02 Figma Forum · September 3, 2026

Small token improvements can unlock calmer systems

Figma’s new opacity controls let teams manage transparency through variables without detaching colours from their libraries.

Audit where opacity is currently hard-coded.

Look for disabled states, overlays, scrims, borders, and image treatments.

Separate colour from transparency.

Use colour variables for identity and number variables for behaviour.

Name states for humans, not just software.

“Overlay / muted / disabled” is more useful to a collaborator than an unexplained numeric value.

The Story

Figma has added variable-based opacity controls that can be applied across a system without detaching the underlying colour. The update covers common but historically fiddly cases such as overlays, disabled states, and scrims.

It is a modest feature with a meaningful consequence: fewer local exceptions. When transparency is treated as a system property rather than a manual adjustment, teams can change tone globally without quietly breaking the relationship between tokens and components.

For Studio Wensday, this is a reminder that polish often comes from making the unglamorous variables legible. A resilient identity is built as much from state logic as from headline moments.

Studio Wensday Angle

The best systems make subtle decisions easy to repeat.