I always thought Figma was only for designing apps and websites, so I ignored it for a long time. Instead, I relied on Photoshop for visual design work, which served me just fine, but it felt like overkill for the simple creatives I wanted to build.

It wasn’t until I was tasked with building marketing media for a trekking company that someone recommended I create it in Figma, and, as it turned out, it was exactly the program I should have been using all along.

My first project wasn’t an app or website

Building a simple social media ad made me start thinking about layouts

I was first asked to create an ad for a friend’s Instagram campaign, advertising his trekking company, complete with typography, gradients, icons, and contact information. What at first felt daunting fell together remarkably quickly, and even someone with basic skills like me found it intuitive and, dare I say, fun to use.

What impressed me most was how easy it was to align elements. Smart guides appeared automatically, each element was highlighted when properly aligned, and moving objects around never felt frustrating like it can in other publishing software. Instead of manually nudging text boxes pixel by pixel, Figma snaps everything into the right spacing, encouraging consistency without me having to think about it.

Once I had completed the ad (with satisfying results for a first attempt), I turned various elements into reusable components. That meant I could duplicate the design into different sizes without rebuilding everything from scratch.

Creating a brochure was simplicity itself

My next task was far more ambitious, but also enjoyable

Based on the success of my flyer, I was next asked to create a trade brochure for advertising the company to international travel agencies. This felt a lot more daunting than a simple Instagram flyer, but I said I’d give it a go.

Before long, I created a template with dummy copy, design elements, a color palette, and space for images. By the time I had sourced dramatic Andean images for various activities and destinations, I felt halfway there. Within a couple of hours, the brochure had started to take shape.

Everything worked better than I expected. When I changed headlines or replaced shorter paragraphs with longer ones, the surrounding elements adjusted automatically instead of overlapping. Images stayed aligned, spacing remained consistent, and I spent far less time fixing layouts than I expected.

The Pages panel makes multi-page projects feel organized. Instead of juggling dozens of separate files, everything lives in one workspace where it’s easy to duplicate, rename, and rearrange pages. For a project like this with multiple pages, this saved considerable time and energy.

The free version goes further than I expected

Figma became my replacement for several creative apps

I wrongly assumed that Figma would require an expensive subscription. As it turned out, for individual projects, the free plan is sufficient to create glossy marketing materials, export high-resolution PNGs, and even produce print-ready PDFs. Unless you’re working with a large team, I’d say it’s entirely possible to use Figma without paying anything.

Since that first flyer and brochure, I’ve used Figma for everything from presentation slides and PDF guides to website banners and simple social media campaigns. The ability to work with vectors, images, text, and reusable styles inside one project makes it feel more like a creative workspace, with the added benefit of being very user-friendly.

For UI design involving layout, typography, color, and visual hierarchy, Figma ticks most boxes, and the same principles apply whether you’re designing an app, a concert flyer, a travel brochure, or a restaurant menu.

Where Figma still falls short

While it does many things very well, Figma still has its limitations

After building the Andes Adventure brochure, I came away impressed by Figma’s abilities, but I also realized it fell short at times compared with dedicated creative software.

The biggest limitation is in photo editing. While Figma lets you crop, mask, and apply basic image adjustments, it’s nowhere near Photoshop for retouching, removing objects, color grading, or working with complex selections. Additionally, Figma is built around RGB digital design, so it falls short of CMYK-supported publishing software for creating professional, print-ready materials.

That said, for most brochures, social media graphics, presentations, and marketing assets I create, those limitations seldom outweigh Figma’s speed, simplicity, and convenience.

There’s much more to Figma than I first expected

Figma may not be a one-size-fits-all solution, but for me it covers most bases. The combination of intuitive layouts, reusable components, Auto Layout, and easy page management makes it just as comfortable to create marketing materials as digital interfaces. For anyone looking to design professional-looking creatives for online publication and marketing without first learning professional software, I’d recommend Figma without hesitation.