Why Sketch is updating like crazy
By: Aaron Cecchini-Butler
Tags: Design, Product Design, UX Design, Sketch, Figma

Too little too late

In the world of design, Sketch is an industry-standard. In a world dominated by the Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch managed to make a name for itself by being simple, lightweight and featuring a fairly low learning curve. To make matters worse for Adobe, Sketch was $99. And that included a year’s worth of updates. As the Creative Suite increased its prices (via subscription model) and made it nearly impossible to just get the apps you actually needed, Sketch filled the void by being affordable and offering much.

There are three primary reasons that Sketch succeeded in breaking into the marketplace.

The aforementioned cost vs. Adobe. The huge library of plug-ins made by creators everywhere. The increase in flat design, and the subsequent decrease in the need for more complex tools.

However, Sketch is in a sketchy place. And it’s primarily because of Figma.

I work as a Mobile Product Designer. My job involves a spectrum of tasks, but two very common tasks are designing new features and maintaining the design system. I recently tried Figma for a few days and was amazed at its speed and organization. I found the experience enjoyable and on my list of pros and cons vs. Sketch, I struggled to find many cons.

Additionally, my coworker, who works as a Product Designer on our web project, echoed my views and found many of her own “pros” to add to the Figma column.

What struck us the most was how Figma seemed to do very good research into the needs of designers. Many of the plugins I had come to rely on for my Sketch use were built into Figma. Plug-ins in Sketch are terrific, however, they often come at a cost. Sometimes that cost is a monthly fee, sometimes that cost is having to download new files off of Github in the middle of a project that has a looming deadline. Both costs are too high for many — and I’d often go without plug-ins in favor of doing things manually because I didn’t want to exit my flow state to update a symbol merger.

As Sketch has grown out of its infancy, many plug-ins have also ended their free models. So a plug-in that you may have depended on for years many suddenly stop working. When you go to investigate, you will find that it now costs $50. Although Sketch is not directly responsible for these plug-ins, it’s hard not to connect that cost to Sketch. And in that way, I feel repeatedly “scammed” by Sketch. As if I were sold a $99 project but they forgot to mention that I will be charged random amounts for eternity if I want to be able to use it effectively.

Sketch is no dummy. They are very aware of the threat that Figma poses. The most obvious expression of this is in their recent updates. After using Figma for a few days, I was very thankful for the easy access to components (symbols in Sketch), text styles, and layer styles. In Sketch’s most recent update — voila! — this same functionality appears in its own clunky way.

Folders on folders on folders ….

Sketch — thanks for the “preview”

In its most recent updates, these ad infinitum folders are replaced with comically small “previews” of the item.

Figma looking good

I appreciate that Sketch is attempting to make these changes. It was about time that you could search for symbols (and Runner is one of those “free” plug-ins that broke my heart). However, I am on the fence about whether or not it’s enough.

My coworker puts it eloquently. She says,

“It’s as if I was in a long relationship with Sketch and it broke my heart too many times. Now Figma is treating me well and Sketch is trying to change to win me back. But it may be too little too late…”

And I have to say I might agree.