From Figma to Webflow: Beyond Design Limitations

Figma is a popular vector graphics editor that makes the collaborative design process easy and convenient. What makes it stand out from the competition, such as Sketch and Adobe XD is that it’s available as a browser-based tool.

However useful, Figma falls short in a couple of aspects. For example, needing an active Internet connection for using all of Figma’s features is generally considered one of its major downsides.

Figma’s shortcomings are complemented by using another web design tool, and Webflow is a perfect match. Many designers find the combination useful, as Webflow allows them to make an actual website from their design without needing too much technical knowledge. In fact, Webflow is a great tool for all designers who want to step into web development.

In the following article, we’ll examine the entire process of exploring a project from Figma to Webflow. Moreover, we’ll explain how to start building sites in Webflow if you worked in Figma previously. Read on. 

Designing with Figma

The Figma design process is super-easy if you know all its features and how to use them for both static and dynamic design.

The popular tool boasts several exciting features, including (but not limited to):

• The auto layout feature lets you create designs that adjust to changing contents by growing, shrinking, and reflowing.
• Component creation lets you create elements and components that can be reused in other designs. 
• Support for OpenType, which makes adding and managing fonts flexible.

Many designers avoid Figma for prototyping despite allowing great design, as it doesn’t consistently deliver the desired results. That’s why they usually search for alternatives, and Webflow offers just that.

If you started a project in Figma, you need to apply your Figma design by following the steps below.

1. Starting a New Project in Webflow

Before you embark on your Webflow journey, it’s imperative to become a registered member on the site.

After filling in the registration form, log in to your account and select New Project in the upper right corner. You should create a folder that will be used just for the new Webflow project.

2. Defining Your Style Guide

Each website design requires a style guide, which you can quickly set up. You can think of style guides as reference sources for designing and developing a site. In a way, all design decisions are prepared in the style guide, including headings, text, font, icons, imagery, and more.

Ideally, your style guide should be set up in Figma. In that case, it’s necessary to create a page on Webflow where you’ll define global styles which will be applied throughout the website. Use the Inspect option in Figma to read about the values and add them to your style guide in Webflow. 

The best thing about preparing a style guide is that you can do it even if you haven’t done it in Figma, but it’s always better to have it prepared upfront to speed up the process.

If you’re using a Webflow template, you can still use another style guide on top of that.

3. Define Global Spacings

Defining a global style guide is just the beginning. After that, you need to make sure that all elements on your Webflow website are in place. You can speed up the entire process by defining global spacings, such as margins and paddings. These should follow the design on Figma and further streamline the process of transferring your Figma Design to Webflow.

4. Adding Custom Colors

After adding colors to your design, you’ll have to make them global as well. If you aim to use more colors, it’s a good idea to create a color-block div. By doing that, it’s possible to create a swatch for it and make it global, allowing the div to be changed to another color.

As you can see, part of the Figma to Webflow process is setting up everything properly. Take a look at how we prepare Figma files for developers, as explained by Uros, our CEO.

5. Developing the Webflow Site with the Design from Figma

Once everything is set up in Webflow, it’s time to start applying the Figma design in Webflow.

The Webflow professionals need to analyze the elements from Figma carefully, relying on the Inspect tab to learn more about the properties of elements in the design. If the base style guide, spacings, and colors are defined, made global, and done correctly, creating the actual website pages on Webflow shouldn’t be too much of a trouble.

7. Styling Your Content

As an alternative to naming the class All H3 Subheadings, it is possible to name it All H3 Subheadings and Blue Text. There are options for positioning, sizing, and color, and these can be changed for each set of pages.

8. Creating Interactions

Interactions are the key part that makes Webflow better than Figma. Namely, when creating a prototype in Figma, it’s completely flat, so rich interactions are impossible to be translated to the web with tools such as Webflow. Therefore, it’s necessary to make interactions separately in Webflow. It's possible to define interactions per class or to design interactions involving multiple elements.

9. Publishing & Tweaking

After the export is finished and everything is prepared, it’s time to publish your design and make it live. Please remember that testing the newly published project is essential, so loading it on different devices, such as mobile phones, is important. That way, you’ll notice whether the design flow and business logic are consistent regardless of the device.

Get started with Your Figma to Webflow Creation:

Exporting Figma to Webflow may seem easy on paper. It’s actually a bit more complex in reality, and it takes a professional to take everything into account during the process and ensure that the export is successful. If you have a Figma project you wish to see on Webflow, feel free to get in touch with Flow Ninja.

Why Choose Webflow?

Webflow has already proved one of the most powerful tools for building websites, and here’s why.

• 3.5 million designers worldwide already use it for creating, collaborating, and scaling websites.
• Although it allows code, it’s actually a no-code platform, meaning you can build powerful experiences without knowing how to code.
• It eliminates the need for the dev team, meaning designers and marketers can facilitate the creation and maintenance of the site.
• The platform writes clean code as you use the drag-and-drop interface, meaning you’ll also have your site completely written in code.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to apply Figma to Webflow?

It’s easy: open a Webflow account and follow the instructions from this short guide to prepare everything up and export your Figma project to Webflow.

Is it difficult to apply your Figma design in Webflow?

The entire process could be easy if your Figma design comes with a prepared style guide that Webflow developers need to apply to the Webflow page. However, if the Figma design is poor and needs to be addressed, applying Figma to Webflow could take a while.

Why is Webflow better than Figma?

Strictly speaking, Webflow is a website development tool, while Figma is only aimed at design. Therefore, when your design is used in Webflow, you can make a website preview with all of its states and check how responsive it really is.