Note: Figma Design is always improving and some visual details shown in our videos may differ from the current version. Despite visual differences, the core functionality remains unchanged.
What are libraries?
A library is a collection of assets—components, variables, and styles—that are shared with teammates to reuse in their designs. A library supports adherence to design system guidelines by acting as starting point for how assets should look and behave.
Note: Libraries are only available on paid plans. You can still create components, styles, and variables on the free Starter plan, but you can't publish them in a library to access them in other files.
Updates made to a library can be published to your team and pushed downstream to design files, which further supports consistency across designs and adherence to design system guidelines. Editors in that file can either accept or decline the updates. Anytime you publish a library, you have an option to include a description of changes so your team can review what has been updated before they accept the changes into their file.
Creating multiple libraries
It’s often a good idea to separate libraries from the files where you are iterating and designing. That way you have a definitive, clear ‘source of truth’ file, and not clutter it with too many pages of other designs.
Just as important is having separate libraries for different purposes. For example, you may have one library containing UI assets and tokens relevant to your product, and different library with assets for your brand that can be published for use by the marketing team to build deliverables in Figma Buzz.
Check your knowledge
Additional resources
Continue learning about libraries and design systems with these additional resources:
- Help Center article: Guide to libraries in Figma
- Video course: Introduction to design systems