The shape of design work in 2021

Two years into widespread remote work, Figma's year-end data reveals how the shift from physical to digital has reshaped not just where designers sit, but how they bring others into the process. The company's 2021 numbers, drawn from activity across Figma and FigJam, show collaboration moving earlier into the workflow and spanning far greater distances than before.

With 83% of Figma users based outside the U.S., nearly 14% of file collaboration now happens across continents—up from 8% at the beginning of 2020. Documented pairings include users in Madrid, Spain with Wellington, New Zealand, and Beijing, China with Buenos Aires, Argentina. Within the U.S., New York and California remain top collaboration hubs, while Washington and Texas are showing increased activity; globally, the U.S. and Russia lead, with India, Brazil, and Indonesia gaining ground.

Earlier invites, longer handoffs

Across shared files, a median of four people are invited to collaborate, and roughly 52% of users work with others on files. The largest non-designer groups joining those files are product managers and developers. That openness is happening sooner: the first collaborator views a file an average of ten days after creation, a marked shift from 2019, when the average was 19 days.

When a developer is part of a collaborative file—true for 40% of them—handoff activity starts about 33 days after the design is created and continues for 45 days after the first code inspection.

That extended handoff window suggests development conversations persist well past the final design edit.

FigJam as the front end

FigJam, launched in April, has become the starting point for many teams' workflows. About 15% of active FigJam users begin with a template, and brainstorming templates are the most popular category, followed by diagramming and meeting templates. The pattern suggests teams ideate and plan in FigJam before moving into a concrete interface in Figma.

FigJam is also where teams relocated some of the rituals lost in the shift away from physical offices: stand-ups, icebreakers, roadmapping, and retrospectives all show up in template usage. In-file expression leans positive too—the thumbs-up stamp leads among reactions, with heart and star close behind. The heart-eyes emoji is the most-used reaction; the sad face comes in last.

What gets built, and with what

In a sample of Figma files, one-third are product design work, while 12% are prototypes and 5% are slides. Beyond the default Roboto, the most-used fonts are Inter, Open Sans, and SF Pro Text; Montserrat, which topped the 2019 list, now sits at number four.

The most common color in Figma files is #109796, a teal close in spirit to the shade that led in 2019. The most-duplicated Community files for the year are the Material 2 Design Kit, the SALY 3D Illustration Pack, and the Figma iOS UI Kit.