Why connect Layer with Figma
Figma has become the default design tool for game studios that care about collaborative workflows. Game UI, marketing creative, pitch decks, and even concept art exploration happen on Figma canvases where entire teams can work simultaneously. The challenge is getting high-quality visual assets into Figma fast enough to keep pace with design iteration.
Layer solves this by providing on-demand AI asset generation that feeds directly into Figma workflows. Instead of waiting for an artist to produce every background, icon, or character concept, designers generate options in Layer and place them on canvas within minutes. The integration is file-based rather than plugin-based, which means it works with any Figma plan and does not require additional software installation.
For game artists collaborating with UI designers, this integration means concept art and in-game assets can be prototyped in the same environment where the UI is being designed. For marketing teams building ad creative, it means visual experimentation happens at the speed of design rather than the speed of production art.
Game UI prototyping with AI-generated assets
Game UI design in Figma typically moves through multiple stages: wireframes, low-fidelity mockups, high-fidelity designs, and final asset export. Layer accelerates the transition from low-fidelity to high-fidelity by generating polished visual assets that fill in placeholder content.
A practical workflow looks like this: a UI designer builds the layout and interaction flow in Figma using placeholder rectangles and basic shapes. When the structure is approved, they describe the visual style they want for each element in Layer. Backgrounds, button textures, icon sets, decorative frames, and character thumbnails are generated in minutes and placed into the Figma file. The team reviews the high-fidelity mockup, provides feedback, and the designer regenerates specific elements until the art direction is locked.
This approach is particularly valuable for indie game developers who may not have dedicated UI artists. Layer generates production-quality UI assets that can go directly from the Figma mockup into the game engine, eliminating an entire step in the pipeline.
For studios building games with extensive UI such as RPGs, strategy games, or social simulation titles, the ability to rapidly prototype different visual themes saves weeks of design exploration. Generate a fantasy theme, a sci-fi theme, and a minimalist theme for the same UI layout, present all three to stakeholders, and commit to one without wasting production art resources on directions that get rejected.
Marketing and UA creative production
Figma is increasingly where marketing creative gets designed before export to ad platforms. UA managers and creative strategists working in Figma benefit enormously from Layer's ability to generate visual variations at scale.
The standard workflow for performance marketing creative involves designing a template in Figma with defined areas for the hero image, background, text overlays, and call-to-action elements. With Layer, the team generates dozens of hero image variations, different character poses, various background environments, and multiple visual themes. Each variation gets placed into a copy of the Figma template, and the team exports final creatives for A/B testing across ad networks.
This pipeline collapses what used to be a multi-day process into hours. Instead of briefing an artist, waiting for concepts, requesting revisions, and receiving final files, the marketing team generates and iterates in the same session. A single growth lead can produce more creative variations in an afternoon with Layer than a traditional production pipeline delivers in a week.
Layer's resolution flexibility is critical here. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, and Apple Search Ads all have different aspect ratio and resolution requirements. Layer generates assets at any dimensions, so the marketing team can create correctly sized assets for every platform without cropping or stretching.
Design handoff to game engines
One of the most valuable aspects of using Figma and Layer together is the clean handoff to game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine. When UI assets are generated in Layer at production resolution and organized as Figma components, the export path to game engines is straightforward.
Figma's export capabilities let designers output individual assets as PNGs at 1x, 2x, and 3x scales, or as SVGs for resolution-independent elements. When these assets were generated by Layer at high resolution in the first place, the exports maintain excellent quality. Game developers receive assets that are ready to import into their engine without additional processing.
For studios using the Layer + Unity integration or the Layer + Unreal Engine integration, this creates a continuous pipeline: design in Figma with Layer-generated assets, hand off approved designs to development, and use the same Layer workspace to generate additional assets directly in the game engine for elements that were not part of the UI design phase.
Studio leads appreciate this workflow because it reduces the number of tools in the chain and keeps the visual source of truth in a single Layer workspace. Whether an asset was generated for a Figma mockup or directly for the game engine, it comes from the same AI models with the same style consistency.
Icon and asset set generation
Game projects require large sets of visually consistent assets: item icons, skill icons, achievement badges, character portraits, resource indicators, and more. Producing these sets manually is time-consuming and expensive. Layer generates themed sets that maintain visual coherence across dozens or hundreds of individual assets.
The Figma workflow for icon sets typically involves generating a batch of icons in Layer using consistent style prompts, exporting them as PNGs with transparency, importing them into Figma, and organizing them into a component library. Once they are Figma components, designers can use them across multiple frames and pages while maintaining a single source of truth.
For concept artists who need to explore many visual directions quickly, this workflow provides a rapid ideation tool. Generate 50 weapon icon concepts in Layer, bring them into Figma, arrange them on a review board, and let the team vote on directions. The speed of generation means the concept phase that used to take a week now takes a day.
SVG exports from Layer are particularly useful for icons that need to scale across different screen sizes. Import the SVG into Figma, and it remains fully editable as vector paths. Designers can adjust colors, stroke weights, and proportions to fine-tune each icon for the game's specific UI grid.
Collaborative review and annotation
Figma's real-time collaboration features make it an ideal environment for reviewing AI-generated assets. When assets generated by Layer are placed in a Figma file, the entire team can view, comment, and annotate them simultaneously.
Art directors and creative directors can leave precise feedback directly on the canvas, marking areas where the AI output needs adjustment. Designers then take that feedback back to Layer, refine their prompts or use inpainting to fix specific details, and update the Figma file. This review cycle is fast because both the generation tool and the review tool support rapid iteration.
A practical review setup involves creating a Figma page dedicated to Layer-generated options. Organize concepts in rows by category (characters, environments, UI elements) and columns by variation. Stakeholders add comments, use emoji reactions to vote on favorites, and the designer resolves comments as selections are finalized. This structured approach to AI asset review prevents the chaos that can happen when teams generate hundreds of options without an organized selection process.
Figma to production: export best practices
Getting the best results from the Layer and Figma pipeline requires attention to export settings and asset organization. Here are the practices that studios follow for clean production output.
When generating assets in Layer for Figma use, always generate at the highest resolution you will need. It is better to generate a 4096px asset and scale it down in Figma than to generate at 512px and need to upscale later. Layer's generation quality is highest at native resolution.
Organize Layer-generated assets in Figma using a consistent naming convention that matches your game engine's asset folder structure. If Unity expects UI/Icons/Weapon_Sword_01.png, name your Figma component the same way. This makes batch export and import seamless.
Use Figma's export presets to output assets at the exact specifications your game engine or ad platform requires. Set up presets for common formats: PNG at 1x for standard screens, PNG at 2x for retina, SVG for scalable elements, and JPEG for lightweight preview builds.
For Roblox experience developers working in Figma before moving to Roblox Studio, Layer-generated assets should be exported as PNGs at the decal resolution Roblox supports (1024x1024 maximum for decals). Generate at higher resolution in Layer, scale appropriately in Figma, and export at the target size.
By treating Figma as the design staging ground and Layer as the generation engine, studios build a workflow that is fast, collaborative, and produces assets ready for any downstream tool in the pipeline.