As design systems grow in complexity and scale, managing themes and color modes can quickly become a daunting challenge. Enter Figma Variables — a robust feature introduced by Figma to help designers and developers manage design tokens efficiently across different themes and view modes. By allowing dynamic value switching and seamless theme application, Figma Variables enable scalable, maintainable systems for UI consistency and adaptability. In this article, we’ll explore how Figma Variables can address the common pain points in managing themes and modes, and offer a structured approach to implement them effectively in modern design workflows.

What Are Figma Variables?

Figma Variables are reusable values that can store design-related data such as colors, spacing, typography values, radii, and more. Instead of hardcoding these values multiple times throughout various components, designers can define variables and reference them wherever needed. This ensures consistency and dramatically reduces the manual overhead when making updates.

Crucially, Figma Variables support the creation of multiple modes, which are alternate sets of values for variables — such as “Light” and “Dark” theme variants. By toggling a mode, a design can instantly shift its entire aesthetic without altering underlying structure, enabling versatile designs that adapt to different user preferences or accessibility needs.

Benefits of Using Figma Variables for Theming

Managing themes and color systems without a structured approach can lead to inconsistencies, bloated stylesheets, and hard-to-maintain codebases. Using Figma Variables provides the following key benefits:

  • Scalability: Variables make it much easier to scale your design system as your product grows, allowing you to add new themes or modes without rewiring each component.
  • Consistency: A central source of truth ensures that all components adhere to the same design language, reducing visual discrepancies.
  • Efficiency: Switching themes or modifying core tokens becomes a few-click operation, freeing up time for more strategic tasks.
  • Developer Handoff: Variables mimic CSS tokens, which makes the transition from design to code straightforward and significantly less error-prone.

Understanding Themes and Modes

In the context of Figma, a theme represents a collection of variable values that define a visual style, like a light or dark palette. Each theme can contain different modes, which serve as context-aware versions of those variables. For example, a “Primary Color” variable might have a value of #6200EE in Light Mode and #BB86FC in Dark Mode.

This structure allows designers to create polymorphic components that automatically switch aesthetic based on the active mode, maintaining UX consistency across platforms and user preferences.

Creating Figma Variables: Step-By-Step

Let’s walk through a step-by-step approach to building a scalable theme system with Figma Variables.

1. Define Your Token Structure

Begin by mapping out your design tokens similar to how developers define CSS variables. These often fall into the following categories:

  • Color tokens (Primary, Secondary, Surface, Background, etc.)
  • Spacing values (Small, Medium, Large)
  • Typography values (Font size, Line height, Letter spacing)
  • Border radius
  • Elevation and shadow values

Organize these tokens in the Figma Variables tab and name them clearly and semantically using naming conventions like color.primary or spacing.md.

2. Create Modes for Each Theme

Once the tokens are defined, set up the respective modes — for instance:

  • Light Mode
  • Dark Mode
  • High Contrast Mode (optional accessibility-focused mode)

Switch to each mode and define the relevant values. For example, “color.surface” might be #FFFFFF in Light Mode and #121212 in Dark Mode.

3. Apply Variables to Components

With your variables and modes in place, apply them to component styles. Instead of assigning colors manually, select values from your variable list. Doing this ensures that every component is responsive to mode changes.

To preview themes in use, toggle between modes in the Figma Variables panel. You’ll instantly see components adapt to the active theme, offering a real-time visual validation of your token structure and component compatibility.

Organizing Themes for Large-Scale Systems

As your design system matures, you’ll likely face the need to support multiple brands, apps, or user personas. Here’s how Figma Variables can be strategically organized for scale:

1. Use Variable Collections

A collection in Figma serves as a logical grouping for variables. You could choose to group your variables by type (Color, Spacing) or by brand (Brand A, Brand B). Using collections effectively allows you to isolate changes, manage inheritance, and maintain cleanliness in complex systems.

2. Establish Naming Conventions

Clear and consistent naming helps every designer and developer on the team understand the function of each variable. Consider adopting a system such as:

color.brand.primary
color.brand.secondary
spacing.global.xs
typography.heading.lg

This not only avoids ambiguity but also helps in filtering and searching through large variable lists quickly.

3. Build a Token-Driven Component Library

Use components that reference variables at every level. This includes text styles, component fills, strokes, effects, and interactions. This ensures that switching a mode updates all elements automatically without any manual adjustment.

Collaborating with Developers

One of the standout features of Figma Variables is their close resemblance to design tokens in code — particularly CSS variables or JSON-based design token frameworks like Style Dictionary. This makes developer handoff far more efficient. Designers and developers can work off the same naming schemes and expect parity between Figma and implementation.

Tools like Figma Tokens plugin or GitHub Actions for extracting variables into token files further bridge this gap, enabling seamless CI/CD pipelines for design systems.

Best Practices

To get the most out of Figma Variables, consider these best practices:

  • Start small: Begin with a core set of colors and expand thoughtfully. Avoid overloading your system with too many similar tokens.
  • Document usage: Maintain a visual guide for how and where each variable should be used. This assists onboarding and consistency.
  • Audit regularly: Review variables periodically to eliminate redundancies and ensure consistency across modes.
  • Test across themes: Prototype switching between Light and Dark modes early and often, catching contrast and accessibility issues before launch.

Conclusion

Figma Variables represent a major leap forward in scalable design system management. By harnessing the power of reusable, mode-aware tokens, teams can create more consistent, maintainable, and flexible UI experiences across different platforms and user needs. Gone are the days of manually adjusting styles for every theme — with variables, a single value change can ripple intelligently through your entire design ecosystem.

Whether you’re building a small component library or a cross-brand enterprise design system, Figma Variables offer the tools and structure to scale with confidence. The future of theme and mode management is here — and it’s systematic, tokenized, and deeply integrated into your workflow.