Affinity Designer

Kommentare: As the leader of a small-to-medium-enterprise and an educator in sound for media, many times I have the need to create simple graphics. From schematics and diagrams to icons and beyond. I use them for my company's internal knowledge-base, when I blog, for my presentations in classrooms, and even to create our own software graphical assets from mockups to finished product. First of all, it's no secret that working in vector is what every software developer should do, as it allows for the generation of all the graphic assets to be made in various bitmap resolutions, so your application looks clear and crisp in any device. Lately, even the Unity game engine introduced a pipeline to use vector graphic assets to create games, so that they render in any resolution, I definitely recommend checking this out if you are a game developer.
Anyway, Affinity Designer always delivered a great experience for me and all my colleagues said that I became a graphic designer, which is not true, but it is a great compliment, and I really own that to Affinity Designer.
The exporter feature is one huge time saver, you should check out the videos they have about this one and also the rest of Affinity team's video tutorials in Vimeo.
Overall, the experience of using the application can be described as smooth, fast and easy.

Vorteile: What I liked most about this program, is the workflow and interface. The developers managed to create a simple to use application for vector graphics, that everybody can operate. I can't remember how many times I got frustrated trying to make a simple graphic in other programs, while in Affinity Designer, the workflow is mapped so well, that everybody can use it. From computer graphics professionals around the world, to amateurs like me, it is straight forward to open the application and start creating. The online help system is awesome and omni-present and the graphical interface is sleek and looks good in any monitor that I tried it, even small ones. I also consider a great bonus that the company keeps a straight policy about pricing, they don't use the subscription model which is very good for SMEs.

Nachteile: Some advanced vector tools are missing, but the software is still young and I'm sure it will develop to a great tool. After all, the developers seem to have usability, ease of use and fast workflows in mind, so they add new features very carefully, to keep Affinity Designer the great tool that it is now.

Kommentare: It gets the job done. That's probably the best thing I can say about it. It gets the job done, but I trudge through every moment of the job.

Vorteile: It's surprisingly fully-featured for the price. Once you know what you're doing, it can accomplish just about any task you'd use Illustrator (the industry standard) for.

Nachteile: The workflows are just ... Annoying. Maybe it's because I'm coming from Illustrator, where everything feels effortless, but it feels like every aspect of Affinity Designer was made unnecessarily complicated. Using the program makes me want to pull my hair out, because I know how much quicker and easier and just ... More "common sense" the process would be in Illustrator. Also, and this is a big one: Most stock vector files are completely useless in Affinity Designer. If there's any degree of complexity (meaning more than one shape), it's going to be an absolute disaster to work with in Designer.

Kommentare: Absolute pleasure! I couldn't afford the Adobe package but now I have Affinity Designer and Photo and it more than meets all my needs for website graphics and photo editing and design.

Vorteile: So much cheaper than Illustrator / Photoshop and packs all the features I need. Easy to use, easy to learn. Many tutorials from Affinity as well as other skilled users. Use it for simple projects or very in-depth. Replace expensive and subscription services with this one-time very reasonably priced vector graphics software. They also have an iPad app that is just as powerful and neither suck up resources!

Nachteile: If you are very used other software like Illustrator, it will take some time to adjust at first. You may have to find different ways to do the same task in Designer, but it is just a quick look-up away from learning.

Kommentare: Awesome alternative to Adobe products, clean interface and makes my project flow much more efficient.

Vorteile: I really like how intuitive the software is for designers who are familiar with any standard design platform. I've been using Serif products for 9 years now and have always been impressed with how affordable and functional their design software has always been. They made design accessible to anyone in a market where design software pricing made it out of reach for many struggling graphic artists and designers. This newest offering is, in my opinion, superior to the industry standard vector offering, Adobe Illustrator. At a base level Affinity Designer offers all of the functionality of it's competition, with more ease of use and a much more affordable rate.

Nachteile: As Affinity Designer is still fairly new there are some small bugs, however, the Affinity support team works hard to address those and update the software often. Also, while most of the features are super intuitive the more advanced offerings can be harder to figure out. More tutorials offered by the company and the design community would be beneficial to allow people to really get all of the value that they can. The software is capable of so much but learning about those advanced features can be frustrating.

Kommentare: I use Affinity for more than two years and the truth is that what can be achieved is satisfactory, that it is easy to use because it resembles others, it contains the exact thing to illustrate and when deploying it in the graphic arts department it was very appropriate for us. Its low cost, its help methods grow over time and this allows you to be informed of innovations in the product.

Vorteile: Affinity is a good competitor for other tools that are giving you something to talk about and they show it with this software that enhances your designs, an interface that does not depart from familiar tools. Its low cost and updates draw attention, I had the opportunity to test it on MacOS and I wanted it to come out for windows, later my prayers were heard and today is part of my group of applications that I use to illustrate, Serif intends to get into the game with a program that offers a lower cost of good quality than others that are expensive.

Nachteile: Although upgrades improve it and make Affinity more similar to other software, it lacks many tools that would boost it and put it at the top, but eventually we'll see it.