I already posted a long comment about this and then deleted it. I was fully against it. That was yesterday. Today I feel a bit different. It's still about the added complexity to the process of design and I don't like that.

But at the end of the day, anything that gets you to ship better and easier, you will use it.

Some of us like to work solo and do everything by ourselves, others work in small team or big teams - no matter - the tools are the tools and let them not define us as we work as designers and thinkers - also about the big money - I think they raised that much money not because of what Abstract is now - but because what Abstract can be in 1-2-3 years from now. They might have big plans and integrating everything is a good way to attract big VC money - they might add a design tool, better commenting and lots other features that can turn Abstract in a one-tool-fits-all kind of thing - You will not need Sketch + Slack + Zeplin + a prototyping tool to get stuff done - you will use just Abstract and that's it.

If this will be the case, they can become a unicorn - raising at least 200 mil for the next round of funding.

But for now, Abstract is a big pricey for what they offer and I would not use it - not even with a team of 10+

My 2c

Was listening to this all day. Lovely project!

Then my man, you'll have to re-invent yourself, start thinking more about educating others and less doing actual 9-5 work at a full-time job.

Start a blog, write some ebooks/online courses, start doing workshops, stuff like that - you will be more successful as an educator than as a full-time worker in your older years. Start showing all that experience you must have in many fields!

But also good luck with finding a full-time job too if that's still needed! Keep applying, there are still lots of companies that value experience more. You just gotta find a good one.

This is the main problem, BUT sure, you can be a 1 year-startup working with all the cool kids and fail, or you can hire some more experienced ppl, learn from them, even let them guide you and become a success. But the thing is, there aren't overnight success stories - most startups that hit it big and you see them on techcrunch today, they have a 10 year story behind, that nobody sees at first.

Most startups unicorn-level today, they are at least 10 years old in the market. And come to think about it, most young ppl still don't even know that Instagram and Whatsapp are both owned by Facebook...but they want to emulate their success stories without putting in the work first.

The discussion should be related more about the years of experience doing a thing, than how old you really are as a person.

Sure, different people progress faster or slower, depends on each of them.

But it's the same "10.000 hours rule" for everybody, either if you start on something at 25 or 55...you need to put in the hours and do the work first, before you can really get good at anything.

You can call yourself whatever you like, but that does not mean we should take your word for it, right? It's more of a "show, don't tell" situation...

lol, because we have more experience?

For logo designers: a younger designer jumps right in in Illustrator and takes a lot of time to develop 10-20 (bad concepts) to finally figure out maybe a few good ones and present to the client that will ask a lot of changes on them VS. an experienced logo designer that does research, talks a lot with the client first, listens to his needs, then comes up with 1 great idea to present and nails it!

Examples:

Paul Scher from Pentagram who designed the Citi logo on a napkin with a client present and nailed it https://medium.com/@nedwin/the-1-5m-napkin-abd2702927d0

Milton Glaser came up with the iconic "I <3 NY" logo during a taxi drive https://www.logoworks.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-the-i-love-new-york-logo/

Point: it takes at least 10 years of work to get to a level that enables you to come up with a good brand strategy, to design a great logo and an effective design system for a brand, that can live on at least 5-10 years in the current markets.

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For UX/UI designers: new designers with 1-3-5 years experience jump right on dribbble for inspiration, research ui kits, latest trends, come up with a good looking UI but useless after user testing and hard to implement with all those trendy layouts and eye candy effects VS. an experienced (UX/Web) designer that takes time to research user needs, works with a team of developers to do some MVP prototypes, user test every step of the way, knows all the good design patterns because he already used The Internet since the '90s and knows a lot of user psychology too so he can design from the user's perspective first!

Examples:

Good: well known product/design studios like Fi, Area 17, DIA, Huge, Design Studio, ueno even, all the product design ppl behind AirBNB, Twitter, Spotify, even Facebook (with all their dark patterns) also creative ppl at Nike, Apple, Dyson, Braun, etc.

Bad: first, designers behind Snap (thats some bad UX guys, no man above 30 would know how to use that app!), then all the behance/dribbble "designers" that constantly come up with useless eye candy designs for weather, calendars, crypto apps, "fashion" websites, all those rebranding Apple, Starbucks, cryptocoin exchanges and apps and all that useless design "exercises" that keep rolling in day and night and devalue the design market/industry...there's no good design without research and planning, without sweat & tears, design is always how it works, not just how it looks, please remember that! Also remember we are doing design for other people to use, not just to try to be cool amongst other designers and boost about how many likes your dribbble shots got!

• Ageism in tech is real, more experienced (older?) designers AND developers get left behind too easily just because some cool kids just discovered Photoshop and dribbble and Angular JS and charge peanuts for their "work" fooling clients and agencies to think this is the new way of doing things. Sorry, it's not!

This is a good article - thanks Jamal - but it's just a thought...we need to really start to focus on these things, on mental health, on burn-out syndrome, on educating clients about the value of real design (thinking) and lots more...

p.s. It's so funny to see how many young designers post and repost those famous Dieter Rams 10 Principles of "Good Design" but so few really take the time and understand and use them in their work - and it shows!

All this, but you still can't open old Freehand files in Illustrator. Sad...

Symbols?! XD implemented ruler guides yet?

Don't be silly. Why would they (Sketch team) bother with wasting time opening an inferior format in their app? Asking for a friend...