Foundry is a destination agency for independent thinkers and a haven for do-gooder types. We have strong opinions and open minds. We’re not normal—in mostly good ways. We’re serious professionals who don’t take ourselves too seriously.

The people who work here are an integral part of the experiences we create with our clients. They’re our competitive advantage and our community spirit. They’re radically innovative and decidedly practical. They’re experts who are always learning new ways to take our clients—and their users—to the next level.

The literal centerpiece of our office is our beloved pool table. At 4pm the table is open and  occupied until the last of us leaves. Around the table people watch matches, inside jokes are born, designers and engineers talk through work, and yes, whisky flows. But for some pool is also a great source of pride. Beating a top player like Jason or Steven or Nils is an accomplishment and can only mean that the tides have finally turned.

No one can quite remember how Fast Eddie was born, but I like to believe that one day a top player was beat and after a proper heckling from the crowd some engineer said they could prove who was better with math.

Enter Foundry's resident elder geek and pool shark, Nick Colgan.

After some research Nick decided that the ELO rating system could provide the math, Slack could provide the interaction, and this whole thing was a great way to play with some new tech that we hadn't yet found a project for.

Of course, there wasn't much thought put into the UX of Fast Eddie. Indeed, the standings are displayed in a rather unruly block of preformatted text that is nearly unreadable on mobile. When we started to think about building other Slackbots, we knew it was time to get serious about our approach.

Paige and Lucy, two of our intrepid product designers, took it upon themselves to build a comprehensive ideation kit, component library, and best practices guide for Slackbots in Figma.

This kit was created as a companion to all of the excellent documentation provided by Slack. It is a space for ideation and creativity (and tree appreciation). For Foundry, this file helps accelerate our ability to create Slack apps. As a bonus, we had the opportunity to publish our first Figma Community file - something we have wanted to do for a while now.

‍Duplicate the file from our Figma Community page and brainstorm, storyboard, and design your own Slack App and let us know what you create! And keep an eye out for future releases to add even more functionality to your Slack app-building lifestyle.