Why did Adobe buy Figma?
Introduction – Why did Adobe buy Figma?
The very purpose of Figma was to make designs accessible to all. In an earlier article, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Figma, and in this we will be talking about the recent major purchase made by Adobe. Adobe bought Figma on September 15th 2022, and both the softwares are likely to leverage the benefits of each other, and provide exceptional experience to designers.
Figma, the free and paid version of the designer tool is becoming increasingly popular among designers. Designers of all age groups, expertise, experience and background have tried and tested the software and are pretty pleased with the results. The acquisition benefits designers giving way to more innovative design projects.
The acquisition of Figma by Adobe
The Chairman and CEO of Adobe Shantanu Narayen mentioned in a statement that “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.” So the designers can probably expect several wonderful features and elements with this acquisition.
The main reason for this acquisition is that Adobe didn’t have a lot of things that Figma didn’t have. For example,
Figma had the multi-browser, real-time collaboration and Adobe Photoshop didn’t have that facility.
Figma was also noted for its prototyping capabilities that big brands like Microsoft, Salesforce, Airbnb, BP and Kimberly-Clark used, and Adobe didn’t have that as well.
With Figma the entire designer word changed from something that only individuals did to a world-class collaboration team. There was a change in the collaboration workflow platform because all these individual contributors were able to work together as one unit from anywhere in the world. With its modern streamlined design, Figma is a really good choice by designers.
How can you use Figma for your projects?
Figma was founded in 2012 by Evan Wallace and Dylan Field with the aim of providing real-time collaboration among designers. Because of this feature, and many others, Figma instantly developed a strong fan following consisting of designers, developers, including students.
As explained earlier, Figma is a very powerful design tool, so you can easily create anything with it – from websites to mobile applications, and plenty more.
Figma fulfilled what was missing in Adobe, one of the reasons for this acquisition.
Figma has excellent built-features that would be efficient for the front-end developers. They have access to the modern REST APIs to bring real data into your designs. You can either use a new plugin for better collaboration with your team or expand on the existing one to suit your requirements.
Adobe’s missing piece
Adobe did have a missing piece, and that was real time collaboration. Figma provides cloud-based capabilities facilitating real-time team collaboration. With the acquisition, Adobe XD is now complete, and had a game changing addition. Adobe has so far been providing cutting edge technology and innovation to its users, and with Figma, it has kept up the reputation.
Figma-Adobe collaboration benefits for developers
Designers absolutely love both the tools. And this collaboration is thus likely to bode well and change the world through excellent digital experiences, thanks to the launch of electronic documents, creative expression and modernised images.
Adobe has been really persistent with their goal, and their goal was to present the world with excellent digital experiences. They have released so many technologies and platforms that align with those lines. This was exactly achieved through Figma collaboration.
The Figma acquisition happened at a time when work was getting to a volume where the requirement of close coordination was really high. Especially with multi-functional remote teams and a growing number of stakeholders, this really is going to take project development to an all-time level.
However, Figma will continue to be the same, to be independent, and it will provide free usage. But the distribution of Adobe’s Creative Cloud technologies will make the creative process highly effective. Figma will also likely fill all the gaps Adobe had, thanks to the resources that are now available to them.
Developers can enjoy the AI depth of Adobe. Figma’s toolset will fare definitely much better with Sensei (Adobe’s AI), and it will also help the design team with other aspects that are not there in the design tool like Illustrator and Photoshop. Sensei though not a true Artificial Intelligence will help with several projects because it is built into Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro etc.
Let’s have a look at the benefits of the collaboration quickly:
- Collaborative product design
- Figma fills the gaps that Adobe had
- For developers this means real-time, full-features, browser-used collaboration
- Leverage Adobe’s AI and ML
- Leverage the ecosystem of big brands and customers
- Use of rich digital asset libraries
The pandemic helped as well
The pandemic did help even non-designers to enjoy the benefits offered by Figma. Several companies during the time decided to use Miro and Mural, white boarding tools, and some of them even used Figma. This trend caused Figma owners to come up with something known as FigJam. FigJam became hugely popular among several people, especially people of other professions, especially when they needed to draw diagrams. Adobe spotted this trend, and decided to jump in.
And the team collaboration feature was the feather in the cap, of course It was the team collaboration feature that really made Figma appealing to Adobe. Though Adobe decided to follow their own collaboration techniques, they realised that Figma was far ahead in the game, and only a collaboration would be the next best thing that would provide an awesome experience to Adobe.
Conclusion
Together, Adobe and Figma will now make design accessible to everyone, facilitating productivity and creativity. The world is quickly transitioning from physical to digital, and quite soon, it would be complete. However Adobe claims that the Figma pricing plan will remain the same. This is also the same Adobe that sells its Creative Cloud subscription package at $82.49 per month. Since Adobe bought Figma at a whopping $20 billion, that remains to be seen.
Interesting Links:
How to use Figma for your next project?
Pictures: Canva
The author: Sascha Thattil works at Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.
Leave a Reply