figmaSep 8, 2025

The Anatomy of a Summer Campaign: How Instacart Staged a Sick ’90s Throwback | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Instacart’s “Summer Like It’s 1999” campaign used nostalgia to recreate the carefree feeling of a late-’90s summer. The campaign combined discounted retro snacks, a cohesive visual identity, immersive advertising, and a free Third Eye Blind concert. Its success depended on close collaboration across creative, marketing, CPG partners, and external agencies, with Figma serving as the shared source of truth. ## Recreating ’90s Nostalgia - Instacart reduced prices on nostalgic products such as Bagel Bites, Capri-Sun, and Otter Pops to their approximate 1999 prices. - The campaign culminated in a free Third Eye Blind concert in New York City. - Its visual language drew on: - Chunky typography - Bright, vivid colors - Fish-eye photography - Oversize clothing and other recognizable ’90s references - The team aimed to evoke nostalgia while keeping the work distinctly recognizable as Instacart. ## Building an All-in-One Creative Toolkit - Instacart’s in-house creative studio held daily meetings to align on: - Typography - Color palettes - Illustration - Photography - Logo and lockup treatments - Designers explored a wide range of ’90s references before reducing them to the essential elements that fit the brand. - The resulting toolkit documented the campaign’s colors, illustrations, typography, and other visual rules. - It became a living Figma file that internal teams, marketers, and external partners could use to create new assets. - The toolkit supported later campaign extensions, including a Venmo partnership and an advertisement inspired by the ’90s movie theater experience. ## Cross-Functional Collaboration - Creative, marketing, and CPG co-marketing teams worked together from the beginning rather than relying on formal handoffs. - Marketers had direct access to Figma, enabling frequent reviews, rapid changes, and visibility into work in progress. - The shared workspace helped maintain consistency across many campaign touchpoints, including: - The app icon - Splash pages - Television commercials - Billboards - Partner executions - The toolkit provided a flexible “north star” while allowing teams to remain expressive and adapt the campaign as new needs emerged. ## Developing a Detailed Photography Brief - The photography brief specified not only the products and scenes to capture, but also the precise visual treatment. - The team planned: - Low camera angles - Fish-eye effects - Idyllic outdoor locations - ’90s-inspired styling - Product placement required careful planning because the brief passed through multiple stakeholders. - Illustrations, typography, and textures were designed to layer over the photography, adding complexity and reinforcing a unified campaign style. Instacart’s campaign demonstrates how a strong, flexible design system can turn a broad creative idea into a coordinated, multi-channel experience. Establishing shared guidelines early—and keeping them accessible throughout production—helped the company move quickly without losing brand consistency.

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figmaNov 21, 2019

Humanity at work: Gusto brings a new brand to life with Figma | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Gusto used Figma to turn a brand refresh into a company-wide effort centered on the human experience of work. The collaboration brought marketing, brand, product, and non-design teams into the same workspace, helping them align on the new identity and apply it consistently across Gusto’s platform. Figma’s real-time collaboration, commenting, libraries, and components helped translate the brand into a scalable product system. ## Why Gusto Rebranded - Formerly ZenPayroll, Gusto serves more than 100,000 small businesses with payroll, benefits, and HR tools. - Although customers valued the product, Gusto felt its existing brand did not reflect the human way it served them. - The refresh aimed to unify brand awareness, product development, and customer experience. - Gusto viewed its brand as the sum of every user interaction, not something owned solely by marketing or brand design. ## Bringing the Whole Company Into the Process - A major challenge was aligning roughly 1,000 employees around the new brand. - Gusto chose Figma as a shared workspace where employees could: - See work develop in real time - Communicate and share ideas - Comment directly on designs - Take ownership of the rebrand - Figma also helped non-designers understand the design process and appreciate design decisions. ## Connecting Brand and Product Teams - Brand and product design teams worked as equal partners through brainstorming sessions and workshops. - They jointly developed: - Color palettes - Typography - Brand starter templates - Product applications of the new identity - In collaborative sessions such as “Refresca,” designers applied the new brand to different product areas together in Figma. - Early collaboration made it easier to carry the brand consistently through the entire product experience while highlighting meaningful moments in distinctive ways. ## Building a Scalable Design System - Gusto wanted a reliable “system of record” for how its products should look. - The product design team created a UI kit using Figma libraries and components. - The kit was based on the brand team’s guidelines and provided reusable foundations for multiple products. - This system helped designers work consistently and scale the new brand as Gusto grew. Gusto’s experience shows that a successful rebrand requires more than new visual guidelines. Shared tools and close collaboration can align an entire company, connect brand strategy to product design, and create a cohesive customer experience.

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figmaOct 14, 2019

Bringing new life to Figma’s brand | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s 2019 brand refresh expanded an existing visual language rather than replacing it. The process centered on collaboration, using research and Figma itself to create a brand that could feel both professional and playful. The result emphasized curiosity, vibrancy, honesty, boldness, and the imperfect process of making. ## Evolving an Existing Brand Language - Figma found that its original brand foundations were strong but had been created when the company was much smaller. - The refresh expanded the limited brand guide with additional rules for areas such as blog imagery and illustration. - Existing elements, including geometric shapes, were given new applications while remaining recognizable. - The goal was continuity: the new identity should feel like an extension of Figma’s original character. ## Defining Figma’s Personality - The team treated Figma as a person to clarify how the brand should behave and communicate. - Four personality traits became the main guideposts: - **Curious:** clever, playful, imaginative, and eager to explore. - **Vibrant:** dynamic, confident, energetic, and enthusiastic. - **Honest:** inclusive, empathetic, approachable, and willing to learn. - **Bold:** powerful, unexpected, nonconforming, and authentic. - These traits were intended to let the brand shift between consumer and enterprise audiences, and between reserved and playful expressions. ## Shapes That Represent Collaboration - Figma’s new illustrations use shapes as characters that interact, cooperate, disagree, or simply coexist. - Their positioning creates different compositions and communicates collaboration. - Illustrations vary in complexity: - Simple visuals support learning and clarity. - More abstract arrangements are used when the context allows greater expression. - Basic shapes can combine into complex images, making the construction process visible. - The illustrations deliberately show work in progress, including edited or manipulated elements, rather than presenting only polished final results. - This imperfect quality reflects the messy, evolving nature of design and encourages people to share how they make things. ## A Typeface with Hidden Character - Figma selected **Whyte** by Swiss type foundry Dinamo as its new brand typeface. - The team preferred Whyte’s **inktrap** version, which contains notches historically used in metal type to control pooled ink. - These details are subtle at small sizes but become visible when enlarged, giving the typography an illustrative quality. - The typeface supports Figma’s desired balance between conventional clarity and nonconforming personality. ## Refreshing Figma with Figma - The team created the entire refresh in Figma rather than relying on Photoshop or Illustrator. - Working in its own product challenged the designers to develop new workflows and creative techniques. - Collaboration was central, and Figma’s capabilities sometimes pushed ideas further than initially planned. - The tool became both the subject of the rebrand and the medium through which the new identity was developed. The refresh demonstrates how a growing company can strengthen its brand by extending existing principles, defining a clear personality, and making the creative process itself part of the identity.

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