What Figma Is: Cloud-Native, Collaborative UI/UX Design

Vector Graphics covered Illustrator and Inkscape — two file-based applications built around drawing and editing paths. Figma shares that same underlying vector foundation, but it's built on a genuinely different architecture from the ground up: no installed application, no file to save, and multiple people editing the exact same design at the exact same moment.

What Figma Is: A Browser-Based Design Tool

Figma runs primarily in a web browser (a desktop app exists too, but it's essentially a dedicated browser window rather than a fundamentally different application). It's purpose-built for UI/UX and product design — screens, components, interactive prototypes — rather than the print/illustration focus Vector Graphics' own tools lean toward.

Cloud-Native by Default: No File to Save

A Figma design lives on Figma's own servers from the moment it's created. There's no "Save" command in the traditional sense, because there's no local file being written to — every change is continuously synced to the cloud as it happens. This is the same underlying model Google Workspace's own Chapter 1 described for Docs, Sheets, and Slides, applied here to design work instead of documents.

Real-Time Multiplayer: Multiple People, One Design

Multiple people can open the exact same Figma file at the exact same time, each seeing the others' cursors move and edits appear live, the same way Google Workspace's own real-time collaboration works in a shared document. A designer, a teammate reviewing a component, and a stakeholder leaving feedback can all be looking at — and editing — the identical canvas simultaneously, with no separate copies to merge afterward.

Contrasted with Vector Graphics' Own File-Based Model

Illustrator and Inkscape both work with a local file that's opened, edited, and explicitly saved back to disk — one person's own copy at a time, even when a file is later shared with someone else. Figma has no equivalent "the file" at all in that sense; the design simply exists in Figma's own cloud workspace, openable by anyone with permission at any moment, with everyone looking at the same live canvas rather than their own separate copy.

What This Course Actually Teaches

This course covers Figma's own core UI/UX design workflow — frames, auto layout, components, prototyping, collaboration, and developer handoff — alongside Penpot, a free and open-source alternative. Chapter 2 introduces that pairing directly, including an honest note about how lopsided the comparison actually is compared to Illustrator and Inkscape.

Hands-On Exercises