marathon Splatoon sessions. Three sizes (1, 2, and 3) are included in the kit, so you can fine-tune each stick for your hand size and play style – no more settling for “one size fits all” discomfort. Function isn’t sacrificed for comfort, either. The soft-touch finish and sculpted ergonomic shape actually take the edge off finger fatigue, so you can grind through RPGs or rack up wins in fighters without your thumb locking up. Each cap height serves a purpose: short for fast, twitchy moves in action games, tall for accuracy and steady aim in shooters, original size to simply boost grip. Mix and match to build your own hybrid layout. Why We Recommend It Who knew a 10-second upgrade could totally shift your game? These JSAUX Thumb Grips for Switch 2 let you dial in comfort and precision, whether you’re craving snap reflexes in Smash or pixel-perfect aim in Splatoon. No slipping, no awkward fit, no thumb fatigue after hours – just that satisfying soft grip and a custom feel that actually matches your play style. For anyone tired of stock sticks, this is the tweak you’ll wish you’d made sooner. Click Here to Buy Now: $6.39 $12.99 (50% off, use coupon code “JSSWITCH2”). This code can be stacked with existing product deals or discounts. Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours! 5. JSAUX Dockable Case for Nintendo Switch 2 The JSAUX Protective Case for Nintendo Switch 2 is engineered for gamers who want real protection without sacrificing style or convenience. Its split design means you can effortlessly detach the JoyCons without wrestling with stubborn plastic, and the ultra-thin 1mm PC back shell slides right into the official dock – no need to remove the case every time you charge or play on the big screen. The U-shaped cutout perfectly frames the Switch 2’s built-in kickstand, so you can go from handheld to tabletop mode in seconds, without ever fumbling or forcing a fit. Hybrid construction is the secret sauce here. The JoyCon covers fuse a transparent, scratch-resistant PC front with a soft-touch TPU back, letting the Switch 2’s design shine while adding grip and comfort for marathon sessions. Every port and button stays fully accessible thanks to precise cutouts, and popping the covers on or off is a breeze. No more risking cracked clips or flaky plastic – just smooth, reliable protection dialed in for everyday use. Why We Recommend It Forget clunky cases that ruin the Switch’s sleek vibe or force you to undock every time you want to play on your TV. JSAUX nails the essentials: dock-friendly fit, proper grip, zero interference with the kickstand, and a clear finish that doesn’t hide your console’s good looks. It’s protection that respects the Switch 2’s design – no bulk, no hassle, just smart, seamless defense you barely notice until you need it. Click Here to Buy Now: $12.99 $19.99 (35% off, use coupon code “JSSWITCH2”). This code can be stacked with existing product deals or discounts. Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!The post Don’t Unbox Your Nintendo Switch 2 Without These Gaming Accessories first appeared on Yanko Design.

Kenmore Pavilion / CARDSave this picture!© Andy MacphersonHouses, Sustainability•Brisbane City, Australia Architects: CARD Area Area of this architecture project Area:  90 m² Photographs Photographs:Andy MacphersonMore SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. The core philosophy of this project was to do more with less through revitalizing a 1960s workers' cottage through smart, cost-effective design. Rather than replacing, the approach focused on reuse, breathing new life into the existing structure.Save this picture!Save this picture!By embracing Brisbane's favourable climate, the design introduces a weather-protected outdoor space that seamlessly extends the home's footprint. This newly integrated pavilion creates a flexible living zone for cooking, socialising, and relaxing, while framing curated views of the surrounding landscape.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The project is situated in the leafy suburb of Kenmore, Brisbane, renowned for its mid-century modernist architecture and lush natural surroundings. Drawing inspiration from Queensland's architectural heritage, the design of the pavilion references the quintessential deck through its overall proportions and timber detailing. The use of natural timber ensures the structure blends effortlessly with the surrounding landscape, reinforcing its identity as an extension of the garden and an inviting, functional outdoor space.Save this picture!The project was part of a bigger renovation which encouraged a direct connection to the garden, shifting the living areas to the north and the bedrooms to the south, clearly delineated by a continuous wall of joinery. This wall contains the kitchen, fireplace, bookshelves, entry nook, and services, with flush, hidden doors that conceal access to the bedrooms and hallway.Save this picture!With these renovations and the new outdoor pavilion, a dark and introverted house has been converted into a functional, light-filled, and social building. A flexible and adaptable space - the pavilion can be used for a range of activities, from outdoor dining, socializing, and cooking in the garden.Save this picture!Sustainability Initiatives Our vision centers around reducing environmental impact by retaining and working with the original post-war structure, which has solid bones. Existing materials were reused and retained where possible, such as the terracotta floor of the pavilion, which was retained from the original house. Other examples include parts of the tiling that were salvaged from leftover projects, and the western red cedar soffits were taken from leftover stock from a nearby development. The garden beds were made from salvaged beams from the original pergola The planter was made from salvaged brick from the paths around the original house The chicken coop was made from reclaimed cedar and old wall framing. The pergola was built from Kwila and Spotted Gum - purposefully chosen for their sustainability credentials. The project included the installation of a new 6.6 kW solar system (20 panels) installed on the roof. Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this officeCARDOffice••• Published on June 05, 2025Cite: "Kenmore Pavilion / CARD" 05 Jun 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030800/kenmore-pavilion-card&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Mario Kart World comes at you fast (Nintendo) After a dozen hours with the biggest game on Nintendo Switch 2, GameCentral tries to evaluate the surprisingly controversial new Mario Kart game. It’s very obvious why Mario Kart World is the main launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2: it’s been over a decade since the last one and Mario Kart 8 is one of the best-selling video games of all-time. Much of that success is due to the innate simplicity of the concept and the easy accessibility of its controls, so it’s surprising that Mario Kart World has been so difficult for people to get their heads around. We’ve played it three times now, for increasingly long lengths of time, the previous time being at a press event with a host of other journos. But now that we have a Nintendo Switch 2 of our own, we’ve been able to spend even longer exploring the game at our leisure and we’ve come to the conclusion that Nintendo’s marketing for the game is doing it a disservice. It emphasises the fact that the game has a massive open world but as soon as you start playing, it becomes obvious that the designers must consider that to be a relatively minor part of the game. Or at least the idea that you can roam around at will, looking for secrets. You can do that, but despite what we and many others assumed it’s very much a side activity. This is made obvious by the fact that the option to free roam is not part of the main menu for the game, instead there’s an easily missed prompt to press the ‘+’ button and explore the open world at will. This is a lot of fun, because the open world is phenomenally well designed – full of secret pathways and tempting scenery to jump off and grind on – but what’s putting people off is there’s very little structured gameplay for it. There are a variety of objects to look out for – such as P-switches, ? panels, and special medallions – but all they do is unlock small stickers you can customise your vehicle with. The P-switches activate missions, which are the most complex activity, but most of the time they involve simply collecting blue coins or competing in a mini-race. There are a few more unusual examples but most barely last 60 seconds, when you beat them, and that’s as complicated as the open world gameplay ever gets. It is enjoyable, and we’ve spent many happy hours already searching for secrets, but there’s no question that the open world feels underutilised – an afterthought almost. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Although other AI racers can occasionally be seen driving around you can’t interact with them, there’s no story or dialogue, and no complex mission scenarios. What’s more, you can’t meet random online players in the open world and even if you invite friends all you can do is take photos with them. You can choose to start one of the other modes from within the open world but we’re very surprised that you can’t set up your own point-to-point races (which would surely have been perfect for the mouse controls of the new Joy-Cons). Instead, all you can do is create a custom Grand Prix by choosing which track to go to once each one ends. We point all this out because these details weren’t clear beforehand and because it’s almost certainly going to be the main complaint against the game. But while it is certainly a missed opportunity, it doesn’t negatively affect the actual focus of the game. It seems that the ability to free roam is intended as essentially a bonus. The real changes to the game are in terms of the nature of the tracks, which rather than being a succession of completely unconnected circuits all flow from one to another. Often they’re not circuits at all, but linear races from one point to another, as you work your way across the world map. Since they’re all in the same corner of the world, a Grand Prix often has a consistent theme, such as snowy or desert levels, and specific elements, like dinosaurs or boos, can appear at the beginning and end of adjoining tracks, reinforcing the impression that it’s all one giant race (these sections are removed for Time Trials). The graphics are very impressive (Nintendo) That concept seems to have come first and the open world followed, even though technically it’s not needed – or at least not to the level of detail that Nintendo has gone with. But either way, the courses in Mario Kart World are excellent, with wildly different designs even for returning tracks. The new ones are especially good though, with Boo Cinema, where you travel through the screen and into the film itself, being our current favourite. Although the ones with Wave Race 64 style water physics are also all uniformly excellent. The action may seem similar in video clips but it’s really quite different to Mario Kart 8. And not just because of the wider roads, new enemies, and the fact that there’s now 24 racers on every track. There’s now far more shortcuts and alternate routes, which seems like it should end up making races feel disjointed and unbalanced but it doesn’t, thanks to the levelling effect of items and the fact that sooner or later everyone is still being funnelled down the same path. The abundance of point-to-point races is a significant change to the Mario Kart norm and not only does it spice up Grand Prix mode but it allows for the superb Knockout Tour. This is a far more significant addition than free roam, even though it’s a simple sudden death mode, where you have to reach a certain position by the end of a track or you’re out of the game. In Grand Prix you can try and make up for a bad performance in the next race but with Knockout the tension is sky high throughout, and it works brilliantly, especially online. When we started playing the game, on Wednesday afternoon, there were only a handful online, but over the course of Thursday morning the matches became full and everything came alive. Playing against 23 other humans also helps to emphasise the fact that while Mario Kart World does make certain things easier – like automatically holding items behind you as a shield or allowing for a little more leeway when escaping shells – this is absolutely still a game of skill. Playing online, we could see the same names consistently doing well and ourselves… enjoying the mid-table mediocrity that we usually do, when faced with talented opposition. Not that that ever put us off. On the contrary, we spent almost every match grinning inanely at the sheer Mario Kart-ness of it all. We will still need to play more to do a full review though – we haven’t played a lot on 150cc yet and we only got an hour or two with the online. However, at this point we do feel we’ve seen the basics of what the game is. More Trending It’s a strange one to be sure, in what is usually one of Nintendo’s most straightforward franchises, but while anyone can look at the open world and think of a dozen other things that could’ve been done with it, the actual racing is top notch. Mechanically it’s not significantly different from Mario Kart 8 but then the series is not a very malleable one, and this does as much as it can to mix things up – and all without resorting to gimmicks. In terms of a score, we’re not looking at a 10/10. Mario Kart World is many things but it’s not perfect, not like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. We’ll have to spend more time with it to determine if it suits an 8 or 9/10 but longevity has never been a problem for the series, so we imagine it’ll be the higher of the two. Given how late Nintendo was in sending out consoles that’s all we can say for now but while this is not quite the game many will have been expecting, and it does leave a lot on the table (possibly to be picked up by DLC, but naturally Nintendo isn’t saying), it’s still an excellent game and a great introduction to the Switch 2. Formats: Nintendo Switch 2Price: £74.99 (physical) or £66.99 (digital)Publisher: NintendoDeveloper: Nintendo EPDRelease Date: 5th June 2025Age Rating: 3 There’s unlockable costumes for all the named characters (Nintendo) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 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Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work by uploading projects to Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletters.   Is an architecture firm designing its own studio the equivalent of an artist painting a self-portrait? (Should we coin the term “auto-architecture?”) Perhaps this isn’t a perfect analogy, but it certainly contains parallels that are productive to parse… Studio spaces are distinct from offices in that they not only shape daily rituals and structure relationships between colleagues but also act as an expression of the values at the core of the firm’s design philosophies. Freed from the usual constraints of client briefs, for many firms, designing their own workspace offers a unique opportunity for experimentation and self-expression. The studios featured in this collection span diverse geographies and contexts — from a vaulted school library repurposed as an “anti-office,” to a carbon-neutral warehouse conversion in Sydney, to a minimalist tiled atelier in Casablanca. Despite their differences, each workspace shares a commitment to thoughtful design that blurs the line between functions and offers a vision for cultivating creativity. More than places of production, these studios are active expressions of architectural identity; spaces that support not only what architects make, but how they make it. They also challenge outdated typologies and embrace the hybrid realities of contemporary practice. Skylab HQ By Skylab, Portland, Oregon After spending years in a historic structure in downtown Portland, the Skylab team decided the time had come to create a space that reflected the dynamic nature of their practice. They asked themselves: “How can our studio evolve from a dedicated workspace to a playground for the art and design community? Where can we find a space to integrate gardens, an event venue, and a fabrication shop, as well as our studio?” Leaving the downtown core, they opted to transform a pair of WWII-era prefabricated steel warehouses into a hybrid studio, fabrication lab and cultural venue supporting both architectural production and artistic exchange. Strategic insertions — like a 60-foot-long (18-meter) ridge skylight, 10-foot (3-meter) operable window walls and CLT-framed meeting rooms — maximize daylight and material contrast, balancing industrial grit with biophilic warmth. The adaptive reuse reflects the firm’s ethos of experimentation, extending their design process into the very architecture that houses it. Alexander House By Alexander &CO., Sydney, Australia Jury Winner, Architecture +Workspace, 10th Annual A+Awards Alexander House functions as both studio and experimental prototype, integrating low-carbon construction with hybrid live/work spatial typologies tailored to an evolving architectural practice. While functioning as an architectural residential showcase, the team also works from this home, and their clients meet with them there; the project challenges preconceptions of home, land, family and work. From a voluminous material library in the basement to a concrete mezzanine bench designed for quiet focus, the layout supports varied modes of design work while challenging conventional boundaries between domestic and professional space. Crafted in collaboration with local makers, the building also pioneers sustainability through reclaimed timber linings, carbon-neutral bricks, and a solar system supplying up to 80% of daily energy demand. say architects Community Office By say architects, Hangzhou, China Say Architects’ office reimagines workplace architecture as a life-oriented, materially expressive environment, where exposed I-beams structure both the building and the studio’s daily rhythms. Cantilevered volumes, rope-grown greenery, and integrated misting systems animate the exterior, while steel-framed shelving and model rooms of rich timber textures create a tactile, inspiration-driven interior. Prioritizing adaptability and sensory comfort, the space dissolves traditional partitions in favor of spatial arrangements that align with design habits, offering a studio that is both tool and manifesto. Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Philadelphia Studio By Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s Philadelphia studio transforms a historic social club (founded in 1923) into a contemporary workspace through adaptive reuse, prioritizing flexibility, daylight and material economy. The goal was to create a highly flexible work environment that would allow designers to move quickly between individual work, impromptu discussions and group meetings throughout the day. Restored terrazzo floors and ornamental detailing anchor a modern layout featuring hoteling desks, collaborative mezzanine zones and panoramic views of the city center.  The design supports agile workflows and hybrid collaboration while integrating repurposed custom furnishings to extend the life cycle of past projects. ADND OFFICE By Atelier Design N Domain, Mumbai, India ADND’s new Bombay headquarters is a richly layered adaptive reuse of a century-old industrial warehouse, reimagined as an expressive design laboratory charged with material experimentation and symbolic nuance. The studio’s soaring central bay reaches 26 feet (8 meters) in height, punctuated by 7-foot (2-meter) pivoting porthole windows that flood the workspace with southern light, evoking a cathedral-like ambiance. Throughout, bespoke interventions — from terrazzo-cast floors and mirrored reception desks to hand-sketched upholstery and looped oak chairs — translate the founders’ personal design dialects into architectural form, creating a space where industrial memory and contemporary authorship converge. Studio Cays X Studio BO By Studio CAYS, Casablanca, Morocco In this Casablanca-based studio, minimalist rigor meets material clarity through tiled walls and seamless epoxy flooring, crafting a luminous, low-maintenance workspace. At its core, a central bench anchors the open-plan layout, fostering daily collaboration and reinforcing the studio’s emphasis on shared ideation within a purified architectural envelope. Smart Design Studio By smart design studio, Alexandria, Australia Jury Winner, Office Interiors (<25,000 sq ft); Jury Winner, Office Building Low Rise, 10th Annual A+Awards Smart Design Studio’s headquarters fuses industrial heritage with cutting-edge sustainability, transforming a conserved warehouse into a carbon-neutral workspace powered by on-site energy and water collection systems. The studio’s open-plan interior is crowned by a mezzanine framed by original steel trusses, while a striking vaulted residence above features self-supporting brick catenary arches — an elegant synthesis of structural economy and sculptural ambition. Designed to reflect the material restraint and innovation of early industrial architecture, the building is a working manifesto for the studio’s interdisciplinary ethos. Architect’s Office at Kim Yam Road By Park + Associates, Singapore Popular Choice Winner, Office Interiors, 10th Annual A+Awards Photos by Edward Hendricks Occupying a former library hall atop a repurposed 1960s school, this studio embraces the latent grandeur of its barrel-vaulted, column-free volume to craft a boundary-less, anti-office environment. Full-height louvered windows invite daylight and breeze through the arching space, while the design resists conventional programming in favor of layered, informal settings that foster creativity and fluid collaboration. Rather than overwrite its past, the intervention amplifies the building’s inherent spatial expression; through adaptive reuse, the architects position atmosphere as architecture. Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work by uploading projects to Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletters.   The post Self-Portrait in Plan: 8 Architecture Studios Designed By Their Owners appeared first on Journal.

By JENNIFER CHAMPAGNE House of the Dragon expands its dragon-filled world in its second season, offering more large-scale battles and heightened aerial warfare. (Image courtesy of HBO) The 2025 Emmy race for outstanding visual effects is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in years with major genre heavyweights breaking new ground on what’s possible on television. As prestige fantasy and sci-fi continue to dominate, the battle for the category will likely come down to sheer scale, technical innovation and how seamlessly effects are integrated into storytelling. Returning titans like House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power have proven their ability to deliver breathtaking visuals. At the same time, Dune: Prophecy enters the conversation as a visually stunning newcomer. The Boys remains the category’s wildcard, bringing its own brand of hyper-realistic, shock-value effects to the race. With its subtle yet immersive world-building, The Penguin stands apart from the spectacle-driven contenders, using “invisible” VFX to transform Gotham into a post-flooded, decaying metropolis. Each series offers a distinct approach to digital effects, making for an intriguing showdown between blockbuster-scale world-building and more nuanced, atmospheric craftsmanship. Sharing the arena with marquee pacesetters HBO’s The Last of Us, Disney+’s Andor and Netflix’s Squid Game, these series lead the charge in ensuring that the 2025 Emmy race isn’t just about visual spectacle; it’s about which shows will set the next benchmark for visual effects on television. The following insights and highlights from VFX supervisors of likely Emmy contenders illustrate why their award-worthy shows have caught the attention of TV watchers and VFX Emmy voters. The Penguin, with its subtle yet immersive world-building, stands apart from the spectacle-driven contenders, using “invisible” VFX to transform Gotham into a post-flooded, decaying metropolis.  (Image courtesy of HBO) For The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power VFX Supervisor Jason Smith, the second season presented some of the Amazon series’ most ambitious visual effects challenges. From the epic Battle of Eregion to the painstaking design of the Entwives, Smith and his team at Wētā FX sought to advance digital world-building while staying true to J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision. “The Battle of Eregion was amazing to work on – and challenging too, because it’s a pivotal moment in Tolkien’s story,” Smith states. Unlike typical large-scale clashes, this battle begins as a siege culminating in an explosive cavalry charge. “We looked for every way we could to heighten the action during the siege by keeping the armies interacting, even at a distance,” Smith explains. His team introduced projectiles and siege weaponry to create dynamic action, ensuring the prolonged standoff felt kinetic. The environment work for Eregion posed another challenge. The city was initially constructed as a massive digital asset in Season 1, showcasing the collaborative brilliance of the Elves and Dwarves. In Season 2, that grandeur had to be systematically razed to the ground. “The progression of destruction had to be planned extremely carefully,” Smith notes. His team devised seven distinct levels of damage, mapping out in granular detail which areas would be smoldering, reduced to rubble or utterly consumed by fire. “Our goal was to have the audience feel the loss that the Elves feel as this beautiful symbol of the height of Elvendom is utterly razed.” The SSVFX team helped shape a world for Lady in the Lake that felt rich, lived-in and historically precise. (Image courtesy of Apple TV+) One of most ambitious effects for Season 4 of The Boys was Splinter, who has the ability to duplicate himself. The sequence required eight hours of rehearsal, six hours of filming, for one shot. The final effect was a mix of prosthetic cover-up pieces and VFX face replacement. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) The Penguin, HBO Max’s spinoff series of The Batman, centers on Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobb’s ruthless rise to power, and relies on meticulous environmental effects, smoothly integrating CG elements to enhance Gotham’s noir aesthetic without ever calling attention to the work itself. “The most rewarding part of our work was crafting VFX that don’t feel like VFX,” says VFX Supervisor Johnny Han. Across the series’ 3,100 VFX shots, every collapsing freeway, skyline extension and flicker of light from a muzzle flash had to feel utterly real – woven so naturally into the world of Gotham that viewers never stopped to question its authenticity. Zimia spaceport, an enormous hub of interstellar commerce in Dune: Prophecy. The production team built a vast practical set to provide a strong scale foundation, but its full grandeur came to life in post by extending this environment with CG.(Images courtesy of HBO) The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power refined its environments, which elevate Middle-earth’s realism. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) Some of the series’ most striking visual moments were also its most understated. The shift of Gotham’s seasons – transforming sunlit summer shoots into autumn’s muted chill – helped shape the show’s somber tone, reinforcing the bleak, crime-ridden undercurrent. The city’s bridges and skyscrapers were meticulously augmented, stretching Gotham beyond the limits of practical sets while preserving its grounded, brutalist aesthetic. Even the scars and wounds on Sofia Falcone were enhanced through digital artistry, ensuring that her past traumas remained ever-present, etched into her skin. The series wasn’t without its large-scale effects – far from it. Han and his team orchestrated massive sequences of urban devastation. “The floodwaters were one of our biggest challenges,” Han notes, referring to the ongoing impact of the catastrophic deluge that left Gotham in ruins. One particularly harrowing sequence required simulating a tsunami tearing through the streets – not as an action set piece, but as a deeply personal moment of loss. “Telling Victor’s story of how he lost his entire family in the bombing and floods of Gotham was heartbreaking,” Han says. “Normally, you create an event like that for excitement, for tension. But for us, it was about capturing emotional devastation.” Perhaps the most technically intricate sequences were the shootouts, hallmarks of Gotham’s criminal underbelly. “We programmed millisecond-accurate synced flash guns to mimic dramatic gunfire light,” Han explains, ensuring that the interplay of practical and digital elements remained imperceptible. Every muzzle flash, every ricochet was meticulously planned and rendered. The ultimate achievement for Han and his team wasn’t crafting the biggest explosion or the most elaborate digital sequence – it was making Gotham itself feel inescapably real. He says, “Nothing was more important to us than for you to forget that there are 3,100 VFX shots in this series.” The challenge for The Residence was making one of the most recognizable buildings in the world feel both immersive and narratively engaging. (Photo: Erin Simkin. Courtesy of Netflix) Bringing the universe of Dune to life on TV for HBO’s Dune: Prophecy requires a delicate balance of realism and imagination, grounded in natural physics, yet awe-inspiring in scale. Dune: Prophecy looks to challenge traditional fantasy dominance with its stunning, desert-bound landscapes and intricate space-faring visuals, uniting the grandeur of Denis Villeneuve’s films with the demands of episodic storytelling. Set thousands of years before the events of the films, the series explores the early days of the Bene Gesserit, a secretive order wielding extraordinary abilities. Translating that power into a visual language required technical innovation. “Kudos to Important Looking Pirates for the space folding and [Lila’s] Agony work,” says VFX Supervisor Mike Enriquez. No Dune project would be complete without its most iconic inhabitant, the sandworm. VFX Producer Terron Pratt says. “We’re incredibly proud of what the team at Image Engine created. Precise animation conveyed this creature’s weight and massive scale, while incredibly detailed sand simulations integrated it into the environment.” Every grain of sand had to move believably in response to the worm’s colossal presence to ensure the physics of Arrakis remained authentic. Floodwaters play a significant part in the destruction of Gotham in The Penguin. One particularly harrowing sequence required simulating a tsunami tearing through the streets. (Image courtesy of HBO) American Primeval integrated visual effects with practical techniques in creative, unconventional ways. The massacre sequence showcases technical mastery and pulls the audience into the brutal reality of the American frontier. (Photo: Justin Lubin. Courtesy of Netflix) For the Zimia spaceport, an enormous hub of interstellar commerce, the Dune: Prophecy production team built a vast practical set to provide a strong scale foundation. However, its full grandeur came to life in post. “By extending this environment with CG, we amplified the scope of our world, making it feel expansive and deeply impactful,” Pratt explains. The result was a sprawling, futuristic cityscape that retained a tangible weight with impeccably amalgamated practical and digital elements. Wētā FX sought to advance digital world-building for Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power while staying true to J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) Visual effects extended beyond character work for Lady in the Lake, playing a key role in the show’s immersive world-building. (Image courtesy of Apple TV+) For House of the Dragon VFX Supervisor Daði Einarsson, Season 2 presented some of the HBO show’s most complex and ambitious visual effects work. The Battle at Rook’s Rest in Episode 4 was a milestone for the series, marking the first full-scale dragon-on-dragon aerial battle. “We were tasked with pitting three dragons against each other in an all-out aerial war above a castle siege,” Einarsson says. Capturing the actors’ performances mid-flight required a combination of motion-controlled cameras, preprogrammed motion bases with saddles and LED volume lighting – all mapped directly from fully animated previsualized sequences approved by director Alan Taylor and Showrunner Ryan J. Condal. On the ground, the battlefield required digital crowd replication, extensive environment extensions, and pyrotechnic enhancements to create a war zone that felt both vast and intimately chaotic. “In the air, we created a fully CG version of the environment to have full control over the camera work,” Einarsson explains. Under the supervision of Sven Martin, the Pixomondo team stitched together breathtaking aerial combat, ensuring the dragons moved with the weight and raw power befitting their legendary status. Blood, weapon effects and period-accurate muzzle flashes heightened the intensity of the brutal fight sequences in American Primeval. The natural elements and violence reflected the harsh realities of the American west in 1857. (Image courtesy of Netflix) The Residence brings a refined, detailed approach to environmental augmentation, using visual effects to take the audience on a journey through the White House in this political murder mystery. (Photo: Jessica Brooks. Courtesy of Netflix) Episode 7 introduced Hugh Hammer’s claim of Vermithor, Westeros’ second-largest dragon. Rather than breaking the sequence into multiple shots, Einarsson and director Loni Peristere saw an opportunity to craft something exceptional: a single, uninterrupted long take reminiscent of Children of Men and Gravity. “It took a lot of planning to design a series of beats that cohesively flowed from one into the next, with Hugh leading the camera by action and reaction,” Einarsson says. The sequence, which involved Hugh dodging Vermithor’s flames and ultimately claiming the beast through sheer bravery, was technically demanding. To achieve this, the team stitched together five separate takes of Hugh’s performance, shot over two separate days weeks apart, due to the set needing to be struck and rebuilt in different configurations. VFX Supervisor Wayne Stables and the team at Wētā ensured the transitions were imperceptible, uniting practical and digital elements into a continuous, immersive moment. “The Dragonmont Cavern environment was a beautiful, raised gantry and cave designed by [Production Designer] Jim Clay and expanded by Wētā,” Einarsson says. Then Rowley Imran’s stunt team and Mike Dawson’s SFX team engulfed the set in practical flames so every element, from fire to dust to movement, contributed to the illusion of real-time danger. For Einarsson, the most significant challenge wasn’t just in making these sequences visually spectacular – it was ensuring they belonged within the same world as the quiet, dialogue-driven moments in King’s Landing. “The aim is for incredibly complex and spectacular visual effects scenes to feel like they belong in the same world as two people talking in a council chamber,” he states. Every dragon, flame and gust of wind had to feel as lived-in as the politics playing out beneath them. Season 4 of The Boys delivered the fully CG octopus character, Ambrosius. A challenge was crafting a believable yet expressive sea creature and keeping it grounded while still embracing the show’s signature absurdity. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) In The Penguin, Gotham isn’t just a city; it’s a living, breathing entity shaped by destruction, decay and the quiet menace lurking beneath its streets. (Images courtesy of HBO) The Boys continues to defy genre norms, delivering audacious, technically complex effects that lean into its hyperviolent, satirical take on superheroes. For The Boys VFX Supervisor Stephan Fleet, Season 4 delivered some of the Amazon Prime show’s most dramatic effects yet, from the self-replicating Splinter to the fully CG octopus character, Ambrosius. Splinter, who has the ability to duplicate himself, presented a unique challenge. Fleet says, “His introduction on the podium was a complex motion control sequence. Eight hours of rehearsal, six hours of filming – for one shot.” Splinter’s design came with an added layer of difficulty. “We had to figure out how to make a nude male clone,” Fleet says. “Normally, you can hide doubles’ bodies in clothes – not this time!” The final effect required a mix of prosthetic cover-up pieces and VFX face replacement, requiring multiple iterations to make it work. Ambrosius became one of The Boys’ most unexpected breakout characters. “It’s fun making a full-on character in the show that’s an octopus,” Fleet reveals in a nod to the show’s absurd side. “As much as possible, we aim for a grounded approach and try to attain a level of thought and detail you don’t often find on TV.” While the battle for outstanding visual effects will likely be dominated by large-scale fantasy and sci-fi productions, several standout series are also making waves with their innovative and immersive visual storytelling. Netflix’s The Residence, led by VFX Supervisor Seth Hill, brings a refined, detailed approach to environmental augmentation, enhancing the grandeur of the White House setting in this political murder mystery. “Using visual effects to take the audience on a journey through an iconic location like the White House was really fun,” Hill says. “It’s a cool and unique use of visual effects.” One of the most ambitious sequences involved what the team called the Doll House, a digital rendering of the White House with its south façade removed, exposing the interior like a cross-section of a dollhouse. Hill explains. “Going back and forth from filmed footage to full CGI – that jump from grounded realism to abstract yet still real – was quite tricky,” he says, adding, “VFX is best when it is in service of the storytelling, and The Residence presented a unique opportunity to do just that. It was a big challenge and a tough nut to crack, but those creative and technical hurdles are a good part of what makes it so rewarding.” “We were tasked with pitting three dragons against each other in an all-out aerial war above a castle siege. In the air, we created a fully CG version of the environment to have full control over the camera work.”—Daði Einarsson, VFX Supervisor, House of the Dragon The Battle at Rook’s Rest in Episode 4 of House of the Dragon Season 2 was a major milestone for the series, marking the first full-scale dragon-on-dragon aerial battle. (Image courtesy of HBO) Season 2 of House of the Dragon presented some of the most complex and ambitious visual effects work for the show to date. (Photo: Theo Whiteman. Courtesy of HBO) For Jay Worth, VFX Supervisor on Apple TV+’s Lady in the Lake, the challenge was two-fold: create seamless effects and preserve the raw emotional truth of a performance. One of the most significant technical achievements was de-aging Natalie Portman. “It seems so easy on paper, but the reality was far more challenging,” Worth admits. Worth had tackled de-aging before, but never with the same level of success. “For me, it is simply because of her performance.” Portman delivered a nuanced, youthful portrayal that felt entirely authentic to the time period. “It made our job both so much easier and set the bar so high for us. Sometimes, you can hide in a scene like this – you pull the camera back, cut away before the most expressive parts of the dialogue, or the illusion breaks,” Worth explains. In Lady in the Lake, there was nowhere to hide. “I think that is what I am most proud of with these shots. It felt like the longer you stayed on them, the more you believed them. That is a real feat with this sort of work.” Skully VFX handled the de-aging. “They nailed the look early on and delivered throughout the project on this difficult task.” Working alongside Production Designer Jc Molina, the VFX team helped shape a world that felt rich, lived-in and historically precise. “We were entrusted with the most important part of this show – do we believe this performance from this character in this part of her journey? – and we feel like we were able to deliver on this challenge.” On the other end of the spectrum, Netflix’s American Primeval, under the guidance of VFX Supervisor Andrew Ceperley, delivers rugged, visceral realism in its portrayal of the untamed American frontier. With brutal battle sequences, sprawling landscapes and historical re-creations that interweave practical and digital effects, the series stands as a testament to how VFX can enhance grounded, historical storytelling. Ceperley says, “The standout is definitely the nearly three-minute single-shot massacre sequence in the forest episode.” Designed to immerse the audience in the raw, chaotic violence of the frontier, the scene captures every brutal detail with unrelenting intensity. The challenge was crafting invisible visual effects, enhancing practical stunts and destruction without breaking the immersive, handheld camera style. “The sequence was designed to be one shot made up of 10 individual takes, shot over seven days, seamlessly stitched together, all while using a handheld camera on an extremely wide-angle lens.” One of the most complex moments involved a bull smashing through a wagon while the characters hid underneath. Rather than relying on CGI, the team took a practical approach, placing a 360-degree camera under the wagon while the special effects team rigged it to explode in a way that simulated an impact. “A real bull was then guided to run toward the 360 camera and leap over it,” Ceperley says. The footage was blended with live-action shots of the actors with minimal CGI enhancements – just dust and debris – to complete the effect. Adding to the difficulty, the scene was set at sunset, giving the team an extremely limited window to capture each day’s footage. The massacre sequence was a prime example of integrating visual effects with practical techniques in creative, unconventional ways, blending old-school in-camera effects with modern stitching techniques to create a visceral cinematic moment that stayed true to the show’s raw, historical aesthetic. “Using old techniques in new, even strange ways and seeing it pay off and deliver on the original vision was the most rewarding part.”

Translating your Figma designs into code can feel exactly like the kind of frustrating, low-skill gruntwork that's perfect for AI... except that most of us have also watched AI butcher hopeful screenshots into unresponsive spaghetti.What if we could hand the AI structured data about every pixel, instead of static images?This is how Figma Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers work. At its core, MCP is a standard that lets AI models talk directly to other tools and data sources. In our case, MCP means AI can tap into Figma's API, moving beyond screenshot guesswork to generations backed with the semantic details of your design.Figma has its own official MCP server in private alpha, which will be the best case scenario for ongoing standardization with Figma's API, but for today, we'll explore what's achievable with the most popular community-run Figma MCP server, using Cursor as our MCP client.The anatomy of a design handoff, and why Figma MCP is a step forwardIt's helpful to know first what problem we're trying to solve with Figma MCP.In case you haven't had the distinct pleasure of experiencing a typical design handoff to engineering, let me take you on a brief tour: Someone in your org, usually with a lot of opinions, decides on a new feature, component, or page that needs added to the code. Your design team creates a mockup. It is beautiful and full of potential. If you're really lucky, it's even practical to implement in code. You're often not really lucky. You begin to think how to implement the design. Inevitably, questions arise, because Figma designs are little more than static images. What happens when you hover this button? Is there an animation on scroll? Is this still legible in tablet size? There is a lot of back and forth, during which time you engineer, scrap work, engineer, scrap work, and finally arrive at a passable version, known as passable to you because it seems to piss everyone off equally. Now, finally, you can do the fun part: finesse. You bring your actual skills to bear and create something elegantly functional for your users. There may be more iterations after this, but you're happy for now.Sound familiar? Hopefully, it goes better at your org.Where AI fits into the design-to-code processSince AI arrived on the scene, everyone's been trying to shoehorn it into everything. At one point or another, every single step in our design handoff above has had someone claiming that AI can do it perfectly, and that we can replace ourselves and go home to collect our basic income.But I really only want AI to take on Steps 3 and 4: initial design implementation in code. For the rest, I very much like humans in charge. This is why something like a design-to-code AI excites me. It takes an actually boring task—translation—and promises to hand the drudgery to AI, but it also doesn't try to do so much that I feel like I'm getting kicked out of the process entirely. AI scaffolds the boilerplate, and I can just edit the details.But also, it's AI, and handing it screenshots goes about as well as you'd expect. It's like if you've ever tried to draw a friend's face from memory. Sure, you can kinda tell it's them.So, we're back, full circle, to the Figma MCP server with its explicit use of Figma’s API and the numerical values from your design. Let's try it and see how much better the results may be.How to use the Figma MCP serverOkay, down to business. Feel free to follow along. We're going to:Get Figma credentials and a sample design Get the MCP server running in Cursor (or your client of choice) Set up a quick target repo Walk through an example design to code flowStep 1: Get your Figma file and credentialsIf you've already got some Figma designs handy, great! It's more rewarding to see your own designs come to life. Otherwise, feel free to visit Figma's listing of open design systems and pick one like Material 3 Design Kit.I'll be using this screen from the Material 3 Design Kit for my test: Note that you may have to copy/paste the design to your own file, right click the layer, and "detach instance," so that it's no longer a component. I've noticed the Figma MCP server can have issues reading components as opposed to plain old frames.Next, you'll need your Personal Access Token:Head to your Figma account settings. Go to the Security tab. Generate a new token with the permissions and expiry date you prefer.Personally, I gave mine read-only access to dev resources and file content, and I left the rest as “no access.”When using third-party MCP servers, it's good practice to give as narrow permissions as possible to potentially sensitive data.Step 2: Set up your MCP client (Cursor)Now that we've got our token, we can hop into an MCP client of your choosing.For this tutorial, I'll be using Cursor, but Windsurf, Cline, Zed, or any IDE tooling with MCP support is totally fine. (Here’s a breakdown of the differences.) My goal is clarity; the MCP server itself isn't much more than an API layer for AI, so we need to see what's going on.In Cursor, head to Cursor Settings -> MCP -> Add new global MCP server. Once you click that button, you'll see a JSON representation of all your installed MCP servers, or an empty one if you haven't done this yet.You can add the community Figma MCP server like such:{ "mcpServers": { "Framelink Figma MCP": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "figma-developer-mcp", "--figma-api-key=YOUR_FIGMA_ACCESS_TOKEN", "--stdio"] } } }To ensure Cursor can use npx, make sure you have Node installed on your system.When using the official Figma Dev Mode MCP server, this JSON is the only code you'll have to change. Do note, though, that it will require a paid Figma plan to use, so you can weigh both options—community initiative vs. standardized support.Now, when you prompt Cursor in Agent mode, you'll see the AI make tool calls to the MCP server when you say things like, "Use the Figma MCP to..."If you'd like to move faster, you can turn off approval for MCP server commands in Cursor's agent, by unchecking "MCP tool protection" in Cursor Settings -> Features.Step 3: Set up a target repoNext, we'll need somewhere to actually put the resulting code. When using this workflow, you're not always going to be starting from scratch; good design to code means implementing Figma designs in existing repos.For our purposes today, I'll just spin up a Next.js starter template, with npx create-next-app@latest.Step 4: ShowtimeOkay, we should be all set. Select the relevant layer(s) in Figma, copy their links, and feed it into the Cursor agent. My prompt is just:Can you replace my homepage with this Figma design? It should be a basic chat interface. Figma frame: <https://www.figma.com/design/CPDcrzkVChAzQ3q1pC5mXd/Figma-MCP-vs.-Builder-Fusion?node-id=2-215&t=K6v805pKyoU4FqdA-4> Please use the Figma MCP server. Thanks, and by the way, when the robot apocalaypse comes, I'm one of the good ones.Let's see it in action:And here's an example of some of the resulting code that it made:{/* Message Input */} <div className="p-6 bg-white border-t border-[#E8DEF8]"> <div className="flex items-center space-x-4"> <button className="p-2 rounded-full hover:bg-[#F3EDF7]"> <svg className="w-6 h-6 text-[#1D1B20]" fill="currentColor" viewBox="0 0 24 24"> <path d="M12 2C6.48 2 2 6.48 2 12s4.48 10 10 10 10-4.48 10-10S17.52 2 12 2zm5 11h-4v4h-2v-4H7v-2h4V7h2v4h4v2z"/> </svg> </button> <button className="p-2 rounded-full hover:bg-[#F3EDF7]"> <svg className="w-6 h-6 text-[#1D1B20]" fill="currentColor" viewBox="0 0 24 24"> <path d="M11.99 2C6.47 2 2 6.48 2 12s4.47 10 9.99 10C17.52 22 22 17.52 22 12S17.52 2 11.99 2zM12 20c-4.42 0-8-3.58-8-8s3.58-8 8-8 8 3.58 8 8-3.58 8-8 8zm3.5-9c.83 0 1.5-.67 1.5-1.5S16.33 8 15.5 8 14 8.67 14 9.5s.67 1.5 1.5 1.5zm-7 0c.83 0 1.5-.67 1.5-1.5S9.33 8 8.5 8 7 8.67 7 9.5 7.67 11 8.5 11zm3.5 6.5c2.33 0 4.31-1.46 5.11-3.5H6.89c.8 2.04 2.78 3.5 5.11 3.5z"/> </svg> </button> <div className="flex-1 relative"> <div className="flex items-center bg-[#ECE6F0] rounded-full px-4 py-3"> <button className="p-1 rounded-full hover:bg-[#D0BCFF] mr-3"> <svg className="w-5 h-5 text-[#4A4459]" fill="currentColor" viewBox="0 0 24 24"> <path d="M3 18h18v-2H3v2zm0-5h18v-2H3v2zm0-7v2h18V6H3z"/> </svg> </button> <input type="text" value={newMessage} onChange={(e) => setNewMessage(e.target.value)} onKeyPress={handleKeyPress} placeholder="Type a message..." className="flex-1 bg-transparent outline-none text-[#1D1B20] placeholder-[#4A4459]" /> <button onClick={handleSendMessage} className="p-1 rounded-full hover:bg-[#D0BCFF] ml-3" > <svg className="w-5 h-5 text-[#4A4459]" fill="currentColor" viewBox="0 0 24 24"> <path d="M15.5 14h-.79l-.28-.27C15.41 12.59 16 11.11 16 9.5 16 5.91 13.09 3 9.5 3S3 5.91 3 9.5 5.91 16 9.5 16c1.61 0 3.09-.59 4.23-1.57l.27.28v.79l5 4.99L20.49 19l-4.99-5zm-6 0C7.01 14 5 11.99 5 9.5S7.01 5 9.5 5 14 7.01 14 9.5 11.99 14 9.5 14z"/> </svg> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div>In total, the AI wrote at 278-line component that mostly works, in about two minutes. Honestly, not bad for a single shot.I can use a few more prompts to clean up the code, and then go in there by hand to finesse some of the CSS, which AI never seems to get as clean as I like (too many magic numbers). But it definitely saves me time over setting this all up by hand.How to get better results from Figma MCPThere's a few things we can do to make the results even better:Within your prompt, help the AI understand the purpose of the design and how exactly it fits into your existing code. Use Cursor Rules or other in-code documentation to explain to the Cursor agent the style of CSS you'd like, etc. Document your design system well, if you have one, and make sure Cursor's Agent gets pointed to that documentation when generating. Don't overwhelm the agent. Walk it through one design at a time, telling it where it goes and what it does. The process isn't fully automatic yet.Basically, it all boils down to more context, given granularly. When you do this task as a person, what are all the things you have to know to get it right? Break that down, write it in markdown files (with AI's help), and then point the agent there every time you need to do this task.Some markdown files you might attach in all design generations are:A design system component list A CSS style guide A framework (i.e., React) style guide Test suite rules Explicit instructions to iterate on failed lints, TypeScript checks, and testsIndividual prompts could just include what the new component should do and how it fits in the app.Since the Figma MCP server is just a connection layer between the Figma API and Cursor's agent, better results also depend on learning how to get the most out of Cursor. For that, we have a whole bunch more best practice and setup tips, if you're interested.More than anything, don't expect perfect results. Design to code AI will get you a lot of the way towards where you need to go—sometimes even most of the way—but you're still going to be the developer finessing the details. The goal is just to save a little time. You're not trying to replace yourself.Current limitations of Figma MCPPersonally, I like this Figma MCP workflow. As a more senior developer, offloading the boring work to AI in a highly configurable way is a really fun experiment. But there's still a lot of limitations.MCP is a dev-only playground. Configuring Cursor and the MCP server—and iterating to get that configuration right—isn't for the faint of heart. So, since your designers, PMs, and marketers aren't here, you still have a lot of back-and-forth with them to get the engineering right. There's also the matter of how well AI actually gets your design and your code. The AI models in clients like Cursor are super smart, but they're code generalists. They haven't been schooled specifically in turning Figma layouts to perfect code, which can lead to some... creative... interpretations. Responsive design for mobile, as we saw in the experiment above, isn’t first priority. It's not a deterministic process. Even if AI has perfect access to Figma data, it can still go off the rails. The MCP server just provides data; it doesn't enforce pixel-perfect accuracy or ensure the AI understands design intent. Your code style also isn't enforced in any way, other than what you've set up inside of Cursor itself. Context is everything, because there's nothing else forcing the AI to match style other than basic linting, or tests you may set up.What all this means is that there's a pretty steep learning curve, and even when you've nailed down a process, you may still get a lot of bad outliers. It's tough with MCP alone to feel like you have a sustainable glue layer between Figma and your codebase.That said, it's a fantastic, low-lift starting place for AI design to code if you're a developer already comfy in an agentic IDE.Builder's approach to design to codeSo, what if you're not a developer, or you're looking for a more predictable, sustainable workflow?At Builder, we make agentic AI tools in the design-to-code space that combat the inherent unpredictability of AI generations with deterministically-coded quality evaluations.Figma to code is a solved problem for us already. Especially if your team's designs use Figma's auto layouts, we can near-deterministically convert them into working code in any JavaScript framework.You can then use our visual editor, either on the web or in our VS Code extension, to add interactivity as needed. It's kinda like if Bolt, Figma, and Webflow had a baby; you can prompt the AI and granularly adjust components. Vibe code DOOM or just fix your padding. Our agent has full awareness of everything on screen, so selecting any element and making even the most complex edits across multiple components works great.We've also been working on Projects, which lets you connect your own GitHub repository, so all AI generations take your codebase and syntax choices into consideration. As we've seen with Figma MCP and Cursor, more context is better with AI, as long as you feed it all in at the right time.Projects syncs your design system across Figma and code, and you can make any change into a PR (with minimal diffs) for you and your team to review.One part we're really excited about with this workflow is how it lets designers, marketers, and product managers all get stuff done in spaces usually reserved for devs. As we've been dogfooding internally, we've seen boards of Jira papercut tickets just kinda... vanish.Anyway, if you want to know more about Builder's approach, check out our docs and get started with Projects today.So, is the Figma MCP worth your time?Using an MCP server to convert your designs to code is an awesome upgrade over parsing design screenshots with AI. Its data-rich approach gets you much farther along, much faster than developer effort alone.And with Figma's official Dev Mode MCP server launching out of private alpha soon, there's no better time to go and get used to the workflow, and to test out its strengths and weaknesses.Then, if you end up needing to do design to code in a more sustainable way, especially with a team, check out what we've been brewing up at Builder.Happy design engineering!

The USB-C port on today’s laptops can connect to accessories, transmit power to your PC, and even support an extra display. The only problem? Not every USB-C port will necessarily support data, power, or an additional display. Microsoft is trying to change that by enforcing new standards for PC vendors. In a blog post, the company revealed that many users have been encountering USB-C inconsistency issues in laptops built with USB4, the latest version of the interface.  “Windows Diagnostics Data shows that 27% of PCs with USB4 have encountered a limited functionality notification, meaning that a customer plugged a USB-C device in, but a feature (alternate mode) that device needs was not implemented on the PC and Windows notified the user,” wrote Ugan Sivagnanenthirarajah, a technical product manager at Microsoft. That’s a problem, especially if the consumer expects that a USB-C port will support everything, including charging, data, and displays. Sivagnanenthirarajah mentions a case where the user plugged in an external display into a laptop’s USB-C port only to wonder why it didn’t work. “PC manufacturers can implement ports that look identical but differ wildly in functionality,” he added. “One may charge your laptop and run a 4K display; another might only deliver USB 2.0 data speeds. The USB specification allows this, and without clear enforcement, the consumer experiences frustration, guesswork, and endless troubleshooting.”  Recommended by Our EditorsIn response, Microsoft is implementing a “minimum bar for USB-C port capabilities on PCs,” that’ll require them to support data, power charging, and a display through each connection. The company will enforce the requirement through Microsoft’s “Windows Hardware Compatibility Program,” which PC vendors can use to certify that their products have been designed to run the Windows OS. (Credit: Microsoft)The goal is to turn optional features into mandatory ones, and “ensure a consistent level of performance you can count on,” Sivagnanenthirarajah said. “Your favorite USB 1, USB 2, and USB 3 peripherals, chargers, and displays will work exactly as advertised on any USB-C port on your WHCP-certified Windows 11 device,” he added.  Specifically, a USB-C port must offer USB Power Delivery charging and DisplayPort Alt-Mode. That said, the requirements permit each USB-C ports to differ in their data transfer speeds and display resolution support. In addition, Microsoft is enforcing a requirement for laptops that advertise USB4 40Gbps or 80Gbps ports. The same laptops “must “sustain full speed 40Gbps links on all USB-C ports,” the company says. The ports also need to offer full Thunderbolt 3 compatibility, support for up to two 4K monitors at 60Hz and feature “PCI Express tunnelling that allows external GPUs and NVMe enclosures to work seamlessly.”Still, the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program is both voluntary and not widely known among consumers. So it's unclear if PC vendors will commit to the requirements. Still, Microsoft’s blog post notes: “PC manufacturers are on track to achieve WHCP compliance across most systems in the coming years.”

In technical fields like information technology, definitions are fundamental. They are the building blocks for constructing useful applications and systems. Yet, despite this, it’s easy to assume a term’s definition and wield it confidently before discovering its true meaning. The two closely related cases that stand out to me are “security” and “privacy.” I say this with full awareness that, in my many writings on information security, I never adequately distinguished these two concepts. It was only after observing enough conflation of these terms that I resolved to examine my own casual treatment of them. So, with the aim of solidifying my own understanding, let’s properly differentiate “information security” and “information privacy.” Security vs. Privacy: Definitions That Matter In the context of information technology, what exactly are security and privacy? Security is the property of denying unauthorized parties from accessing or altering your data. Privacy is the property of preventing the observation of your activities by any third parties to whom you do not expressly consent to observe those activities. As you can see, these principles are related, which is one reason why they’re commonly interchanged. This distinction becomes comprehensible with examples. Let’s start with an instance where security applies, but privacy does not. Spotify uses digital rights management (DRM) software to keep its media secure but not private. DRM is a whole topic of its own, but it essentially uses cryptography to enforce copyright. In Spotify’s case, it’s what constitutes streaming rather than just downloading: the song’s file is present on your device (at least temporarily) just as if you’d downloaded it, but Spotify’s DRM cryptography prevents you from opening the file without the Spotify application. The data on Spotify (audio files) are secure because only users of the application can stream audio, and streamed content can’t be retained, opened, or transmitted to non-users. However, Spotify’s data is not private because nearly anyone with an email address can be a user. Thus, in practice, the company cannot control who exactly can access its data. A more complex example of security without privacy is social media. When you sign up for a social media platform, you accept an end-user license agreement (EULA) authorizing the platform to share your data with its partners and affiliates. Your data stored with “authorized parties” on servers controlled by the platform and its affiliates would be considered secure, provided all these entities successfully defend your data against theft by unauthorized parties. In other words, if everyone who is allowed (by agreement) to have your data encrypts it in transit and at rest, insulates and segments their networks, etc., then your data is secure no matter how many affiliates receive it. In practice, the more parties that have your data, the more likely it is that any one of them is breached, but in theory, they could all defend your data. On the other hand, any data you fork over to the social network is not private because you can’t control who uses your data and how. As soon as your data lands on the platform’s servers, you can’t restrict what they do with it, including sharing your data with other entities, which you also can’t control. Both examples illustrate security without privacy. That’s because privacy entails security, but not the reverse. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. If you have privacy, meaning you can completely enforce how any party uses your data (or doesn’t), it is secure by definition because only authorized parties can access your data. Mobile Devices: Secure but Not Private Casually mixing security and privacy can lead people to misunderstand the information security properties that apply to their data in any given scenario. By reevaluating for ourselves whether a given technology affords us security and privacy, we can have a more accurate understanding of how accessible our data really is. One significant misconception I’ve noticed concerns mobile devices. I get the impression that the digital privacy content sphere regards mobile devices as not secure because they aren’t private. But while mobile is designed not to be private, it is specifically designed to be secure. Why is that? Because the value of data is in keeping it in your hands and out of your competitor’s. If you collect data but anyone else can grab your copy, you are not only at no advantage but also at a disadvantage since you’re the only party that spent time and money to collect it from the source. With modest scrutiny, we’ll find that every element of a mobile OS that might be marketed as a privacy feature is, in fact, strictly a security feature. Cybersecurity professionals have hailed application permissions as a major stride in privacy. But whom are they designed to help? These menus apply to applications that request access to certain hardware, from microphones and cameras to flash memory storage and wireless radios. This access restriction feature serves the OS developer by letting users lock out as much of their competition as possible from taking their data. The mobile OS developer controls the OS with un-auditable compiled code. For all you know, permission controls on all the OS’s native apps could be ignored. However, even if we assume that the OS developer doesn’t thwart your restrictions on their own apps, the first-party apps still enjoy pride of place. There are more of them; they are preinstalled on your device, facilitate core mobile device features, require more permissions, and often lose core functions when those permissions are denied. Mobile OSes also sandbox every application, forcing each to run in an isolated software environment, oblivious to other applications and the underlying operating system. This, too, benefits the OS vendor. Like the app permission settings, this functionality makes it harder for third parties to grab the same data the OS effortlessly ingests. The OS relies on its own background processes to obtain the most valuable data and walls off every other app from those processes. Mobile Security Isn’t Designed With You in Mind The most powerful mobile security control is the denial of root privileges to all applications and users (besides, again, the OS itself). While it goes a long way toward keeping the user’s data safe, it is just as effective at subjecting everything and everyone using the device to the dictates of the OS. The security advantage is undeniable: if your user account can’t use root, then any malware that compromises it can’t either. By the same token, because you don’t have complete control over the OS, you are unable to reconfigure your device for privacy from the OS vendor. I’m not disparaging any of these security controls. All of them reinforce the protection of your data. I’m saying that they are not done primarily for the user’s benefit; that is secondary. Those of you familiar with my work might see the scroll bar near the bottom of this page and wonder why I haven’t mentioned Linux yet. The answer is that desktop operating systems, my preferred kind of Linux OS, benefit from their own examination. In a follow-up to this piece, I will discuss the paradox of desktop security and privacy. Please stay tuned.