You know the old saying, “All roads lead to Rome”? In this case, many roads will take us where we’d like to get to, but some are better than others. I will also explain some of the decisions I take and methods I follow as I work. Final image that we’ll be creating in this tutorial.
Although the iPad app’s features and functionality almost completely match the desktop version of Affinity Designer, it relies much more on using the touch screen (and the Apple Pencil) and because of that, you may expect to find some differences in the workflows. Note: As of today, July 11, Affinity Designer is also available for the iPad.
The illustration will scale up to whatever resolution and size needed because no bitmaps will be used.
In this article, I would like to walk you through just some of its very user-friendly main tools and features as an introduction to the software and to show you how we can create a nice flat vector illustration of a Volkswagen Beetle. Unlike some other packages, its price is really affordable, there’s no subscription model and, as mentioned already, it’s available for both Macs and PCs. It was July 2015 when Serif Europe launched the amazing software that many designers and illustrators like me are using now as their main tool for professional work. ( This is a sponsored post.) If you are in the design world, chances are that you’ve already heard about Affinity Designer, a vector graphics editor for Apple’s macOS and Microsoft Windows. The author is not affiliated with the product in any way, and the article has been reviewed independently by Serif as well as SmashingMag’s editors. It's also affordable, and you only have to pay once ($54.99 / £47.99).While this tutorial was kindly sponsored by Serif, the creator of Affinity, we’d like to point out that it is written by an independent design professional who personally enjoys using the software and shares her lessons learned. The appeal of Affinity Designer is thus: it's slightly simpler than Illustrator, less cluttered, way more affordable, easy to get-to-grips with, and is a high performing piece of design software open to general users and professionals. There's Sketch, a popular tool for digital design, which offers a relatively cheap subscription, though is native to the Mac only Inkscape is free and open source but lacks the pro speed and depth of Affinity Designer and CorelDRAW, which is a step removed from the usability of Illustrator and Designer, is more complex, and well… just different. Like similar apps, it does have a learning curve associated with it, especially for new or general users, but the sheer quantity of easily accessible tutorials should have you creating stunning vector art in no time at all.Īside from Illustrator, Affinity Designer still has little competition, though there are a few Illustrator alternatives worth mentioning. (Image credit: Serif)Īffinity Designer is a capable and reliable piece of software. Affinity Designer 1.10 review: usability and what’s missingĭesigner’s tools will feel familiar to those with vector experience. Not only does this help with your workflow, but with the raster brushes in situ, it also allows you to add that much maligned texture or 'noise' otherwise missing from vector art. While in Affinity Designer, you can switch from the Designer persona (vector) to the Pixel persona (raster/bitmap) without changing apps. The ability to manipulate pressure sensitivity and gestural mark-making give you more control in variance and tone.Īlthough not a new feature, the ability to switch ‘personas’ in Affinity Designer only adds to the smoothness of the app, if not the whole suite’s, usability.
Of course this all becomes a lot more fun and expressive with the use of a stylus and a drawing tablet, even more so with one of the best iPads for drawing and an Apple Pencil (see our Apple Pencil deals post if you need to invest in one). The ability to tweak, edit and reassign different brushes to strokes gives you more than enough wiggle room, so-to-speak. Raster brushes can be used in situ, without leaving the app (Image credit: Serif)Īffinity Designer is certainly not as expressive a program as Corel Painter, but its vector brushes are not to be sniffed at.
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