On September 15, 2022, Adobe announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma.

Designers were quick to spin up memes imagining what Figma might become, many rooted in the genuine frustrations from using Adobe products.

Frustrations with Adobe products

It’s pretty evident that designers are unhappy with this news. Many designers faced common problems using Adobe products, ranging from frequent app crashes resulting in hours of lost work to difficulty collaborating on a single file with other designers.

Figma solved these issues and offered even more value. Real-time collaboration and autosaving were just the tip of the iceberg.

Figma has raised the bar on how companies create and maintain their design system libraries and even how designs are handed off to developers. No more need for redlines with Figma’s Inspect panel (thank goodness).

Accessibility and pricing models

On top of all that, Figma offers a free version for companies and individuals who cannot afford or don’t have a need for the paid plans. This vastly increased accessibility to designers around the world by offering a tool that anyone could use to design and collaborate.

In contrast, Adobe is known for offering paid monthly subscriptions, which vastly restricts the number of people who can use their products without downloading a pirated version. Designers fear that this might be the inevitable future reality for Figma.

Worries for the future

It’s understandable that designers are worried that these frustrations might be brought back after Adobe takes full control of Figma.

But for now, this is all speculation. Who’s to say things will get worse?

Adobe already offers XD, a collaborative design and prototyping tool that has many similar features to Figma. A notable one is XD’s Content Aware Layout which can be used to make small adjustments to components like Figma’s Auto Layout.

Although designers seem to be fearing the worst for their beloved design tool, there is the possibility that the best features from Figma and XD roll into one.

But until anything happens, I will continue to use Figma as my main design tool and not worry about what tool I use until the time comes.

As a designer, one of our strengths is the ability to adapt to changing environments and iterate. Before using Figma, designers used tools like Sketch, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Figma isn’t the first and won’t be the last tool we experience in our design careers.

We can only hope that Adobe can understand why the global design community celebrates Figma as a unique collaboration and design tool.

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