Streamlining Design System Management: Top Figma Plugins and Integrations

Documentation Made Easy

Effective design system management starts with good documentation. The following tools can help you create and maintain documentation for your design system.

• zeroheight: A design system documentation tool that seamlessly integrates with Figma. With zeroheight, you can document your design system without the hassle of manually copying links or updating styles.

  
  # Example of zeroheight documentation
  ## Typography
  
  * Font family: Open Sans
  * Font sizes: 12px, 14px, 18px
      

• Storybook: A popular tool for developer-friendly documentation. Storybook allows you to create interactive stories and embed them into your design system documentation.

  
  // Example of a Storybook story
  import React from 'react';
  
  export default {
    title: 'Buttons',
    component: Button,
  };
  
  export const Primary = () => Primary;
      

Design System Management Powerhouses

The following tools can help you manage your design system more effectively.

• Supernova: A robust design system management solution that offers seamless integration with Figma. Supernova’s standout feature is its ability to automatically convert design system styles and components to code.

  
  /* Example of Supernova-generated CSS */
  .button {
    background-color: #333;
    color: #fff;
    padding: 10px 20px;
  }
      

• Tokens Studio: A tool that helps product teams convert common styles into design tokens. Tokens Studio integrates with Figma and allows you to reuse design tokens throughout your design system.

  
  // Example of design tokens in JSON format
  {
    "colors": {
      "primary": "#333",
      "secondary": "#666"
    },
    "typography": {
      "fontFamily": "Open Sans",
      "fontSize": 14
    }
  }
      

Productivity Boosters

The following Figma plugins can help boost your productivity when working on your design system.

• Sticky Notes: A Figma plugin that allows you to add sticky notes to your design system. While not a replacement for dedicated documentation tools, Sticky Notes can be a useful addition to your workflow.
• Styler: A plugin that makes it easy to organize your designs in Figma. Styler offers features like style extraction, generation, and application.
• Rename It: A plugin that streamlines the process of renaming layers in your design system. Rename It offers intelligent renaming options to save you time.
• Similayer: A plugin that helps you select layers based on specific properties. Similayer is useful for tasks like selecting multiple layers or identifying layers that need styles applied.

The Future of Design System Management

As design systems continue to mature, we can expect to see more innovative solutions emerge. Figma’s recent introduction of widgets, which are essentially plugins accessible to anyone with access to the Figma file, is an exciting development. We’re eager to see more design system-specific widgets and plugins in the future.