Musings on Figma & Sketch

(Note: this is my first non-satire/snide blog post, so forgive the relative lack of technical jargon and/or references. I will try to sprinkle some satire and/or snide in though.)

So after a lifetime (or several by graphic design standards) of working almost exclusively with Photoshop and Illustrator, I delved into both Sketch and Figma. I recently completed a UI design course with Flatiron School during which I was compelled to utilize Sketch for my first project. Figma was presented as a viable option in later phases of the program.

First the good news, if like me you’re transitioning from Adobe Creative Suite to more UI/UX specific software: the interfaces, quick keys, shortcuts etc. are still quite similar to what you’re used to. There are obvious differences of course, but if you have a background in Illustrator or even InDesign you’ll adapt quickly enough.

Honestly the only difficulty I faced was the requisite frustration/stumbling about phase involved any time you’re learning new software. Once I adapted to the different jargon — frames and components in Figma as opposed to symbols and artboards in Sketch — I found both interfaces relatively easy to use. Again there are some maddening quirks, such as Figma’s insistence on popping the color palette into the right center of the viewable screen. Sketch has a few head-scratching palette choices as well, but overall they are both quite intuitive, especially compared to the often byzantine menus in Photoshop or Illustrator.

So overall I would recommend giving either a spin, although I must admit I’m partial to Figma due to it’s built-in prototyping, which remains a glaring deficit in Sketch despite the recent introduction of several plug-ins to address this. I’ll have more musings on my transition in my next post.