Figma cofounder Dylan Field is seemingly a big Enron fan—or rather, of the crypto-fueled semi-parodic relaunch of the company that hit the web earlier this week.
Sporting an oversized Enron hoodie during his conversation with WIRED editor at large Steven Levy during The Big Interview event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Field said he’s always been a fan of the Enron logo, which was the last one crafted by legendary American graphic designer Paul Rand, of ABC, IBM, UPS, and Westinghouse logo fame. But he said he also “got a real kick” out of the potential Enron relaunch, which has been tied to “Birds Aren’t Real” creator Connor Gaydos. As someone who was just 9 years old when Enron imploded in 2001, Field says he wonders (optimistically, it seems) if it’s possible to build a new company on the back of the tainted brand, given that his generation might not carry the kind of baggage related to the company’s stumbles that others do.
Either way, it seems, it’s a question of the power of design, something Field and Levy focused on more broadly as their chat went on, talking not just about the creation and evolution of the Figma platform, but also where the cofounder sees the company going in the immediate future.
At the moment, Field says, the company has “millions” of users, with a third coming from the design world, a third coming from the programming space, and a third coming from various other backgrounds. With Figma, he thinks, brands and companies can express themselves visually much better than ever before, working collaboratively to more quickly understand what’s graphically possible, what the best user experience is, and how they can best stand out in the marketplace.
