About Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a graphic design software, which helps creative professionals manage documents, create vector designs with gradients, blend modes, adjustments and effects, edit images, build artboards, and more using various built-in tools. The platform allows organizations to customize text topography and supports multiple image and vector file formats including EPS, PNG, TIFF, GIP, JPEG, PDF, SVG, and PSD.
Affinity Designer enables creative teams to add paragraph or character styles, frames, and ligatures to text, preview designs in standard or retina resolution, and create artboards of any size with screens, menus, and pages. Managers can set up column guides, isometric grids, and planes by defining spacing, sub-divisions, gutters, and angles, among other specifications. The application lets designers convert imported vectors, text, or primitives to editable curves, export artboards, and save stroke styles for future references. Organizations can also store design elements or assets to custom subcategories and utilize the corner tool to soften or round shapes and lines.
Affinity Designer helps users create customizable vector or raster brushes, configure tool behavior, and user interface (UI) settings according to requirements. Designers can also isolate, hide, rename, lock and merge layers, replicate symbols, and position objects based on specific values.
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- Industry: Computer Software
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Monthly for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Extremely viable alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator
Reviewed on 29/07/2019
Pros
The software is very familiar if you come from Photoshop and Illustrator, but manages to make it a smoother and more modern feeling experience. As far as I can tell all the main tools you'd need from Adobe's software is here. Best of all, you pay the price you'd pay for one month of Adobe software... and you actually own it! So if you can't or don't want to pay for the upgrade in a couple years, you aren't just up poop creek like you are with Adobe.
Cons
The only con I have encountered so far is the lack of a button you can hold to switch to colorpicker. This would speed up my workflow a fair bit.
Alternatives Considered
SketchReasons for Choosing Affinity Designer
Adobe is too expensive and you don't own the projects you make with it, since opening them is dependent on an ongoing license.Switched From
Adobe IllustratorReasons for Switching to Affinity Designer
I love that Affinity handles both Vector and Raster, and works on Mac and Windows as well as iOS.- Industry: Online Media
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Weekly for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
Affinity Designer is a Worthy Contender in the Design Software Space
Reviewed on 13/11/2019
Affinity Designer feels like a friendlier vector design option as compared with some of the other...
Affinity Designer feels like a friendlier vector design option as compared with some of the other usual suspects. While old-school designers and illustrators may prefer a more traditional approach, A.D. doesn't make you work quite as hard for basic shapes, text, etc. On the other hand, the departures may make it a harder transition for more experienced users. And, while this isn't a reflection on the software specifically, as a newer addition to the space, there are fewer tutorials available. I don't use it exclusively in design work, but I definitely favor it in many ways.
Pros
The interface is user-friendly, although there is definitely a learning curve coming from other vector design packages. I appreciate that there is a library of built-in shapes. When I'm trying to work through a design, I'd rather not have to draw a call-out or a cog or a heart. It's nice to be able to just pop them in. I also find that the basic text tool is friendlier than other packages.
Cons
There are some features that don't work as intended or are missing entirely, when compared against other vector design software. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to auto-trace a raster image, which would be helpful for my use.
Alternatives Considered
Adobe IllustratorReasons for Choosing Affinity Designer
I haven't completely made a switch, but I use both packages. I find Affinity Designer to be easier to use and enjoy some of the added features, like the ability to easily create common shapes.Switched From
InkscapeReasons for Switching to Affinity Designer
It's significantly less expensive than Adobe Illustrator and doesn't require a subscription fee. But I also just like overall design.
- Industry: Computer Software
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
A really great alternative
Reviewed on 17/09/2023
Pros
I really like the fact that Affinity is a one-time payment software. Unlike Adobe, it doesn't come with an annual subscription, and this factor plays a decisive role in my choice of software. Another of Affinity's strengths is their proximity to users. They attach a great deal of importance to user feedback.And of course, the software's functions are really intuitive and efficient.
Cons
On the other hand, what I don't like is the performance, which is really low on Windows, even with a good configuration. The software is not optimised for Windows and you can feel it. That's one of the software's only faults for me, the performance. Version 2 of Affinity has added a huge number of new features. I hope that this point will be improved in the future.
- Industry: Design
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Best value for price in the industry
Reviewed on 04/01/2023
Overall a very good experience and after using it for a while i cannot go back to Adobe Illustrator.
Overall a very good experience and after using it for a while i cannot go back to Adobe Illustrator.
Pros
It has a very competetive pricing for what it can do. It does not have a subscription model, which is very incommon nowadays. While it is still lacking behind on some features compared to others like Adobe Illustrator, it is catching up fast.
Cons
Some features that one is used to from Adobe Illustrator are missing. Hoping for the addition in a future update.
Alternatives Considered
Linearity CurveReasons for Choosing Affinity Designer
Pricing, Compability with modern systems (MacOS, M1)Switched From
Adobe IllustratorReasons for Switching to Affinity Designer
The overall suite and functionality. The concept of "personas" is very unique and potent.- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Monthly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Budget alternative to Adobe's increasingly expensive product line..
Reviewed on 14/09/2020
The pricepoint and feature set make this a steal when you compare it to Adobe's competitor...
The pricepoint and feature set make this a steal when you compare it to Adobe's competitor Illustrator. We bought a single license and had our most experienced designer test drive it. He ultimately recommended it and we've enjoyed a huge cost savings for software, while not missing a beat in terms of workload and output.
Pros
This is a fantastic alternative to Adobe's Illustrator, especially at Affinity's pricepoint. To be fair, we're not a design agency first, we make websites and do marketing primarily. However, when we do want to work with vector graphics, Affinity Designer matches up almost 1:1 with Adobe Illustrator. The real pro is the one-time fee of $50 instead of a full adobe suite subscription. This allows our small team to effectively open, edit, and export vector graphics, without having a several hundred dollars per month bill to foot. For small teams, this is a huge win. I'd imagine some experienced designers will scoff that a few of their old shortcuts don't work, but all in all, the interface and function almost mirrors Adobe's for a fraction of the cost. We also use their photo editing software too, which replaces Photoshop.
Cons
Some of the terminology and keyboard shortcuts made the onboarding slightly more difficult for our long-time Adobe Illustrator users, but they've adopted nicely over time. There's always growing pains when you switch tools, but there are many more features that do match up 1:1 that this was a no brainer for our company.
Affinity Designer FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Affinity Designer.Q. What type of pricing plans does Affinity Designer offer?
Affinity Designer offers the following pricing plans:
- Starting from: USD 4,999.00/one-time
- Free Trial: Not Available
Affinity Designer is offered across three pricing plans, outlined below. A free trial is available. Mac: $60.54 Windows: $60.54 iPad: $24.21 Licenses for businesses and educational institutions are also available on request.
Q. Who are the typical users of Affinity Designer?
Affinity Designer has the following typical customers:
2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000
Q. What languages does Affinity Designer support?
Affinity Designer supports the following languages:
English, German
Q. Does Affinity Designer support mobile devices?
Affinity Designer supports the following devices:
iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Affinity Designer integrate with?
Affinity Designer integrates with the following applications:
Adobe Photoshop
Q. What level of support does Affinity Designer offer?
Affinity Designer offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base
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