Posts about Sketch

Forthcoming design software from the co-founder of Sketch

One of the co-founders of Sketch is building a new design tool called Elyx. I’m very interested in trying the beta. They claim it’s a design tool made for the AI era. We’ll see. It’s certainly provocative.

I’ve been using Figma for six or seven years now, and I used Sketch before that for many years (probably from 2012 on). I haven’t needed the collaborative features of Figma recently, and thought I’d give Sketch a try while working on my portfolio, and I can’t go back. Figma is shockingly faster (and I have a tricked-out M4 Max MacBook Pro, so the problem isn’t my machine).

The thing is, I have a love/​hate relationship with Figma. I think the past few years, with its botched Adobe merger and eagerness to implement AI features, have been a real mess. It’s left a bad taste in my mouth. I want to work with tools that are made with people who have taste, and anybody who wants to sell out to Adobe is probably not somebody I’m aligned with at that level.

So I’m very eager to try Elyx and see what that’s all about.

Elyx · Where design means more elyx.design

Elyx is a local-first design environment and language that gives product designers, engineers, and agents a better source of truth.

Further Sketch news in Figma’s world

I was saddened to hear about layoffs at Sketch. No company deserves to suffer layoffs, and certainly not a company that has done so much for its industry as Sketch. If you’re hiring, it sounds like the 80 people they’re letting go would be great for your team.

After Adobe bought Figma, I suggested to a couple different teams I freelance with that we could try Sketch again for our workflows. I’ve been impressed with their marketing efforts since the Figma acquisition (sadly it sounds like the marketing team is who they’re letting go of), and I miss using a Mac-native design app. 

Sadly, I think this ship has sailed. None of these developers are in love with Figma, and all of them hate Adobe, but Sketch being Mac-first immediately ruled them out for the teams I’m on. I wish Sketch took the Affinity route: build an amazing Mac app, and then build out native Windows and iPad versions. That could have made Sketch an unbeatable proposition in an increasingly tool-agnostic world.

It’s Figma’s world now. And in Figma’s world, it’s hard to beat ubiquity.