Why Figma Gives Creators More Freedom, Not More Rules

Brands hire creators for their ideas, perspectives, and ability to connect with audiences. Then they hand them tightly controlled briefs and approval processes that leave little room for any of those qualities to influence the work.

At Figma, Director of Brand Marketing Yosub Kim has taken a different approach. In a conversation with Natalie Silverstein on Collectively Verified, he discusses how his team works with creators, why he favors open briefs, and what it takes to build a brand that people have the confidence to experiment with.

The Open Brief Advantage

Yosub's team gives creators room to develop ideas around their own experiences and interests rather than prescribing exactly what the finished content should look like.

One creator, for example, used FigJam to plan a gallery wall. She initially wondered whether the idea was too far outside what Figma had in mind. The team loved it.

It was an unexpected use of the product, presented in a way that felt natural to the creator rather than dictated by a marketing brief.

Creative Freedom Requires Brand Clarity

Natalie picks up on something that makes Figma's approach particularly interesting. The team can experiment because it has a strong understanding of the brand's identity and voice. People know what Figma stands for, which gives them more confidence to make creative decisions.

Yosub describes how that plays out in his leadership. He tells his team he'll defend their decisions if something goes wrong, provided they can defend the thinking behind the idea.

That expectation gives people ownership of their work while keeping them accountable for it. It also reduces the need for constant oversight.

For marketers, there's a useful distinction here. A clear brand strategy gives people direction. Controlling every execution limits what they can do with it.

Creators Are Collaborators, Not Distribution Channels

As creator marketing grows, Yosub sees a familiar pattern emerging. Brands risk treating creators the way they once treated social media: as a place to distribute campaigns developed elsewhere.

The brand establishes the message, makes the creative decisions, and brings in creators to deliver the finished idea to their audiences.

That approach overlooks much of what creators contribute. They understand their communities, know how to communicate with them, and bring experiences that can lead to ideas a brand team wouldn't have considered.

Figma's open-brief approach gives creators a role in developing the work, rather than limiting them to executing it.

It's a meaningful distinction for brands evaluating creator partnerships. The value of a collaboration depends partly on how much room the creator has to influence the outcome.

When Perfect Content Becomes Boring

Yosub also questions the assumption that highly polished content is necessarily more effective. Social audiences respond to personality, humor, and ideas that feel relevant to their lives. A perfectly executed video can still be boring.

His approach to AI reflects a similar concern. He sees its usefulness in removing tedious work from the creative process but is wary of publishing content without meaningful human thought behind it.

Both points come back to how marketing teams make creative decisions. More efficient production and tighter quality controls have their place, but neither guarantees that the finished work will be interesting.

What Figma's Approach Verifies

Figma offers a useful example of what creator collaboration can look like when the brand provides direction without prescribing every creative decision.

The gallery-wall example shows what an open brief can uncover. Yosub's leadership philosophy explains how his team maintains accountability, and Natalie's observation gets at what holds the approach together: a brand identity clear enough to support experimentation.

For creator marketers, the question is worth considering before the next brief goes out: Are you giving creators enough room to contribute something you haven't thought of yet?

Listen to Natalie Silverstein's full conversation with Yosub Kim, Director of Brand Marketing at Figma, on Collectively Verified, a creator marketing podcast from Collectively.

Episode 03: Why Breaking the Rules is Key to Creativity