Change is good

When I started out in design, we were all still using Adobe Creative Suite (I even remember buying a physical copy). I've used QuarkXPress, CorelDraw and several other long forgotten applications. And now the design community is fully embracing Figma, leaving Sketch behind.

Learning a new tool for me is easy. I've switched many times, and I've been an early adaptor, however cautiously. I dipped my toe in with Sketch and Figma when they were both still rough prototypes. (I even eagerly tried out InVision Studio—I'd met one of the designers who had been incredibly tight-lipped at the time what he was doing at InVision). I like technology, I like trying new experiences, and I'm willing to be ready to adapt when the time comes.

I learned the foundations of design, and I spent at least two semesters mocking up designs, cutting paper for books and drafting typography. I learned without software and at the same time, I learned the core fundamentals of design software—the primitives of shapes and typography. I used to say the software is a hammer—I learned out to use a hammer and I know how to figure out how new hammers work through doing. (It's a terrible analogy, but it makes some sense). Part of that is wonder and a willingness to try new experiences—to be adaptable.

Back when I was living in London, Designer News held a pub meetup with the founders of Sketch (it was literally around the corner from my flat). At the time I was on the fence between Adobe Illustrator and Sketch—the design team at Quidco had been using AI from day one and we had a lot of legacy files still in use, including the design system I had built from scratch. Personally with my side projects I was all in with Sketch, and we had some great conversations with the Sketch team.

We were all in on Sketch when I worked at Canadian Tire—it was at the time nearly the de facto interface design app and XD was a forgotten experiment. And over the years other teams have slowly favoured Figma over Sketch. When I started at lululemon the teams were split between Sketch and Figma but the switch was coming. By this point I'd already used Figma in two other roles and Figma was most importantly stable enough to use "in production" (there was a time when it took minutes to load—a terrible paper cut). Many of the other designers needed to learn Figma before ditching Sketch. It was a transition, we needed the time and space. But the switch happened. And we moved on.

I've had a number of roles and worked on several different projects with different teams over the years. It takes some time to adjust for sure, but human-centric designers have great skills for being able to adapt quickly. We're working in technology that's ever changing while the fundamentals of good design stay pretty much the same. We're empathetic, inquisitive and willing to learn—it's in our design processes.