Variables for brand designers | Figma

By Figma

Categories: Design, Product

Summary

Figma's variables give brand designers a powerful way to manage consistency at scale, rapidly explore new designs, and future-proof their brand - without duplicating files or swapping hex codes.

Key Takeaways

1. Variables eliminate micro-inconsistencies across design files, enabling more consistent brand expression at scale.
2. Variable modes let you quickly test new color palettes, type ramps, and other design changes without manual styling.
3. Boolean variables allow flexible toggling of elements like partner logos, badges, and regional content within layouts.
4. Styles group multiple variables together, letting you dynamically update an entire type system or other design components.
5. Extended collections override specific variables for different contexts like seasonal campaigns, while inheriting the rest from the base collection.
6. Variables make rebrands, accessibility updates, and product expansions less painful by enabling systematic, scalable design changes.

Topics

• Brand Design
• Design Systems
• Figma
• Design Consistency
• Design Exploration

Transcript Excerpt

Brand designers are constantly juggling brand expression at scale. Driving consistency for the overarching brand while adapting it across different product lines, sub-brands and campaigns. We are going to look at what they are, how to create and apply them and explore different use cases for them in your work. At a high level? Variables are reusable, named values like colors or numbers that you can apply throughout your entire design system and even use in prototyping. Think of them as your bran...