Implementing Dark Mode in Your Figma Design System

Build a seamless light/dark UI experience with scalable component logic

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🌙 Introduction

Dark mode is no longer a “nice-to-have”—it’s expected. From mobile apps to enterprise dashboards, users want the choice between light and dark themes. But implementing dark mode isn’t just about flipping colors. A robust Figma dark mode UI kit needs to handle variables, contrast, accessibility, and consistent structure across your entire system.

In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to integrate dark mode into your Figma design system, using best practices that scale.

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🔧 Why Use Variables for Dark Mode?

Before Figma introduced Variables, managing dark mode was a nightmare—duplicated styles, multiple files, messy overrides.

Now, with Variables, you can:

• Define all colors once for both modes
• Apply them via tokens (not hard-coded values)
• Switch themes dynamically

✅ Result: One system, multiple themes—no duplication.

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🧱 Step-by-Step: How to Implement Dark Mode in Figma

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1. Set Up Variable Collections for Light & Dark

• Go to Local Variables → Create two collections:
  
  • Color / Light
  • Color / Dark
• Inside each collection, define your base tokens:
  
  • --color-bg, --color-surface, --color-text-primary, etc.

🔁 Use the same token names for both collections. This allows you to toggle between modes seamlessly.

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2. Link Tokens to Your Design Components

• In your components (buttons, cards, modals), do not use Figma styles like “Gray-900”
• Instead, set fill/stroke/text color using variables, like --color-bg, --color-border

🎯 All components should pull from tokens—not raw values—so switching to dark mode just changes the source token.

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3. Use Color Primitives → Semantic Tokens

Organize your system into two token layers:

• Primitives: The raw values
  --gray-100, --blue-500
• Semantics: The use case
  --color-button-bg, --color-card-surface

This approach makes it easier to:

• Update themes
• Maintain naming consistency
• Avoid refactoring chaos later

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4. Adjust Shadows, Borders, and Effects

Dark mode isn’t just about colors—your shadows, dividers, and elevation need tuning too.

• Reduce blur size for shadows in dark mode (too much blur looks muddy)
• Switch subtle borders (#E5E7EB) to brighter tints (#2A2A2A) in dark
• Check contrast ratios for accessibility (WCAG AA at minimum)

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5. Create a Theme Switcher Frame for Testing

To test both modes quickly:

• Build a side-by-side frame with all your base components
• Apply Color / Light to one, Color / Dark to the other
• Toggle modes from the Variable collections panel

This helps catch visual bugs and alignment issues early.

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🧪 Bonus: Use Voit’s Ready-Made Light & Dark Themes

Setting up dark mode from scratch can be tedious. If you're looking for a design system that already has light/dark themes and over 550 variables implemented, Voit has you covered.

• Pre-built color variables
• Auto layout & scalable token naming
• 10,000+ components designed to adapt across themes
• All states (hover, active, disabled) supported in both modes

🎁 Explore Voit’s dark mode-ready system → [See Voit Pricing]

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🎨 Final Thoughts

Implementing dark mode in Figma isn’t about duplicating screens—it’s about scalable theming through smart structure and variables. With tokens, semantic naming, and careful testing, you can build a UI kit that adapts to any theme without extra effort.

Whether you’re just starting your design system or upgrading it for accessibility and modern UX, make dark mode part of your default—not a future afterthought.

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