Good ol’ Figma – an old friend to many ecommerce brands and a key part of their digital content and frontend creation process. Your designers, marketers, merchandisers, copywriters, and other creative team members would likely agree: It's familiar, powerful, organized, collaborative, and it gets the job done.

We wouldn't argue that, but we would specify this: Figma gets the design ideation job done... 

The Typical Frontend Design Process

So, if Figma is the dominant creative hub for digital design, what is it to the entire process of building your ecommerce frontend? It's just the starting point.

You could liken it to the departures terminal of an airport where creatives congregate and ship their designs off with well wishes and fingers crossed for a safe and speedy trip. 

And where are those designs going? They’re boarding a flight piloted by developers. It’s a long journey – oftentimes with many layovers, redirections, and misplaced luggage along the way – eventually arriving, in some form, at the final destination: live on your frontend. 

A broad look at the typical design-to-live process for ecommerce teams building digital content and frontends.

Considering it’s the creative teams who have the insight and expertise to mastermind ecommerce websites – everything from the brand esthetic to products, campaigns to customer journeys – it’s perplexing that their ideas and creations are predominantly in the hands of developers. Don’t you think? 

We sure do. That's why our powerful ecommerce solution, Fastr Frontend, has paved a revolutionary path that puts non-technical teams in the digital content cockpit, removes developers from the entire travel itinerary, and fuels a faster, shorter, no-code route from designing to publishing.

See that graphic above? See all of the things that most ecommerce brands rely on developers to do? With Fastr Frontend, your creative teams – you know, the ones with the ideas, knowledge, and savvy strategy – can handle all of that and more. No code, development handoffs, holdups, or headaches. 

To Use Figma or Not to Use Figma: That is Not the Question

So, if you're a cutting-edge ecommerce brand using Fastr Frontend, where does that leave Figma? The short answer: Wherever you do or do not want it. Let us explain...

Can Fastr Frontend replace Figma?

Yes. Your creative teams will be happy to know that Fastr Frontend’s powerful design canvas has all of your familiar and much-loved design tools, widgets, collaboration capability, asset libraries, creative freedom, and even flexible design templates. The difference is that Fastr Frontend goes far beyond design and gives non-technical teams full reign over those designs: integrating product data and imagery, setting up A/B tests, managing accessibility and SEO, publishing, maintaining – you name it. 

Does it have to replace Figma?

Absolutely not. You can use Figma to design, and use Fastr Frontend to design, integrate, orchestrate, deploy, and manage your experiences. Yes, we did say design twice, but using both Fastr Frontend and Figma does not mean double the design work...

"The reason so many of our customers prefer using Fastr is they could take a platform that feels like Figma, that's as powerful as Figma, and go directly to their site without developer handoff, without waiting for that cumbersome process. But they've still got five years' worth of brand assets in Figma, a working model that's very based on Figma, or third party agencies that currently speak Figma, and we wanted to make it seamless to get that content into Fastr where it really belongs so that you can then go live on your site."

Ryan Breen, Chief Technology Officer, Fastr 

Introducing Figma Import

To further accelerate and simplify frontend processes, Fastr Frontend recently launched Figma Import. As the name suggests, this feature enables teams to transfer content from Figma directly into Fastr Frontend. 

So, if you're ready to mingle with dev-free control and agility, but are still married to your Figma-based workflows – or your third party agencies are – get this: You can have it all. The Figma Import feature seamlessly migrates content from Figma to Fastr Frontend where it can be edited, iterated, integrated, and instantly deployed live-to-site – all without a line of code or developer.

Or maybe – once you see Fastr Frontend's design power and familiar UI – you'll be ready to call it quits with Figma. Good news: Your breakup doesn’t have to be a messy one; you can leave Figma behind and bring all of your stuff with you. Our Figma Import feature is like a fleet of beefy movers and you don’t even have to pack, unpack, or find a storage unit. Those designs are fully editable in Fastr Frontend and, like Figma, can be conveniently stored in component and brand asset libraries.

Watch below to see how it works...

The Full Story, The Full Experience

For a deeper dive into Fastr Frontend's new Figma Import capability, watch the Design Lab recording. Spoiler alert: Not only did we launch and demo Figma Import in this workshop, but we also released two other game-changing features: Libraries & Templates and Graphic Animations.

And if you're ready to experience unprecedented speed and control, why not take Fastr Frontend for a test drive? Submit your request for a free trial below...