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p/figmaThe collaborative interface design tool
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Bryn Jackson

Figma 1.0 - The first interface design tool with real-time collaboration

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After nine months in closed beta, we’re stoked to open Figma up to everyone. We’re also excited to announce that our multiplayer functionality (the ability to collaborate on design files in realtime) is live.

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Paul Adams
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Looks awesome! Not sure it'll replace Fireworks for me though tbh.
Paul Adams
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This was obviously a joke for the record ;)
Dylan Field
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Maker
@padday I laughed out loud :)
Sho Kuwamoto
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Maker
@padday Hey man, I loved Fireworks! (still do!)
Reony T
@padday I didn't think so............ 😆
Bruce Vang
@padday I almost raged. Some people still think like this and won't move away from Fireworks.
Dylan Field
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Maker
Thanks for the hunt, Bryn ;) After nine months in closed beta, we’re stoked to open Figma up to everyone. We’re also excited to announce that our multiplayer functionality (the ability to collaborate on design files in realtime) is live. Throughout the closed beta, we’ve benefited from a ton of great user feedback. We improved our permission model, made it easier to create teams, added live device preview, built a native app and much, much more. Multiplayer has already changed the way our design team works… I’m so excited for everyone else to try it! If you have any questions, just reply — I'm around :)
jack rometty
@zoink any thoughts on social design? "github for design" is an interesting idea and i also lowkey think dribbble should be usurped. regardless, i'm excited for the future of design :)
Dylan Field
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Maker
@rometty_ So many! Building a community on top of Figma is something we're all really excited about. One feature we hope to develop is "public components" — the ability to share an asset and build your brand as a designer. If you license the asset appropriately, other community members could use it as well. Also super interesting to think about the implications of sharing live design files in the public sphere and the behaviors this could lead to. By the way, thanks for all your support over the past nine months, Jack. We really appreciate all your feedback — it truly made our product better :)
Mathias Elmose
@zoink 👏 "free for students". What about teachers?
jedmund
I've been using Figma for several months now to design some personal projects and its really outstanding. The product brings a lot of new ideas to the design tool space and its really great to see it evolve over time. I am very skeptical of tools in web browsers, and while it isn't perfect in this regard (I'm looking at you, Cmd+Z behavior), being able to use the app cross-platform, or have access on computers that aren't my own, is really, really nice. Now that the base product is mostly fleshed out, I'm really interested to see what they build next. More visual design features? Prototyping? Those are the more predictable paths, but even beyond those, there's a lot of untapped opportunity for design tools willing to take risks.
Matt
I have been using this tool at Treehouse for a few months now. As a full team we've heavily adopted it in the last few weeks. That is primarily the result of the multiplayer feature. It makes it incredibly easy and convenient to work on projects together. Previously we would all have to work in our respective tools, then use a screenshot or InVision to gather feedback. Multiplayer has allowed our designers to work out of the same file simultaneously and see each others work in real time. Feedback is immediate and we are able to move much faster. Glad to see they have rolled out more extensive documentation, looking forward to that growing.
Ryan Carter
I've been using Figma for a couple of months now almost exclusively both for work and for personal projects and it has been incredible. The learning curve coming from Sketch was pretty easy and the adoption at my workplace was very fast. Being able to collaborate in real time with developers and coworkers and make changes on the fly has been a big boost to productivity. Performance has also been pretty good for the most part, but the double whammy of Chrome + Figma does make my fans go into hyper mode.
Reony T
@rm_carter you could try using the Desktop app instead. I haven't look at performance stats using it instead of Chrome. Also, I'm curious how you're dealing with not having symbols? I have so many screens for my desktop web app design, and it just would be a huge pain to work with my designs with no symbols.
Matt Coleman
Big fan of Figma. It definitely feels like the future of digital design tools. Once I started using it, it always feels super frustrating when I've had to go back to use another tool for vector editing. All the features are great, but the brilliant vector tools and snapping make it worth the price of admission (which, I mean, is free for now). Very nice work, Figma team.
Josh Williams
I've been able to start a couple new projects — and started migrating a large existing project — with Figma recently, and I really appreciate the thought that is being given to the future management of product design systems. For example, Figma's Frame model is quite unique when compared with existing artboard-based design tools. Can someone from Figma discuss the background of how Frames and Constraints came about, and how they might be effectively put to use in more complex settings?
Ryan Kaplan
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Hi @jw! This is a great question. I'm going to answer a simpler question for now, which is "what is the grouping model in Figma". I'll post again later with how to use Groups and Constraints in complex settings, and some history of how we got here. Sorry for not answering your question directly (right now)! First, the basics: Groups let you combine layers so that they can be treated as a single layer. They are the only 'grouping' primitive in Figma. They're more powerful than Groups in other tools, and take the place of Artboards as well. How are they different than Groups in other tools? - You can make a Group resize to fit its content, or not - You can give a Group a background color, or not - You can make a Group clip its content (like an Artboard or Screen does) or not Having all these options on groups might sound complex, but we've tried our best to have common workflows 'do the right thing' so you don't have to think about these options every time you create a group. For example if you select a few layers and press cmd + G, we create a group around those layers. The group doesn't have a background and it resizes to fit its content. On the other hand if you choose the 'Group Tool' in the toolbar and drag a group out on the canvas, you get a group with a background that clips its content (like an Artboard). You mentioned Frames: a while ago Figma had two grouping primitives called Frames and Groups. We made Groups more powerful and got rid of Frames. More on this later! :-) Some other references that might be helpful for now: - The "Groups" section on https://help.figma.com - The "Constraints" section on https://help.figma.com
Reony T
Congrats everyone! Never saw a desktop version coming as well! 😮 🎉 Downloading it right now. Is it a web port? Or you're actually taking advantage of the hardware/software. I'm guessing payment plans are coming later? I also miss the old logo/favicon, but probably because it was just the original. 😆
Sam Anderson
@megaroeny Yeah I loved the old serif typeface
Birunthan Mohanathas
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Maker
@megaroeny Hey! Our webapp uses WebGL to take advantage of your graphics hardware. You can read about our efforts to optimize performance here: https://medium.com/figma-design/... Our desktop app is built on top of our webapp so it's very similar in that respect. The app already takes advantage of its extra privileges by allowing our webapp to e.g. access your local fonts and integrate with your OS menu. We're working on growing that list!
Reony T
@poiru very awesome thank you!! 👏🏼
Elizabeth
Okay, the product demo gifs legit floored me. The sheer velocity possible... Nice one, team @figmadesign @uberbryn @clairetbutler @zoink @evanwallace @rsms @skuwamoto @johanprag @farooqib
Claire Butler
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Maker
@elizabethhunker aw, thanks! sharing this with the team ❤️
Matthew Stephens
I'm excited for the new features, such as the updated pen tool and collaboration. I've used and help build similar in-browser apps before, like DeviantArt's Muro, so I'm well aware of what is possible and what isn't. We aren't quite there, in terms of sheer performance, but we are getting closer. Figma has positioned itself to be a big player once we reach that milestone.
Figma is the best! You guys have built an amazing tool that enables designers to do their best work. I'm excited to see this finally get out in the wild so everyone can experience the magic 🎩
Antonio Bustamante
Woah, woah, woah, wat. This is great. This is what Adobe should've done years ago but hasn't. I can understand how persisting enough semantics in a tool like Illustrator would be hard to achieve, but you don't always need a behemoth to sketch and/or wireframe. We have a few things to wireframe in the horizon, so I'll give it a spin and send you guys feedback.
Claire Butler
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Maker
@antonio_bustamante great! please, send it our way 🙌
Jonathan Widawski
Loving the landing, and the product is very well designed! Congrats on the launch, I'll be following your product & team 👊
Jordan Skole
This is really exciting to see. I loved my chromebook, but one of the reasons it ended up in a stack of books in the corner is because I needed my vector design client applications. Excited to give this a try!
Claire Butler
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Maker
@jordanskole Let us know what you think! We currently have quite a few users who mainly use Chromebooks - we're especially excited about the potential that has to increase accessibility of design tools to people like students.
Erik Torenberg
Congrats Dylan, Claire, and Team!!
Dylan Field
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Maker
@eriktorenberg Thanks, Erik!!
Claire Butler
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Maker
Dimo Trifonov
Sounds amazing but I feel so comfortable in Sketch. I wish they join forces with Bohemian.
Ouriel Ohayon
looks very nice. need commenting/chatting. no?
Claire Butler
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Maker
@ourielohayon We have commenting - click the last icon in the header of the file. We're interested to see if we hear more demand for chat now that Multiplayer is live. Definitely something we're thinking about.
Ouriel Ohayon
@clairetbutler good thinking then :)
Buck Wilson
Great product, great launch! Super impressed with the vector tools, I can't imagine how difficult working on a product with such a massive "MVP" is. Can y'all go into a little bit of detail as to why you chose the web as the platform for this, given that it ultimately launched with a wrapper? What are the advantages / disadvantages y'all came across? Congrats again on the launch and I look forward to seeing how it grows in the future.
Dylan Field
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Maker
@buckwilson Thanks, Buck! To answer your question, we initially picked the web because it forced our hand on making a truly collaborative design product. There are just a bunch of issues you don't have to solve (multiplayer, for example) if you go native first. Web first is harder, but super rewarding. Looking forward to your feedback as you use the product :)
Lin Lin
I hope it won't have performance problems like sketch, especially since sketch lags with only one person doing work and this have multiple people doing work on it at the same time.
Niv Dror
🔥🔥🔥