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Figma's new Grid feature echoes Penpot's playbook

Published 11 July 2026 · Source dated 20 June 2025

Figma's Config 2025 event pushed Grid and layout tooling that echoes ideas Penpot's community has championed for years. The real trend is design systems converging around code-native layout and tokens.

Figma's Config 2025 event leaned hard into Grid, layout tooling, and AI features — and Penpot's own community reaction points out some of it echoes CSS Grid/Flex ideas Penpot has pushed for years. Whichever tool your studio budgets for, the real signal is that design systems are converging around code-native layout: grid and auto-layout that maps directly to CSS, not just visual guides. This is **adoption**: the underlying pattern (design tools speaking code's language) isn't new, but 2025 pushed it mainstream across both major players. If you're building a design system for a portfolio project, try expressing your grid and spacing as named tokens instead of eyeballed numbers — it's a small change that reads as more senior.

Coach

Take one component in your portfolio and rebuild its spacing/grid as named tokens instead of magic numbers.

Source: community.penpot.app ·