Design Meet the Internet | Figma | Figma Blog
Figma’s 2015 launch post argues that creative software should become online, real-time, and collaborative, just as tools like Google Docs had done for documents. Enabled by WebGL, Figma aims to bring powerful vector design into the browser while solving designers’ fragmented collaboration workflows. The company introduced its preview release after three years of development and announced $18 million in funding. ## Why Design Tools Needed the Internet - Designers increasingly work across teams, sharing assets, refining marketing copy, and preparing specifications for engineers. - Unlike engineers, designers lacked integrated tools for designing, commenting, sharing, and storing work collaboratively. - The authors believed browser limitations had prevented creative applications from moving online. ## WebGL Makes Browser-Based Design Possible - Co-founders Dylan Field and Evan Wallace began exploring WebGL in 2011. - Wallace demonstrated that WebGL could reproduce server-side image processing directly in the browser. - This led them to pursue a browser-based creative tool supported by the Thiel Fellowship. - Building Figma required solving difficult problems involving: - Vector rendering - Font layout - Browser performance - Stability across many edge cases ## Introducing Figma - Figma is a browser-based vector interface design tool designed for team collaboration. - The team spent eighteen months using the product internally and working with alpha customers. - Collaboration features included: - Sharing designs through links - Providing contextual feedback - Establishing shared brand colors - Keeping design work accessible in one place ## Preview Release and Future Plans - Figma launched a preview release that invited teams to try the product and influence its roadmap. - Planned improvements for 2016 included: - A stronger Slack integration - Shared team asset libraries - Simultaneous multiplayer editing - The company had raised $18 million from Greylock, Index, OATV, and prominent angel investors. Figma’s launch positioned the browser as a viable platform for professional creative tools. Its practical recommendation was implicit: teams should adopt collaborative, web-based design workflows rather than rely on disconnected desktop applications.
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