The company talked to Creative Bloq about the sale.
The announcement of Adobe’s acquisition of web design platform Figma made waves among the design community this year, with some designers concerned at how the platform might be transformed. At this year’s Adobe MAX conference in LA, Adobe shared some new details on the merge, and told Creative Bloq about some of the thinking behind the acquisition.
During the opening Keynote, Adobe’s CPOScott Belsky invited Figma Founder Dylan Fieldto briefly discuss the new relationship, with Fieldannouncing that the first tangible change to Figma will be the much-requested addition of Adobe Fonts. (Check out the best free fonts if you’re looking for typographical inspiration.)
Adobe CPO Scott Belsky talks to Figma founder Dylan Field at Adobe MAX (Image credit: Future)
Field also described how joining forces with Adobe will help the platform “build way more, faster,” and how Adobe’s expertise in areas like vector and video will help add lots more functionality to the web-based browser. Belsky added that while both brands are committed to making digital product design accessible to everyone, Figma will “retain autonomy.”
While Belksy didn’t commit on some of the more pressing concerns among the creative community such as pricing, he explained to Creative Bloq how and why Adobe plans to keep Figma autonomous. “Figma is a massively fast-growing business,” he said. “One of the best things we can do is say ‘hey can we help you reach more customers’. Instead of forcing integrations, we want to focus on what the community wants. Dylan told me that the number 1 thing people want is Adobe fonts. So we’re starting there, and we’ll see where the customers take us.”
Figma was a big topic at Adobe MAX 2022 (Image credit: Adobe)
Belsky also stressed the success of previous Adobe acquisitions. “Behance has not only benefitted its community after its acquisition, but it’s also a better product – and it’s grown from 1M to over 31M users. Same with Substance – the power, precision, reach and revenue is well beyond what it was when we acquired the team.”
Adobe Fonts will bring over 20,000 typefaces to Figma (Image credit: Adobe)
Time will tell exactly how much Figma will change under Adobe – and crucially whether users will be forced into Creative Cloud's subscription pricing. In the meantime, if you want to get to know the tool, check out our Figma review. And speaking of creatives' concerns, Adobe also dedicated a lot of time at MAX 2022 to addressing worries surrounding the rise of AI-generated art.
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Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles.
