Today was my reading day so I don’t do much ‘active’ OSS contribution work on Friday but I did get a request for access to one of design files in Figma from an OSS FE developer so I thought it’d be a good time to talk design tooling!

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

Tooling is a relatively complicated topic in the design OSS community and there are broadly two schools of thought:

1 - Open Source Design should be made in open source software (like GIMP, Inkscape or UXBox)

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

2 - Open Source Design can be made in any software including proprietary and commercial software but should be as open as possible e.g. an open file format like .svg.

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

I came from design into OSS (as opposed to OSS into design) I was, and still am much more comfortable working with the tools and software I learned in order to get me stable work.

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

Adobe, Sketch, Figma etc. It’s still the case that most roles in design need you to use one (or all) of these.

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

It’s fantastic that there is FOSS design tooling and plugins, enhancements and new design OSS is being made that aims for feature parity with commercial tools but many designers are not ready to make the transition from commercial to OSS yet.

-Eriol @EriolDoesDesign

Personal opinion time!

I think that right now, increasing consistent design contributions to FOSS that is sustainable is more important what software those contributions are made in.

-Eriol @EriolDoesDesign

The truth is unless you learned an existing OSS design tool early on or it operates/function very much like our commercial software it’s unlikely designers will swap out their existing tools for OSS ones.

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

I can’t wait for the day there’s an OSS design tool that can be used in my paid work (and my OSS work) without this risk that I might not be able to do what I need to do to keep that paid work.

-Eriol @EriolDoesDesign

The responsibility will be on organisations hiring junior designers to move away from a ‘must be proficient in X software’ so that designers who want to explore FOSS tools can do so without risk.

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

Same with design education moving away from teaching students how to use design software that was (are?) monopolies in our industry!

Start to offer alternatives to designers on how the create their visual design work with the history of these orgs!

-Eriol @EriolDoesDesign

Phew! we haven’t even gotten to the topic of how we as designers participate in FOSS when our tools don’t always allow for processes like versioning, branching and collaboration as easily as some coding tools!

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign

For those of you looking to support designers in their journey through OSS, keep in mind the massive cultural, professional and process shift it is to consider a more FOSS approach to design, be curious, ask questions and offer support!

-Eriol @erioldoesdesign