Apparently I have a long-standing interest in the business of design tools. In 2018 I asked whether Adobe missed the boat by not acquiring Sketch; in early 2021 I noted with some melancholy that no one I knew was using InVision Studio; and in 2016 I celebrated going 30 days without Adobe as if I'd managed to survive without water for a month. (Note: the hiatus didn't last long). I was interviewed last week about the acquisition by a tech journalist familiar with my interest in design tools.
Anyway, in case you missed it, Adobe has agreed to purchase purported Adobe-killer Figma for $20 billion. (And this will surely be the 83rd article about the topic that you come across today.) Yes, the company that promised never to become Adobe is becoming Adobe. Or, maybe not. But if design Twitter is an accurate gauge of our industry (God help us if true), this is the most disruptive thing to happen to us since some troublemaker asked if designers should code. (No.)
I'm not one of those old-school designers who's going to minimize anyone's reactions about the acquisition. Sure, I had to walk uphill both ways with a Wacom tablet and a 75 lb. CRT under each arm to get to my first design studio, but progress is progress and no one should gloat when it feels like we're going backward. Figma was progress. Real, meaty progress.
There are many reasons to be concerned. Adobe is famous / infamous for aggravating designers. They launch promising design tools only to kill them off just when they're gaining momentum (ahem, Adobe Dimension anyone?). They seem to believe every moment is a marketing moment, even when you're just trying to get to your files. They have Tetris-like software bundling that seems designed for maximum frustration and wallet drainage. Their list of acquisitions (and subsequent heartbreaks) is quite a scroll. Then there's the crashing. Ah, the crashing.
Fortunately, Adobe has assuaged my fears with this inspiring press release, excerpted here:
Together, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design and inspire global communities of creators, designers and developers. The combined company will have a massive, fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders and the industry.
Woohoo! As a customer, I can't wait to see how these "newfound capabilities" "drive significant value" for me and my team! I mean, nothing says "we care about the design community" more than a company trying to capitalize on "massive, fast-growing market opportunities."
Like other (slightly) older designers, I have a long and complicated relationship with Adobe products, most notably Photoshop. There was a time not so long ago when there were no purpose-built interface design tools. Instead, we had Photoshop (and its short-lived and slightly more appropriate sibling, ImageReady). Not just Photoshop; many designers used Illustrator and In-Design, both also from Adobe, as off-label solutions to address the lack of bespoke UI design tools.
Using these tools for product design and UX work was a bit like cooking Thanksgiving dinner with a car engine: it works, but it's not a pleasant experience. Nonetheless, it's not an exaggeration to say the first 15 years of the Web grew up on sites designed in Photoshop. Point being, a talented designer can do good work with crummy tools. But they shouldn't have to. Sketch unlocked design potential Photoshop couldn't. Figma took it to the next level.
I remember a few years ago watching several designers collaborating in a single Figma file like a hive of bees. It was one of those moments when it hit me: everything has changed. The collaboration we'd always wanted was now a reality. And it happened because of a little startup with a vision. They made brash proclamations and some of us laughed; I admit to being skeptical the first time I heard Dylan Fields say he was going to unseat Adobe. And then it happened, bit by bit. At least in the product design space.
Figma feels open because it is open (mostly). Anyone can contribute to the community of plug-ins and add-ons. Anyone with a browser can collaborate on any file they're invited to. The constant improvements are small but meaningful. Even Figjam, which I was also skeptical about, has grown into a powerful complement to Figma. Whereas Invision spread itself thin with interesting products that never contributed meaningfully to their core offering, Figjam is clearly designed to enhance Figma's primary use case-product design. And, it's good enough as a stand-alone whiteboard product to give Miro a run for its money. Quite a feat.
This all happened because Figma kept a laser focus on what designers want and need most. The pricing is simple, and you never feel like you're about to be asked for a few more bucks just to get your job done. All of this stands in stark contrast to what Adobe is-or what it has become: closed, bloated, and commoditized. It's impossible to use an Adobe product-any Adobe product-and not feel Adobe's constant presence, like a salesperson who follows you around their store, seemingly helpful, ever watchful, and very annoying. And always, always ready to pounce with a sales pitch, should the opportunity arise. By contrast, Figma feels like an unsupervised playground where you can just dive into your creativity.
So, what do we make of all this? Adobe has said they plan to let Figma do its thing, but you know what they say about those who don't learn from history. Adobe didn't spend $20 billion for kicks. This was a strategic acquisition. XD never managed to unseat Figma, so now Figma is part of Adobe. My guess is they'll migrate XD users to Figma and kill XD. If this proves true, then Figma grows their user base with XD users who are migrated (kicking and screaming, no doubt) to Figma.
People feel betrayed by Figma, but business is business. Being part of Adobe creates "synergies" for Figma. (And if you vomited a little in your throat when you read that, I don't blame you.) Nonetheless, it's true. Adobe has long tentacles into the enterprise market, and enterprise markets like doing business with big companies that bundle their software. Economies of scale and all that. That's not going to make the indie designer working in her loft apartment get the warm and fuzzies. It doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies. But Figma is a business, not an artists' collective. To beat Adobe (their long-stated goal), they have to join Adobe, as paradoxical as that sounds.
By now, some of you are probably enraged at what you perceive to be my apologetics or dismissiveness. My words, however, aren't an apology, and I certainly don't mean to be dismissive. They're just the facts as I see them.
There's reason for hope in all this, however. Adobe was handed a stark lesson by Figma and the design community. They were unable to squash the persistent little gnat that was Figma. And then Figma grew from gnat into 500-foot-tall vampire bat and took control of a large and important market segment. In order to reclaim that segment, Adobe had to fork over $20 billion.
That's no easy pill to swallow, but it's not where the learning needs to end. If Adobe is smart, they won't consider this once and done, like many of their other acquisitions. They won't do a victory lap and then proceed to turn Figma into just another colorful square tile in their portfolio of apps. They have an opportunity to treat Figma like a research lab, to keep it as independent as possible, and to learn from it.
Adobe didn't get to where it is by accident. They did enough good stuff to justify their role as Goliath. But they did enough wrong to antagonize an entire generation of customers, of designers. It doesn't need to be this way, though. And that's where I find a shred of hope in all this.
Corporate acquisitions are notorious for deforming or destroying the acquired. But there are times, admittedly infrequent, when the acquiring company is changed at a cultural level by an acquisition. This usually happens when the acquiring company sees the acquisition not merely as a land grab or an opportunity to assassinate an opponent, but as a chance to revisit and revitalize their operating models and guiding principles.
If Adobe views this merely as an opportunity to grab customers and dominate a market, it won't end well for loyal Figma users. But if Adobe sees this as an opportunity to learn from Figma's success and spread some of that fairy dust throughout their org writ large, Adobe itself could be made better. All Adobe customers might benefit.
I'm not optimistic, but I'm willing to keep an open mind. What other choice do I have?¹ In any case, if Figma has shown us anything, it's that companies that don't listen to their customers can and often are pushed aside. Maybe some fearless team is working on a Figma killer right now.²
¹ Actually, Sketch is doing some pretty cool stuff these days. 🤔
² See, for example, Play. Not really a Figma killer, but a truly innovative way to approach product design.