Why Figma’s acquisition is bad for designers
Figma took on a giant, now it’s part of their team.
On Thursday morning, Dylan Field, Co-founder and CEO of Figma announced that the company was acquired by software giant, Adobe. In his statement Field called the acquisition a “new collaboration.”
“There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space. For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology to the Figma platform.”
Missing from the official announcement was the price tag for the acquisition which TechCrunch reported at a cool $20 billion.
Figma started in 2011 with the aim of making creative tools for the browser. Joining the marketplace against Adobe XD, Invision Studio, Framer and Miro, Figma primarily targeted visual designers working on digital products.
The biggest point of difference between Figma and their competitors was the ability to work collaboratively within a file in the browser. Gone were the days of passing off files between the designers and other stakeholders. Figma made it easier (and fun) for teams to work together in real time.
Forbes described the company,
“As Google Docs did for word processing and GitHub for code, so Dylan Field’s Figma is doing for design. Employees at companies like Netflix, AirBNB, Zoom and Discord are all users.”
Part of Figma’s appeal, aside from the bright and bold branding, was that the company listened to the needs of designers and were quick to respond and implement solutions as they came up. From components, to design systems and animations, features were robust and ran quickly in a browser. Compared to competitors, Figma’s interface was streamlined and intuitive. It was a bare bones software with all of the essential tools that a designer needed. This was a welcomed contrast to Adobe programs which are notorious for feature bloat and unexpectedly quitting on users at random times. The reliability and responsiveness of Figma coupled with their many learning resources made it easy to adopt. Additionally, Figma’s Community feature made it easier for designers to see how others were using and pushing the tool. Community-generated plugins and templates made it easy to customize one’s workflow.
In a 2021 survey by UX Tools, Figma dominated a designer’s toolkit not only for UI design, but for other essential tasks like managing design systems and versioning.
A darling for new designers
Although Figma’s pricing model was confusing for enterprise users at times, Figma’s freemium plan was a welcome feature for designers wanting to learn about UI/UX design. Going beyond the 7-day trial or 30-day trials that competitors offered, Figma lowered the barrier (completely eliminated) for entry to UI/UX design by providing their product for free. This was a win for self-taught designers, students and anyone who did not want to shell out money for another monthly subscription.
Good for business, bad for designers
Perhaps the sale should come to no surprise, Field was an undergrad at Brown’s Computer Science program and dropped out of the program to join the Thiel Fellowship, which encourages young people to skip or “stop out” of college in order to pursue new and innovative ideas. Prior to Figma, Field dabbled in other ventures before setting his sights on competing with Adobe. Figma officially launched for consumer use in 2016. Adoption and growth was fast, bolstered by adoption by big tech.
Startups with small teams that grow rapidly often have growing pains to scale and expand their offerings. Steve Dennis wrote about five areas for improvements at Figma as they grew. The influx of resources and technology from Adobe can certainly aid in addressing some of growth areas.
Although certainly a large payout for investors, Figma’s acquisition is and will inevitably be bad for designers. The lack of competitors in design software allows Adobe to keep a monopoly on the market and frankly, allows it to get away with a subpar product.
Mitch Goldstein, Associate Professor of Design at RIT, pointed out how unreliable at times Adobe software can be in a tweet:
The lack of other viable options and wide adoption of Adobe products often leave designers having to accept the quirks of Adobe products.
When a competitor becomes a threat, eat it up
Part of what excited me about Figma entering the marketplace was the idea that Adobe would be forced to improve its product offerings. Competition inevitably breeds innovation and a race to the top can sometimes be good for consumers. But in the race for top dollars in tech, the easiest strategy is to gobble up the competition and either let them wither away into irrelevance or take core features for one’s own use.
Adobe has a similar product to Figma, called XD. Based on statements from Adobe, it is unclear whether they will continue to run and support XD and what features from Figma might eventually be integrated into it.
On the day of the acquisition announcement, Web Design Museum tweeted about Adobe’s purchase of Macromedia in 2005. All of the programs added to Adobe’s portfolio from the time are no longer in use. Because of this, it is understandable why some designers are dismayed by the acquisition — a tool finally comes along with improvements only to be bought out by competition. And if past behavior is any indication of future behaviors, designers have reasons to be concerned about Figma.
What’s next?
Designers use software tools every day. Finding new and improved ones only comes once every few years. From Field’s statement, Adobe has committed to keep Figma running autonomous of Adobe. But part of me wonders whether they will hold true to that.
Maybe this news will put some fire under other competitors wanting to improve on design software and capture a segment of the market desperately looking for alternatives. Maybe designers will start to create and fund their own tools, especially with the windfall Figma employees will get in the coming years. Maybe free/libre open source software (FLOSS) program adoption will increase.
Whatever the future holds, I’m hoping that designers can just finally get a tool that doesn’t quit on them.
