Figma in the United States has blocked the accounts of sanctioned Chinese companies such as DJI. Is there no domestic alternative?

On March 12, the news that "Figma will suspend the accounts of companies sanctioned by the United States" spread in the domestic design circle.

Subsequently, this rumor was confirmed by many companies in the industry. “Unless the United States lifts sanctions, all files of these companies on Figma will be inaccessible. This matter has now affected some domestic Internet companies and Designer."

Figma is an online user interface (UI) design collaboration tool developed by an American company. The demand for online collaboration brought about by the epidemic has caused its user base to skyrocket. Figma's current valuation has reached tens of billions. Dollar. Since Figma entered China, it has also been trusted by designers, and many designers have transferred to Figma from other platforms.

Like all items restricted for export by the United States, Figma’s suspension of the sanctioned company’s account has once again drawn attention to import substitution.

What is gratifying is that after the news of Figma’s account suspension came out, domestic teams including Instant Design, MasterGo and other teams known as “China Figma” announced that they can import Figma files and support importing. The final editing function will help domestic companies tide over the difficulties.

Observer.com contacted Instant Design about this matter, but the other party expressed that it was inconvenient to accept an interview.

A netizen certified as a designer posted on Weibo

The DJI account will be suspended. What is Figma?

The news that Figma blocked the accounts of the so-called sanctioned companies was originally related to the drone company DJI.

On March 12, an internal email sent by Figma to DJI circulated on the Internet. It reads:

"We understand that DJI is named on the U.S. sanctions list. Therefore, according to U.S. law, Figma can no longer provide you with access to our software, and we have begun freezing your Figma account. We will make your files available to you via email or other means within the next two weeks. Additionally, we will not delete your files. If DJI is ultimately removed from the sanctioned party list, your access may It will be restored."

An internal email sent by Figma to DJI was reported online

Later, some netizens asked DJI for verification, and later said that the news was true. In the eyes of some netizens, this email from Figma expresses three layers of information: 1. I must abide by the laws of my country and cannot refuse tasks given by the US government; 2. The files will be returned to you and you can create a private account, which is still the same. Use (but don’t say you are from DJI); 3. Your file account will not be deleted, and the account can be unblocked after the sanctions are lifted.

Weibo screenshot

Functionally speaking, Figma is an online design tool. If you know something about UI design work, you can use it It is understood as a Sketch that can be used on the web page; if you don’t know UI design, you can simply understand it as a PS (Photoshop) that can be used on the web page.

Source: Figma official website

Before the emergence of Figma, there had been a critical iteration of designers’ productivity tools.

Since Adobe released Photoshop in 1990, it has dominated the field of design tools for more than 20 years through PS and Ai (Adobe Illustrator), and it still occupies an important market share in the design field. However, although PS and Ai are rich in functions, it is difficult for novices to get started. Moreover, the two tools have shortcomings in Internet UI design. For example, in the early days, PS only supported a single artboard, while Internet product development often involved the design of multiple pages, requiring a large number of files to be saved for transmission and collaboration, resulting in large design files and low transmission efficiency.

Change occurred in 2010, when a design tool "Sketch" known for its lightweight and simplicity was released. This tool was developed for Apple OS X systems by Pieter Omvlee, a computer science major at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Shortly after its launch, Sketch attracted a group of designers with its minimalist interface and UI design functions. At that time, some people described it as "PS and AI are Swiss Army knives, and Sketch is a scalpel." However, because Sketch insists on only working on Mac OS systems, Adobe still maintains a certain market in the Windows field, and Adobe has also stabilized its position in the UI design field through the release of XD software.

Source: Sketch

The competition between the two parties laid the foundation for the latecomers.

In 2012, 20-year-old Dylan Field dropped out of Brown University in the United States and started a business with alumnus Evan Wallace with a scholarship of US$100,000. The two studied drone software, emoticon generators, etc. In 2013, after studying Adobe's photo editing application, Dylan Field designed a tool that allows users to edit pictures and designs directly in a web browser, and won investors such as then-LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. seed round investment of US$4 million.

Dylan Field Source: Business Insider

In 2016, when this online design collaboration software called Figma was officially released, some designers realized So, Figma is a “Sketch that can run in the browser”. This will break the limitation that Sketch can only be used on Mac OS systems. After all, not everyone can use a Mac, and designers using Windows computers also need better productivity tools.

UX Tools, a website that focuses on design tools, releases a list of the most popular tools for designers every year. They will select the best tools in 8 categories. In 2016, when Figma was first launched, Sketch had just surpassed PS to become the most popular design tool on this list. But in 2020, Figma ranked first in 6 and second in 8 categories.

From a functional point of view, Figma’s online editing function can realize collaboration between different system devices. Other advantages include open source design templates and design specifications, real-time synchronous collaboration between design teams, and It is then necessary to repeatedly render and export files. Some industry media have commented that if Sketch surpassing PS is a tool revolution of small and large, then Figma surpassing Sketch is a SaaS (software as a service, providing software services through the Internet) cloud tools replacing traditional tools. International crushing.

In 2020, the number of Figma users has more than quadrupled and now reaches millions. A large part of this is due to the work-from-home situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. Online real-time collaboration design tools have become an important part of the production and research team. The urgent need. "Forbes" reported that in June 2021, Figma completed US$200 million in financing and its valuation has reached US$10 billion. The company's revenue in 2021 is expected to more than double the US$75 million in 2020.

China’s challengers are emerging in endlessly

“Making design accessible to everyone” is the vision written by Figma on its official website. But that vision seems to have become awkward as the company joins the ranks of U.S. government sanctions. In fact, Figma’s competitors have already appeared in China. After the account suspension incident, many companies have expressed their intention to help the affected Chinese companies.

Source: Figma official website

On the afternoon of March 12, JsDesign announced that “JsDesign” is the first domestically supported The professional design tool imported by Figma can basically restore 100% of all the contents of Figma source files while retaining all editability. So far, tens of thousands of Figma files have been migrated. The company also promised to help all affected companies and individuals obtain solutions as soon as possible.

Picture source: Instant Design

According to official information, “Instant Design” is the first domestic professional UI design tool released in September 2020. Registration was officially opened in November of the same year. In May 2021, Instant Design completed a multi-million dollar Series A financing, jointly led by Lanchi Ventures and Jingya Capital, with Yuanyi Capital serving as the exclusive financial advisor. This round of financing will be mainly used for further iterative updates of the product. Expansion and upgrade of marketing and R&D teams. As of now, the real-time design team has nearly a hundred people.

It is worth mentioning that Instant Design will also launch a full set of Hongmeng HarmonyOS 2.0 design resources in June 2021. The company revealed that regardless of whether the computer is a Mac or a PC, you can freely use these resources to create in "Instant Design" without any restrictions and the tools are completely free.

Source: Instant Design

Blue Lake is another Chinese challenger to Figma. On the evening of March 12, the Blue Lake Collaboration Platform announced that MasterGo, the company's product design tool, has officially launched the Figma file import function and has improved support for editing functions after import to help everyone get through this incident. Blue Lake also revealed that MasterGo official website traffic surged 10 times more than usual that day.

In October 2021, Blue Lake announced the completion of 1 billion yuan in Series C financing, becoming a new unicorn in China's cloud software track. This round of financing was led by GGV Capital, with existing shareholder Sequoia China following Investment, Mu Mian Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round. At the same time, Blue Lake also launched MasterGo, a one-stop product design tool, and announced that it will be permanently free for individuals and the education industry. The company said that after several years of polishing, MasterGo has reached a state that truly matches the use of individuals and teams.

Source: Blue Lake

Another challenger is Pixso, a subsidiary of the listed company Wanxing Technology, which also targets Figma. In November 2021, Pixso announced its independent operation and received tens of millions of seed rounds of financing. Prior to this, Wanxing Technology also controlled the prototype design tool "Mok Knife" at the end of 2020. Prototype design is a type of design tool that product managers will use in the creative stage.

Source: Pixso official website

In addition, Mock is also a company focusing on service and innovation in the field of product design. In December 2021, Mocke released the UI design tool "Mocket DT", and the operating system supports Win, Mac, Linux, etc. The company issued a document on March 12 saying, "In the future, a large number of basic software and productivity tools will need to be localized. Although the process is difficult, we have no choice!"

Photo source: Mocke

In fact, although Figma has been widely praised by the outside world, some industry media have recently called it “average performance in the Chinese market.” . The reason is that it is still "acclimated" in China. Many domestic designers say that Figma's functions are easy to use. The "fly in the ointment" is that in the processing of details, there is still a big gap between the thinking of domestic users. For example, the access speed of the link is not smooth enough in China, and there is no Chinese version. Changing the design template from English to Chinese does not look good, and it cannot be used in China for corporate WeChat, DingTalk and other applications for corporate collaboration.

Some opinions in the market point out that Figma’s target is the international market, and it is difficult to prioritize the personalized needs of Chinese designers. In addition, the Figma server is located abroad and cannot be deployed privately for Chinese companies, and security issues have not been well resolved. These factors have become opportunities for the "Chinese Figma" to overtake in domestic corners, and capital is particularly fond of this. However, compared with mature online design software, most domestic design tools have a shorter online time, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.