 |
| Affinity Designer User Interface using the Vector Persona |
When Adobe Creative Cloud turns to the subscription plan, many users who preferred to pay a one time payment for use of software have opted for other alternatives. And there is no lack of options. A simple search on Google will reveal many other options that are not as bad.
One of which is Affinity Designer, a professional vector graphic editor developed by Serif, compatible for MacOS, iPadOS and Windows. Serif made other software to as Adobe Photoshop and InDesign alternatives too.
 |
| Affinity Designer User Interface using the Pixel Persona |
The most current Affinity Designer version is 1.9.3 released just 2 months ago. I have been using it since 2 years ago. It first was launched in 2014. Since its launch many artists have taken up the software and have made tons of beautiful artwork. Affinity Designer is very welcomed by many digital artists because of it ease of use though some work processes have changed, but for the better.
Over the years, artists have made many video tutorials published on Youtube to help many others convert. These have been a great help for me and allowed me to learn as fast as possible. I was able to accomplish a commissioned work with ease after picking up some basic stuff and such. The project was to design a stage facade design with which performers could stage a puppet show. See design below. The use of vector program allowed me to keep the file size small and the work process fast.
 |
| Commissioned work - stage backdrop design |
In the month of June, I specially took a couple of days to re-learn Affinity Designer in order to discover more functions. I wanted to make an example illustration design to kind of summarise what I have learned from the experts. And this is it. A simple artwork that exhibits vector strokes and textures, transparency tool and so forth. No biggie.
Overall I would definitely recommend anyone to use Affinity Designer.
The other vector alternative is INKSCAPE. The most current is v1.1 that can be downloaded for FREE via this link.
Inkscape 1.1
Released on May 24, 2021
Inkscape 1.1 is the latest major Inkscape release that brings you many fresh new features and new functionality.
Release highlights
- A Welcome dialog, where the look of Inkscape can be selected, and some choices for the new document's size or file to open are available
- A Command palette that opens when the ? key is pressed and that allows to search and use many functions without having to use a keyboard shortcut or going through the menus
- It is now possible to copy, cut and paste parts of paths with the Node tool
- The dialog docking system has been rewritten, which resolves many issues with Inkscape's docked dialogs and allows you to dock dialogs on either side of the screen
- New Outline Overlay mode that displays object outlines while also showing their real colors
- Preferences options are now easier to find by using the new search field
- It is no longer necessary to remember to click on 'Export' in the PNG Export dialog, as the exporting will already happen after the click on 'Save' in the file selection dialog.
- Export as JPG, TIFF, optimized PNG and WebP directly from Inkscape
- When pasting a copied object, Inkscape now pastes it directly on top of the currently selected object by default
- An extension for updating extensions and installing additional extensions, called the Extension Manager (currently in beta stage)
To learn more, see the full release notes for Inkscape 1.1 .
Vectornator
Dec 21, 2019What do you like best?
I think the biggest is that it's free - I can still accomplish quite a bit in terms of vector graphics and illustrations, I can work on both my iPad and my Mac, and it's just a nice, easy software to use with lots of fun tools.Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike?
It's only available on Mac and iOS. It's good for those who have the Apple stuff, but what about the rest. I think it's a big issue that hopefully will be solved somedayReview collected by and hosted on G2.com.
