ADC Awards
ADC Annual Awards is the oldest continuously running industry award show in the world, with an incredible legacy of over 100 years. These awards celebrate the very best in advertising, digital media, graphic and publication design, packaging and product design, motion, experiential and spatial design, photography, illustration and fashion design – all with a focus on artistry and craftsmanship.
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Category
Branding / Branding Systems / Identities - Integrated
URL
Click to launch
Annual ID
ADC102_BCD013S
About the Work
CHALLENGE
Witnessing Microsoft’s successful tactics against Slack, Figma feared similar maneuvers from Adobe and needed to avoid it.
STORY
For forty years, Adobe has controlled the creative software market. By exclusively building for professional designers, its products are impenetrable to non-designers and casual ones.
Evidence suggested that Figma hadn’t followed, as Adobe had, software’s classic paradigm of “build for a persona”. 65% of Figma users sat outside design functions.
We argued that Figma had intuitively avoided the “build for a persona” paradigm in favor of a new one: “build for a value chain.” In their case, the design value chain.
Contemporary design involves more than designers. Product managers, project leaders, developers, designers, writers, marketers and more get involved. Understanding this on day one, Figma emphasized:
• Multiplayer mode
• Low learning curves
• An end-to-end experience
We argued Adobe and Figma weren’t competitors. They operated in totally different categories solving different problems. Adobe was a “design software tool”. Figma was a “lifecycle collaboration platform.”
Building upon their identity system and campaign positioning Figma as different, not in degree, but in kind.
IMPACT
• Expanded Figma’s Total Addressable Market beyond Adobe’s
Adobe’s TAM: ~10M (U.S. designers)
Figma’s TAM: ~68M (U.S. product management, design, UX writing, interactive production, front-end development, marketing)
• Valuation
Adobe acquired Figma for $22B, $11B higher than Figma’s 2021 valuation. We can’t claim our work led to the acquisition. But there is evidence our work added thrust to the exit multiple. From Seeking Alpha:
“The deal still doesn't make sense from a financial standpoint. However, we must look at the acquisition strategically. The rationale is that the market is large and has growth opportunities. When it comes to E2E collaboration, one has to think that not all the design value chain will be dominated by Apple.”
Witnessing Microsoft’s successful tactics against Slack, Figma feared similar maneuvers from Adobe and needed to avoid it.
STORY
For forty years, Adobe has controlled the creative software market. By exclusively building for professional designers, its products are impenetrable to non-designers and casual ones.
Evidence suggested that Figma hadn’t followed, as Adobe had, software’s classic paradigm of “build for a persona”. 65% of Figma users sat outside design functions.
We argued that Figma had intuitively avoided the “build for a persona” paradigm in favor of a new one: “build for a value chain.” In their case, the design value chain.
Contemporary design involves more than designers. Product managers, project leaders, developers, designers, writers, marketers and more get involved. Understanding this on day one, Figma emphasized:
• Multiplayer mode
• Low learning curves
• An end-to-end experience
We argued Adobe and Figma weren’t competitors. They operated in totally different categories solving different problems. Adobe was a “design software tool”. Figma was a “lifecycle collaboration platform.”
Building upon their identity system and campaign positioning Figma as different, not in degree, but in kind.
IMPACT
• Expanded Figma’s Total Addressable Market beyond Adobe’s
Adobe’s TAM: ~10M (U.S. designers)
Figma’s TAM: ~68M (U.S. product management, design, UX writing, interactive production, front-end development, marketing)
• Valuation
Adobe acquired Figma for $22B, $11B higher than Figma’s 2021 valuation. We can’t claim our work led to the acquisition. But there is evidence our work added thrust to the exit multiple. From Seeking Alpha:
“The deal still doesn't make sense from a financial standpoint. However, we must look at the acquisition strategically. The rationale is that the market is large and has growth opportunities. When it comes to E2E collaboration, one has to think that not all the design value chain will be dominated by Apple.”
2023 Awards
Total Points: 21
Silver Cube
Credits
Design Firm
COLLINS / New York
Chief Strategy Officer
Taamrat Amaize
Creative Director
Ben Crick
Louis Mikolay
Design Director
Jump Jirakaweekul
Sanuk Kim
Motion Designer
Darius Wang
Eric Park
Senior Designer
Emily Sneddon
Senior Strategist
Anjelica Triola
Megan McCarthy
VP, Creative Director
Tom Elia
General Manager, SF
Michael Di Leo
Motion Design Director
Tomas Markevicius
Strategic Initiatives Manager
Alex Athanasiou
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