What merge am I talking about?

Well, I’m talking about the merge of both Adobe and Figma.

This comes as great news to me! I even screamed “Woohoo!!” when I learned about it (and I’m glad my family isn’t home to hear me cheer loudly). Regardless, this is great news for me, users, and potentially the entire industry. I wouldn’t want one of my favorite design programs to be put into something other than Adobe’s Creative Cloud (where I already have many issues with working it, including pricing).

If you don’t know Adobe and Figma, let me give you some insight. Adobe is a creative design company dedicated to providing programs for designers. The most popular programs they provide is Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat (.pdf files), Premiere Pro, and more. Figma is a collaborative design program meant to make designing with teams easier. It’s mainly used for UX/UI design, websites, menus, products, and all that good stuff.

I (and so many other people) saw the merger as a bad one for a few reasons. Most of those reasons are because of Adobe as a company.

Read about the initial merger announcement here. Read about the abandonment here.

We dislike Adobe for these reasons

1. Adobe has the “Creative Cloud” program. You can’t use most of their programs without it
2. Adobe products/programs are expensive, including Creative Cloud services
3. Adobe has killed off products and programs when they purchase them
4. People want to escape Adobe products but they just keep coming
5. Adobe products/programs are bloated and may have bugs
6. Adobe is a Monopoly in the design industry

Let’s elaborate on the reasons provided. Adobe offers a program called Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s not all that good; you need pay a lot to access the programs they list. I’m also sure you must pay for the Creative Cloud program, not including the other programs in it. I mean, look at this, it looks terrible.

You can view some other guy getting angry in this other blog. It’s really funny to read!

Who knows what they would’ve done with Figma’s accessible modal? There was also a lot of concern about whether Figma would be put into the Creative Cloud and only accessible there. Some people use Figma to escape Adobe products precisely. Adobe DOMINATES the entire creative industry, so understanding them is pretty straightforward. It’s also important to note that if the merger did happen, it would’ve been a significant step back for the industry as innovation would be harder to come by (despite my belief that every product should do something awesome in the first place).

Conclusion

Overall, I’m happy this merger isn’t happening. It’s great for UX/UI designers everywhere and the entire industry. Ask anyone who uses Figma. I guarantee they’ll tell you this merger would’ve been wrong for them. I believe that Adobe would’ve ruined or maybe killed off Figma in due time, as with any other product they have purchased before. I’m not too fond of Adobe product workflow either (CTRL+V does NOT paste for some reason).

Always dunk on Adobe and find free alternatives. Avoid using their products in any way, seriously!