I went to Framework by Figma, with notes from the first-half sessions

On April 23, an event called Framework by Figma was held at Jiji Press Hall in Ginza, Tokyo. There were many sessions about Figma features that seem useful for building design systems, so I will look back at the first half with my notes from the day.

Figma has long had mechanisms for managing design elements in common. Representative examples are styles and components. These were built into the product with names that are fairly common, but for example, "variants," which appeared a little later, felt to me like a term that came quite strongly from programming.

In English-speaking contexts, "variant" has recently been used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but in the Japanese version it was translated as "mutant" or "variant entity," so I think the word "variant" itself was not especially familiar.

In addition, the variables that were heavily promoted at this event also felt like a feature with programming roots.

The word variables gives the impression of a collection of variables. In practice, variables can be used to create setting values for variables you define yourself. If compared to Tailwind CSS, they might be positioned like a collection of custom configuration values loaded into tailwind.config.js. In any case, you can set many different things into collections of variables and reuse them. Of course, even without variables, similar reuse can be achieved to some extent by applying styles.

Before the venue opened, I talked with acquaintances about how Figma has become complex. Personally, I do not think it is as complex as current Unity or late-era Flash, but it has still become far more complex than XD. I also do not think complexity is inherently good.

That said, a company with the technical ability to create Figma could surely have made it much more programmable, so I get the sense that these updates were added with considerable care.

I personally use it most often as a modern Fireworks, so even if new features increase, there will probably be many cases where I do not use them. Still, I want to keep using it enough to let future updates pass through my body.

I will include only my notes from the first half of the day. I do not know who notes like this help, but information sometimes proves useful in unexpected places.