Designilo

Best Practices for Managing Design Tokens Across Large Teams in Figma

Introduction: More People, More Problems? Not with Tokens.

Design tokens bring consistency, scalability, and speed—but only if they’re well-managed. As your team grows, so does the complexity of maintaining a single source of truth for colors, typography, spacing, and more.

This article covers proven best practices for naming, structuring, documenting, and governing design tokens in Figma across large, distributed design teams.

1. Define a Token Strategy Before You Scale

Don’t wait for chaos—plan ahead.

✅ Ask:

  • What tokens do we need? (Color, Type, Spacing, etc.)
  • Do we support multiple brands or themes?
  • Who owns which parts of the system?
  • Will we sync tokens with code?

Establish these answers early and bake them into your documentation and tooling.

2. Use Semantic Naming, Not Raw Values

Bad:

  • #1A73E8
  • Red-500
  • Font-14pt

Better:

  • Color/Primary
  • Color/Error
  • Text/Body
  • Spacing/Medium

🔤 Semantic tokens describe purpose, not appearance—making them more portable across themes, platforms, and design systems.

3. Separate Tokens by Type and Context

Structure your tokens for clarity and future-proofing.

Use collections or folders like:

  • Color
    • Brand
    • UI
    • Text
  • Typography
    • Heading
    • Body
    • Caption
  • Spacing
    • Gap/Small
    • Padding/Large

📦 Bonus: Use Figma’s Variable collections to organize them directly in the design file.

4. Use Modes for Brands, Themes, and Platforms

Modes let you switch entire token sets based on:

  • Brand identity
  • Light/Dark themes
  • Platform (iOS/Android/Web)

Use modes to:

  • Preview how designs adapt across themes
  • Let dev teams inspect tokens by platform
  • Maintain one core system that powers many front-ends

🌓 Example:
Color/Primary can mean blue in Light Mode, purple in Brand B, or green in Android.

5. Document Your Tokens Thoroughly

Your team won’t remember what Color/Surface/Inverse means without context.

Create documentation that includes:

  • Token purpose
  • Usage guidelines
  • Visual examples
  • Platform mappings (if applicable)

🔗 Tools like Zeroheight, Notion, or embedded Figma pages can serve as your token reference hub.

6. Assign Ownership and Governance

As your team grows, define who owns which tokens:

  • Design Ops owns spacing and layout
  • Brand team owns primary palettes
  • Accessibility team reviews contrast and legibility

Use branching and version control in Figma to manage changes. Review and test before publishing token updates to your shared libraries.

✅ Bonus: Use approval workflows for token updates.

7. Sync Tokens with Code Systems

Use tools like:

  • Style Dictionary to sync tokens across platforms
  • Tokens Studio (Figma plugin) for exporting and importing JSON
  • Custom scripts via the Figma API for dev handoff

💡 This bridges the design-dev gap and ensures visual parity across implementations.

8. Plan for Token Evolution

Design systems aren’t static. Build a change-friendly process:

  • Track deprecated tokens
  • Add version history or changelogs
  • Communicate updates clearly via release notes or Slack updates

🔁 Adopt a “versioned rollout” for major token shifts, especially if you support multiple products.

9. Test Token Changes in Context

Before rolling out new or updated tokens:

  • Apply them to real components and layouts
  • Use Figma prototypes to test light/dark modes
  • Preview breakpoints and UI states (hover, disabled, active)

🧪 Visual testing helps catch edge cases before they hit production.

10. Foster Token Literacy Across the Org

A successful token system is one everyone understands.

Offer:

  • Onboarding sessions
  • Internal wikis or guides
  • Sample UI files
  • Slack channels for support

🎓 The more token-literate your team is, the more consistent and efficient your product design becomes.

Conclusion: Scalable Tokens = Scalable Teams

When well-managed, design tokens become the connective tissue between design, code, and product strategy. For large teams, they offer clarity, speed, and consistency—and prevent design entropy from creeping in.

With Figma Variables, structured governance, and cross-functional collaboration, your token system can scale alongside your organization.

Next up: “The Ultimate Figma Dev Mode Guide (With Handoff Checklists)” — everything developers need to inspect, export, and build from your design files.

Ben Kemp
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