Every founder has lived this: the Figma file looks premium, the shipped site looks like a rough translation of it. Spacing is off by feel, the type scale collapsed somewhere, and the interactions that sold the design never got built.
The root cause isn't lazy developers or unrealistic designers. It's that a static mockup under-specifies a living page, and someone has to fill the gaps — usually under deadline, usually without the taste context that produced the design.
Design with tokens, not eyeballs
My Figma files use the same scale the code will: a spacing scale, a type ramp built on clamp() values I've already tested in the browser, and color styles named exactly like the CSS variables they'll become. When --terra in Figma is --terra in globals.css, an entire class of drift disappears.
This sounds like discipline but it's actually laziness in the good sense — I never make a spacing decision twice.
Build the type system first
Before any layout, I set up the full typographic system in code and compare it against the design at three viewport widths. Typography carries 80% of a design's feel; if the serif is rendering with the right optical size and the clamp() curve matches the mockups, the page is already mostly right.
Then components get built from real content, never lorem ipsum — placeholder text hides every overflow bug you'll ship.
Motion is part of the design, not a garnish
Scroll reveals, hover states and page transitions get designed with the same intent as layouts. I prototype them directly in code with GSAP rather than in Figma, because easing curves only communicate at 60fps.
The test I use before shipping: open the live page and the Figma file side by side. If you can tell which is which within five seconds, the build isn't done.