If you’ve ever had to manually update the same color, spacing, or text value across an entire project, you know the pain. If you haven’t, just imagine spending hours hunting down every instance of a specific shade of blue, only to realise you missed one. Not fun.
The variables announced last week at Config are like that really nice friend who remembers everything, so you don’t have to. They let you set reusable design properties that update automatically across components and layouts. No more mind-numbing manual tweaks that I hate, just smooth, effortless consistency.
Why This Changes Everything
1. Effortless Theming & Design Tokens
Designing for a dark mode? Different brand themes? No worries, we can now make switching between themes easy with a couple of clicks and without the tedious clicking through every component. Colours, spacing, and typography will adjust across the entire system.
2. Faster Iteration & Scalability
Before variables, adjusting spacing or font sizes across multiple screens was like playing a frustrating game of spot the difference. Now we can update a single variable, and every instance using it updates instantly. It’s like having a “make everything right” button for your design system.
3. Improved Collaboration Between Design & Dev
Developers love consistency. Designers love… well, not having to repeat themselves. Variables now bring design tokens directly into Figma, so developers can grab predefined values instead of guessing and hardcoding. Fewer misunderstandings, fewer Slack messages that start with 'Hey, quick question…', and a smoother handoff process.
4. Smarter Prototyping & Dynamic Content
And don't get me started on the prototypes! With text and boolean variables, prototypes just leveled up. Now, you can switch button states, toggle UI elements, or update dynamic text without detaching components or creating multiple versions. Our prototypes will finally behave like real apps instead of stiff, unclickable mockups.
5. Future-Proofing for Design Evolution
Let’s be honest: no design is ever final. Whether it's a minor UI refresh or a full-blown brand overhaul, design changes are inevitable. With variables, adapting to those changes is no longer a headache. We can tweak a single setting, and our entire system follows, no more broken layouts, no inconsistencies, just seamless evolution.
6. Design Systems Become Truly Scalable
Until now, even the best design systems still had a weak point: manual updates. Sure, styles and components helped maintain consistency, but any tweaks still required digging through layers and frames. Now entire design systems can become adaptable at scale, making updates quick, easy, and most importantly accurate.
Final Thoughts
Figma variables definitely feel like that missing puzzle piece we didn’t know we needed. Instead of drowning in manual updates, we can focus on what actually matters, being creative, pushing boundaries, and impressing our project managers with how smooth our designs look 😉 . I honestly can't wait untill my design system team incorporates the variables into our design system 🚀
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