Understanding Frames and Artboards in Figma

Key Concepts

In Figma, frames and artboards are foundational elements that help organize and structure your designs. Understanding these concepts is crucial for creating effective and scalable designs.

1. Frames

Frames in Figma are versatile containers that can hold various design elements such as shapes, text, and images. They are similar to layers in other design tools but offer more flexibility and functionality. Frames can be resized, nested, and transformed, making them ideal for creating responsive designs.

Think of a frame as a digital picture frame that can hold different types of artwork. You can change the size of the frame to fit different artworks, and you can also stack multiple frames on top of each other to create complex layouts.

2. Artboards

Artboards are specific types of frames that represent individual screens or pages in your design. They are typically used to define the boundaries of a single design view, such as a mobile screen or a web page. Artboards are essential for creating prototypes and ensuring that your designs are consistent across different screens.

Imagine an artboard as a canvas where you paint a single scene. Each canvas represents a different view or screen in your design. You can have multiple canvases side by side to represent different screens in a user interface.

Detailed Explanation

Frames

Frames are created using the frame tool in Figma. To create a frame, select the frame tool from the toolbar and draw a rectangle on the canvas. You can then add elements to the frame, such as shapes, text, and images. Frames can be resized by dragging their corners or edges. You can also nest frames within other frames to create more complex layouts.

For example, you might create a frame for a mobile screen and then nest smaller frames within it for buttons, text fields, and images. This allows you to organize your design elements and ensure that they scale correctly when the frame is resized.

Artboards

Artboards are created in a similar manner to frames, but they are specifically used to represent individual screens or pages. To create an artboard, select the artboard tool from the toolbar and draw a rectangle on the canvas. Figma provides preset artboard sizes for common devices, such as iPhones and iPads, which you can choose from to ensure consistency.

For instance, you might create an artboard for a mobile app's home screen and another for the settings screen. Each artboard represents a different view in your app, and you can link these artboards together to create interactive prototypes.

Examples and Analogies

Frames

Consider a website layout where you have a header, a main content area, and a footer. Each of these sections can be represented by a frame. The header frame might contain the logo and navigation links, the main content frame might contain text and images, and the footer frame might contain copyright information and social media icons. By using frames, you can easily rearrange these sections and ensure that they scale correctly across different screen sizes.

Artboards

Imagine designing a mobile app with multiple screens, such as a login screen, a home screen, and a settings screen. Each of these screens can be represented by an artboard. The login screen artboard might contain fields for username and password, the home screen artboard might contain a list of items, and the settings screen artboard might contain options for changing the app's settings. By using artboards, you can ensure that each screen is consistent and that you can easily navigate between them in your prototype.

By mastering the use of frames and artboards in Figma, you can create organized, scalable, and interactive designs that are easy to manage and collaborate on.