This article is a practical unpacking of the Figma new features you should actually care about. We’ll look at what’s new (and what’s next), the limitations in this first public build, and how the new suite could reshape day‑to‑day design management.
Quick glance at the Figma release: The 2025 Figma updates that matter
Figma Draw — A native vector playground with brushes, texture fills, shape builder, and text‑on‑a‑path. Think 80 % of everyday Illustrator tasks, but right where you’re already working.
Figma Sites — Frame‑to‑production publishing that turns layouts into responsive web pages without a detour through Framer or Webflow. It’s still young, but already dangerous for marketing microsites.
Figma Buzz — A brand‑safe content factory that lets marketing teams bulk‑create on‑brand assets while designers retain control of the underlying components.
Figma Make — An AI companion that reads your canvas, then turns plain‑language prompts into prototypes—complete with readable React/Tailwind code you can actually ship.
Below we’ll dive deeper into each tool, sprinkle in a bit of Figma what’s new context, and flag the rough edges you should watch out for.
Figma Draw: “Wait… do we still need Illustrator?”
The latest version of Figma drops a re‑imagined vector workspace directly inside Design. Brushes with jitter, variable‑width strokes, progressive blur, texture fills, lasso selection, a legitimate Shape Builder—basically the greatest‑hits panel you’ve been begging Adobe to modernise for a decade.
Draw means you can bounce from UI layout to custom icon to hero illustration without the mental tax of swapping apps. Styles, variables, and Dev Mode hooks travel with every path, so your design tokens remain intact, and exported SVGs retain data‑attributes for Storybook pipelines.
Limitations & reality check: complex mesh gradients, 3D bevels, and CMYK‑ready print pre‑press still belong to Illustrator. For product‑centric teams, though, Draw covers the lion’s share of daily vector work while giving you a single Save and restore point in version history.
Figma Sites: From frame to functional web page in one tab
Sites takes your Figma frames and publishes them to the web—auto‑provisioned SSL, edge caching, and rollback controls included. Pre‑built blocks, breakpoint‑aware typography, and a live HTML/CSS view make the learning curve mercifully short.
It doesn’t (yet) replace the full power curve of Framer or Webflow—custom CMS collections, complex logic, and bleeding‑edge GSAP‑style motion are still outside its current scope—but for landing pages, docs, and event sites the convenience is unbeatable. You design, hit Publish, and see your work live seconds later, complete with version history and restore points baked in.
