Affinity Designer is a design software that was released in October 2014. I bought this program last November 2018 when I'm looking for an alternative for Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe Photoshop CC (Because honestly, they are not cheap). The first time I used it is kinda difficult because Affinity Designer introduced me to a fresh design environment. But as I explore more inside it, I found amazing features that I think will be very useful for designers like me.
Here's a link of their site: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/
Here's my first Illustration as I explore Affinity.
In Affinity Designer, designers can switch from Vector editing tools to Raster editing tools very easily. It's kinda amazing if you use Illustrator and Photoshop for your designs. In my design experience, switching from Illustrator to Photoshop for raster editing is kind of a hassle. Running these programs eats a lot of RAM in my PC causing lags. But, in Affinity Designer, you just need one click. They are called Designer Persona when you're in vector tools and Pixel Persona when you are in raster tools. Cool right?
Here's another Illustration I made while exploring Affinity Designer. The trees, stars, and Fireflies are brushes on Pixel Persona. While the moon, mountain, and texts are on Designer Persona.
It is actually easy to learn how to use Affinity Designer especially if you have a 'Lil bit of experience in using Photoshop and Illustrator; because most of the important design tools are present in the software. The good thing about this is that it is light and fast. It doesn't lag much even on complex designs. I know there is still a lot of room for improvements for this software but this is a very capable one if you're looking for alternative design programs. Plus! since the first time I used it, a lot of updates and additional features were now available on the Affinity Designer making it a lot more fun to use in designing. It looks like their developers are doing their jobs.
Here's another Illustration using Affinity Designer. Guides and Snapping in this software are on point.
As a designer my self, I know there is a lot more to explore in this program. As I use it I hope I can share with you some of my experiences and outputs for inspiration. If I have more time, I will create a tutorial on how I create illustrations like these using Affinity Designer. I hope you learn something from this blog. Thanks for tuning in and hope to you see you on my next blog. Like and Share! Cheers! Keep designing!
