As a UX/UI designer, I’ve spent years deep in tools like Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.. My world revolved around pixels, spacing, typography, user journeys, and prototyping always with the understanding that someone else would take care of the code. That boundary was comforting. But curiosity (and a bit of necessity) led me to explore beyond it. I wanted to see how far I could go on my own. Could I not only design a landing page but also build it, bring it to life exactly how I envisioned it?
That’s when I was given the challenge to use Webflow. I had heard about it before, but it always seemed like "that tool developers might like.” Still, I decided to give it a try. What followed was a mixture of frustration, learning, and eventually, a massive sense of accomplishment.
This experience was both exciting and overwhelming, but ultimately, it opened up a whole new world for me as a designer.
Let me be real: the first time I opened Webflow, I felt like I had landed on another planet. It was like someone had taken all the familiar concepts from Figma and scrambled them into something completely new. Where were my layers? Why was everything so tied to something called "classes"? And what on earth was going on with all these panels and settings?
Naturally, I tried to take the easy way out. I searched for ways to export my designs from Figma to Webflow. I found a plugin that promised to do the job. I had high hopes, but... nope. It was messy. Things didn’t line up. Images were off, components broke, and the structure was unusable. The idea of a smooth transition from design to development turned out to be more of a fantasy. That’s when I realized I needed to stop looking for hacks and start learning the platform for what it is.
Instead of trying to force my designs into Webflow, I started by looking at what already worked inside the platform. I explored templates. I reverse-engineered them, clicking through elements, inspecting how sections were structured, how spacing was handled, how grids were built. It helped, but I was still just scratching the surface. But just poking around wasn’t enough. Once I committed to watching a few tutorials, things clicked into place. Suddenly, it all made more sense. I understood how classes worked, how to structure a layout properly, and soon... bam! I built my first landing page. It actually worked. I couldn’t believe it.
One of the biggest pros of using Webflow as a designer is the creative control. You don’t need to wait for a developer to translate your vision, you become the one who makes it real. That tight feedback loop between design and execution is powerful. It makes you think more holistically about the user experience, not just how things look, but how they behave.
Another huge win? Webflow forces you to design with structure in mind. You can’t just eyeball things like you sometimes do in design tools. You start considering hierarchy, layout systems, and interactions in a much more functional way.
But there are cons too, especially when you're just starting. Responsiveness was a big one for me. I assumed that once the desktop version looked good, the rest would follow. Oh, how wrong I was. The first time I checked my layout on mobile, I realized I had a lot to learn. Text was overflowing, images were misaligned, sections were cramped. It took several trial-and-error sessions to get things looking decent across breakpoints.
If there’s one takeaway from this experience, it’s this: stepping into the unknown is where growth happens. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. Yes, it’s frustrating. But it’s also incredibly fulfilling.
Webflow made me realize that development isn’t as out of reach as I once thought. I’m not a developer but now I understand the logic behind how the web works. And that knowledge has already made me a better designer. I think more about scalability, accessibility, and usability, not just aesthetics.
To any other designers out there who are curious about trying Webflow (or any new tool that seems outside your comfort zone): go for it. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to start. The skills you build along the way will change the way you design and maybe even the way you see yourself.
