Keeping Aspect Ratios in Figma

Figma doesn’t have a built-in feature to set constraints for frames to support specific aspect ratios like 4:3 or 16:9. But I found a way to get around this limitation.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Create two frames. The outer frame will be the image container, while the inner frame will be responsible for keeping the desired aspect ratio.
  2. Set the outer frame’s width to either fill or fixed and its height to hug.
  3. For the inner frame, set its width to fill and its height to 0, essentially making it invisible.
  4. Now, rotate the inner frame by a specific angle based on the aspect ratio you want.

You can calculate this angle using the formula:

angle = arctan(height/width)

For instance, if you’re aiming for a 4:3 aspect ratio, the calculation would be:

angle = arctan(3/4) = 36.87°

Here’s the table of aspect ratios and their corresponding angles:

Aspect Ratio Angle
1:1 45°
3:2 33.69°
4:3 36.87°
16:9 29.36°
2:3 56.31°
3:4 53.13°
9:16 60.64°

Why this works?

This is likely due to a bug (or perhaps a feature?) in Figma. The bug is that if you rotate a frame inside of an auto layout, its width will be set to the width of the outer container, even if it’s rotated.

Bug Example
The width of the inner frame stays the same even after rotation

Changing the width of the outer frame also alters the width of the inner frame, which changes the height of the inner frame, which in turn changes the height of the outer frame. The extent of these changes depends on the angle.

Mar 21, 2023 design