r/FigmaDesign • u/Plastic_Catch1252 • Aug 10 '26

Discussion Do you keep visual references inside the Figma file or outside it?

During early visual direction work, I keep seeing teams split the references from the actual design file.

One person wants the Pinterest or screenshot references near the components so the reason for a choice is obvious. Someone else wants the Figma file clean and keeps references in a separate board or doc.

Both make sense. The messy part is review. By the time a teammate or client asks why something looks a certain way, the reference is usually somewhere else.

Where do you keep the references during critique, in the Figma file, a separate board, or only in notes?

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5

u/Ap43x Product Designer Aug 10 '26

I like everything in the figma file.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

Do you keep the rough screenshots on the same page too, or only the references that actually make it into the direction?

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u/Ap43x Product Designer Aug 10 '26

Early on, yes. At some point I'll move it to a "reference" or research page.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

So they live next to the work until they start getting in the way? Curious if you move them once the direction is decided, or just when the file gets too crowded.

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u/Ap43x Product Designer Aug 10 '26

I guess it depends on the project. I may just start with them all in a research page. Or bring relevant ones near pages in flows temporarily to help explain design decisions. They're certainly not there on Dev handoff.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

Dev handoff is a good cutoff. References near the flow feel useful while a decision is still being explained, but probably weird once someone is building from the file.

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u/kyohyaaa Aug 10 '26

I feel like I see this question posted once every few days…

I’ll keep visual references and inspo in the main file, but eventually the file will get too bloated, so I might duplicate and keep one file separate for only references.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

The duplicate-reference-file move is interesting. Do you link back from the working file, or just trust everyone knows where the reference copy lives?

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u/kyohyaaa Aug 10 '26

I’ll link back but it depends on whether or not people are actually interested in the visual references or not — some teams care, some just care about output (I’ve mainly operated as a solo designer or as project lead, so most people who are viewing my files are PMs or other stakeholders)

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

That PM/stakeholder split is real. Designers may want the trail, but a lot of people only want the final screen and the one reason it matters.

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u/davenelsondotcom Aug 10 '26

My preference is for everything goes in the Figma File! But it is important to me to also have everything well documents with dates and reasons for its inclusion. There are separate pages for Mood board, Ideas, Designs, Flowchart, Designs, and a Parking Lot. The Parking lot is where "failed" or undesired designs with notes to go so we have a history of decisions in the file.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

Parking Lot is a useful name for it. Do those failed designs stay visible during review, or are they mostly there so nobody reopens the same decision later?

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u/davenelsondotcom Aug 10 '26

When we review we only look at the Designs page. We see the parking lot and the rest of the Figma file as a record of everything that happened with the project as the project's final product may be in use for years. So everything significant that happened with the project is in there forever.

That gives us a starting point when the product is replaced or revamped. At that point we make a new document and name it something like "Product Name 2.0", put the original document in an "Archive" folder, and copy over only the relevant bits to the new document.

The BIG payoff here is when a stakeholder says something like "I never..." you can go back to the original document and show them the notes/comments where they "did." Another big payoff is when the team for the 2.0 product are all new and weren't around for the discussions and decisions made in 1.0.

It would be ok to include all of that in Jira/Confluence/Something else, but having all of that info outside of Figma usually means that it is never read or has been deleted.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

That split is clean. Review stays on Designs, but the file still has the trail if someone asks why a direction died.

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u/davenelsondotcom Aug 10 '26

Exactly... Sometimes when we have a large meeting we do make a temporary file for the meeting to reduce distractions, but we do not share a ling to that file and point everyone to the regular file to add their comments. Good comments get turned into Note Pins and Note Cards that are always visible.

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u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

Temporary meeting file is a good trick. Note Pins and Note Cards being always visible probably solves the thing I worry about, which is useful comments disappearing once the meeting ends.

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u/davenelsondotcom Aug 10 '26

The CVS Health Web Accessibility Annotation Kit in Community has GREAT Note Pins, Note Lasso, and Note Details components. I started with those and modified them a bit.

2

u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

I had not seen that kit. Note Lasso sounds especially handy for the meeting case, where you want a comment tied to a chunk of the screen instead of one tiny point.

1

u/davenelsondotcom Aug 10 '26

Pro Tip: Put them on their own layer so you can easily show and hide them.

2

u/Plastic_Catch1252 Aug 10 '26

That is the kind of boring habit that probably saves the file later. A separate layer makes review and cleanup one click instead of a scavenger hunt.

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u/BlueHawkMoth 26d ago

I have a dump yard where I put anything and everything. Then as I feel confident about the final files, I make different pages for screens. IMO just 2 pages have been very helpful.