Developers, designers, web enthusiasts we are gathered here today to say our goodbyes to our dear friend; Adobe Fireworks. I am so happy to see how many people have gathered to honor the life of this software program. You can truly measure the effect of this program has had on the web community by how many people are mourning it’s loss. Perhaps mourning is harder when the cause of death is still undetermined & brought on so suddenly.
I was introduced to Fireworks fairly late in the game. However, it quickly became a huge part of my daily work life. As a graphic designer it allowed me to close the gaps between myself and the developers. Fireworks enabled me to create dynamic graphics, multiple web page designs, responsive designs without writing a single line of code. Using Fireworks simplified our workflow and made the transfer of files seamless. It also had a huge effect on how we created site-maps and wireframes-allowing our clients to easily understand what the outcome was going to look like. This alone saved us countless hours in the redesign phase.
One of Adobe Fireworks best traits was that it was a team player. It combined the best traits of Photoshop’s bitmap capabilities and Illustrator’s vector graphics. Although Photoshop and Illustrator were always in the lime light it never seemed to bother Fireworks and always worked to bring the two programs together. Even though my first love is Illustrator Fireworks always welcomed my vector graphics without any loss of editing or overall image quality.
Fireworks has taught all of us things over the years. Some were simple like being able to view all designs in multiple browsers. But it also taught use more important things like how fleeting a good program can be and how in our ever growing field of design there will always be changes and new software to learn. We must appreciate the programs while they are with us but also to be open to changes that are in the works.
Fireworks influenced all of us in different ways and I’m sure everyone will have their own good memories of this software. But Fireworks wouldn’t want us to be sad or for us not get on with our designing. Although it will be missed we should cherish the time we have spent together.
Adobe Fireworks is survived by Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Muse, Creative Cloud and Adobe CC.
Instead of flowers mourners are asked to sign a petition to have Fireworks be open sourced: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/adobe-com-release-adobe-fireworks-to-open-source