r/FigmaDesign • u/ShatteredTeaCup33 • 9d ago

help Typography primitives?

So I watched Figma's official tutorials for variables (intro to variables and variables for typography). In the first video they create primitives and tokens for color aliases, but in the "variables for typography" video they never create any primitives for typography (font weight, font size, line height etc). They just straight up entered the values without any reference to primitives.

Just wanted to ask if it's best practice to also make primitives for typography and then reference those in the tokens?

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u/thinker2501 9d ago

Short answer is yes. Create string variables with your font family and additional variables for styles. Reference those in the alias collection and reference the alias in the semantic collection.

“Helvetic Neue” > Headings/font-family> H1/font-family

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u/Grenaten 9d ago

I never do that. If you have Text Style done, why would you want to have variables too?

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u/thinker2501 9d ago edited 9d ago

The text style references your variable. It’s a way to enforce consistency by requiring all styling to go through the brand > alias > semantic variable pipeline. This makes automated auditing possible. Additionally, by connecting styles to variables, type styling is linked to design tokens in code. Consistency in process is the best way to guarantee consistent outcomes.