Designilo

Introduction: The Secret Behind Scalable Design

Design tokens are the atoms of your design system—the small, reusable pieces that define things like color, spacing, typography, and more. In Figma, tokens (now powered by Figma Variables) help you scale your design across multiple themes, brands, platforms, and products—without duplicating work.

If you’ve ever updated a color across 200 screens or struggled to align your UI with the dev codebase, tokens are the solution.

In this guide, we’ll break down what UI tokens are, how they work in Figma, and why they’re essential for modern design systems.

1. What Are UI Tokens?

UI tokens are named values used to represent visual design attributes like:

• Color (e.g. color.background.default)
• Spacing (e.g. space.16)
• Typography (e.g. font.heading.large)
• Radius (e.g. radius.small)
• Elevation/Shadow (e.g. shadow.level2)
• Animation (e.g. duration.short, easing.standard)

Rather than using raw values (like #000000 or 16px), you use tokens as abstractions—and those tokens can be themed, changed, or exported to code.

2. Why Use Tokens in Figma?

Benefits of tokens:

• ✅ Consistency – everyone uses the same values across projects
• ✅ Scalability – update one token, change it everywhere
• ✅ Cross-platform alignment – match values across design and code
• ✅ Theming support – enable light/dark or brand A/B/C with ease
• ✅ Faster updates – no more manual search and replace

🎯 Tokens reduce design debt and improve design-to-dev collaboration.

3. Tokens in Figma = Variables

Figma now supports Variables, which power design tokens directly in the UI.

You can create variables for:

• Color – fills, strokes, text, backgrounds
• Number – spacing, padding, radius
• Boolean – toggle visibility or states
• String – labels, content

🎨 Example:

csharp color.background.default = #F8F9FA
color.primary.default = #2563EB
space.medium = 16

🧠 You can group tokens into collections and modes (e.g. Light, Dark, Brand B).

4. How to Set Up Design Tokens in Figma

Steps:

1. Open Variables Panel (⇧ + 2 or right sidebar)
2. Create a Collection (e.g. “Core Tokens” or “Design Tokens”)
3. Add variables:
   • color.primary.default
   • space.8, space.16
   • radius.sm, radius.md
4. Apply variables in styles:
   • Set fills, text color, spacing to use the variable
   • Assign modes for light/dark themes

📁 Organize your tokens by type or design token level (core, semantic, component-specific).

5. Semantic Tokens vs Core Tokens

• Core tokens = raw values (e.g. #000000, 16)
• Semantic tokens = meaning/context (e.g. button.primary.bg, text.body.color)

💡 Use semantic tokens in components—then map them to core tokens in each theme or mode.

This allows multi-brand design systems to stay clean and flexible.

6. How Tokens Improve Dev Handoff

In Dev Mode, tokens appear as named values—not raw numbers.

Developers can:

• Copy token names
• Export tokens to code
• Sync Figma variables with their design token system (e.g. Style Dictionary, Tokens Studio, GitHub)

📦 Figma Variables + Dev Mode = token-driven workflow from design to production.

7. Theming with Tokens and Modes

Tokens allow you to define multiple modes (e.g. Light, Dark, High Contrast, Brand X).

Instead of duplicating designs:

• Define your tokens once
• Assign different values in each mode
• Switch modes to preview the result

🌗 Example:

yaml color.background.default
 → Light: #FFFFFF
 → Dark: #0D0D0D

🧪 Use the mode toggle to test entire UIs in each theme instantly.

8. Token Plugins That Help

• Tokens Studio – advanced token management and export
• Themer – apply themes to Figma files
• Figma Variables (native) – best for new systems
• Design System Organizer – manage styles and variables at scale

🔌 Use plugins to scale your token workflow and sync with dev tools.

Conclusion: Tokens Are the Future of Scalable Design

UI tokens give your Figma files structure, consistency, and superpowers. They’re the bridge between designers and developers, between brands and platforms, between dark and light.

Whether you’re building a small app or an enterprise system, start with tokens. You’ll thank yourself later.

Next up: “Figma Tokens in Dev Mode: What Developers See (and How to Set It Up Right)” — a practical guide to bridging the design/code gap with token-driven specs.