Introduction:
Figma is a popular web-based UI/UX design tool used by designers around the world for its collaboration features and versatility. One of its greatest strengths lies in the ability to create custom design elements, which empower designers to personalize their designs, streamline workflows, and develop unique user interfaces. Whether you’re designing a website, mobile app, or digital product, knowing how to create custom design elements in Figma will help you maintain consistency and efficiency throughout your design process. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the steps and techniques for creating custom design elements in Figma, covering everything from simple buttons to complex icons and components.
Understanding Design Elements in Figma:
Before diving into how to create custom design elements, it’s essential to understand what these elements are and why they’re important in the context of design.
Design elements in Figma can be anything from buttons, icons, and typography, to illustrations, containers, and navigation components. These elements are the building blocks of a user interface, and when custom-built, they reflect the branding, user experience, and aesthetics of the product. Custom elements are critical because they allow you to create a unique design that sets your project apart from others. In Figma, design elements can be vector shapes, images, text, or even complex components built using Figma’s features like Frames, Auto Layout, and Variants.
Step 1: Plan Your Design Elements:
Before you begin creating custom elements in Figma, it’s important to plan. Start by thinking about what type of design elements you need and what they will achieve. Are you designing buttons for a website? Custom icons for an app? Perhaps illustrations or data visualizations for a dashboard?
Consider the following:
Functionality: What is the purpose of each element? For instance, buttons need to be interactive and follow specific behavior when clicked.
Brand Guidelines: If you’re working on a project that has existing brand guidelines, make sure to consider them. You’ll need to adhere to the brand’s color palette, typography, and style when creating custom elements.
Consistency: Ensure that your custom elements follow a consistent design system throughout the product. Consistency is key for a polished user experience.
Responsiveness: How will the element behave across different screen sizes? Figma’s Auto Layout feature helps you create elements that adapt to different screen sizes without breaking their design.
Step 2: Start with Basic Shapes and Frames:
Figma offers a variety of tools to start building your custom designing elements. For most designs, you’ll use basic shapes (rectangles, circles, polygons, etc.) to form the foundation of your elements.
Create a Shape: Select the shape tool (R for rectangle, O for circle, etc.) and draw a shape on your canvas.
Modify the Shape: Use the properties panel on the right to modify the width, height, border radius, and other attributes of your shape. This is essential for creating buttons, containers, and other UI elements.
Frames: Frames in Figma allow you to group elements together. Frames are the building blocks for almost everything you create in Figma, from buttons to complex components. To create a frame, simply press ‘F’ and draw a frame. You can add additional layers inside the frame to further customize your element.
Step 3: Customize Your Design Elements:
Once you’ve established the basic shape and structure of your design elements, you can start customizing them to align with your project’s aesthetic and functionality.
Adding Colors: Figma allows you to choose from a range of color options. You can use the color picker or define custom hex values to match your design system’s colors.
Shadows and Effects: Adding shadows or other effects to your elements can make them visually distinct and give them a sense of depth. To add shadows, simply navigate to the “Effects” section in the properties panel and apply the desired shadow effect.
Typography: Text is a crucial part of custom elements like buttons, navigation menus, and headers. In Figma, you can style text by adjusting the font, size, weight, and alignment. If you’re using a custom font, ensure it’s added to your file.
Step 4: Utilize Auto Layout for Responsive Design:
Auto Layout is one of Figma’s most powerful features for creating responsive custom design elements. It allows you to create flexible layouts that automatically adjust as content changes, making your design adaptable to different screen sizes and content variations.
To use Auto Layout:
1. Select a Frame or Group of elements you want to use Auto Layout with.
2. In the properties panel, click the ‘+’ icon next to Auto Layout to apply it.
3. Adjust the padding, spacing, and alignment options to fine-tune how elements respond when resized.
Auto Layout is especially useful for creating components like buttons, cards, and form elements that need to adapt to dynamic content.
Step 5: Creating Components and Variants:
One of the most powerful features of Figma is its ability to create reusable components. Components allow you to define a design element once and reuse it multiple times across your project. When you make a change to the master component, all instances of that component will update automatically, which helps maintain consistency and speeds up your workflow.
To create a component:
1. Choose the element or set of elements that you wish to convert into a component.
2. Right-click and select “Create Component” or use the shortcut Cmd/Ctrl + Alt + K.
If your design element needs to have different states (e.g., a button with normal, hover, and clicked states), you can use Variants. Variants allow you to group multiple versions of a component together, making it easier to manage and switch between different states of the same element.
To create Variants:
1. Select your component.
2. In the right panel, click the “Variants” section and then “Add Variant.”
3. Modify the properties of each variant (e.g., changing colors, text, or adding interactions).
Step 6: Adding Interactions and Prototyping:
While design elements in Figma are static by default, you can add interactivity to your custom elements through Figma’s prototyping features. This is especially important for interactive elements like buttons, dropdowns, or forms.
To add interactions:
1. Select the element you want to make interactive.
2. Navigate to the “Prototype” section in the panel on the right.
3. Drag a connection from your element to the target frame or element you want to link it to.
4. Define the trigger (e.g., On Click, On Hover) and the action (e.g., Navigate, Open Overlay).
By adding interactions to your custom design elements, you can create realistic prototypes that help stakeholders visualize how the final product will behave.
Step 7: Sharing and Collaborating:
One of Figma’s key strengths is collaboration. Once your custom design elements are created, you can share them with your team members or clients, gather feedback, and iterate. You can also store your custom design elements in a shared team library for easy access across multiple projects.
To share your design elements:
1. Hit the “Share” button found in the top-right corner of the interface.
2. Choose the sharing settings (view-only or edit access).
3. Share the link with team members or collaborators.
Conclusion:
Creating custom design elements in Figma is an essential skill for any designer. By mastering Figma’s powerful tools, like basic shapes, frames, Auto Layout, components, and variants, you can streamline your workflow, create unique and visually appealing designs, and maintain consistency across your project. Whether you’re working on a small website or a large-scale product, custom design elements will help you create a user interface that stands out, works seamlessly, and provides an engaging experience. With Figma’s intuitive interface and robust features, there are endless possibilities for designing the custom elements that suit your project’s needs. So, start experimenting, iterating, and creating, and bring your designs to life with Figma’s full potential!
Also Read: Typography Tips in Figma