Owned by Canva, Affinity offers a 7-day free trial, giving me enough time to explore its features before deciding. I had to sign up for an account on their website and then download the free trial version for my Mac to try it out. It’s available for MacOS, Windows, and iPad.
The user interface of Affinity Designer
I felt that it was not beginner-friendly. Especially if you’ve never used graphic design software like Adobe’s tools, Affinity Designer can feel overwhelming at first. The logo I created with the template on Adobe Express in 5 minutes took me a good 20 minutes before I got the hang of the tool. But once you get past the learning curve, it becomes surprisingly easy and fast to work with.
Creating a logo with Affinity Designer
Despite being feature-heavy like Adobe Illustrator, I felt the performance of Affinity is one of its biggest strengths. It’s fast, responsive, and handles most tasks with ease. I also loved its flexibility in exporting files as PNG, JPEG, SVG, and PDF and importing designs from other platforms, including .psd and .ai files of Adobe software. This meant I could easily move files between Affinity Designer and other software to refine my projects.
Export options on Affinity Designer
Surprisingly, I could also save the file with version history using Save History with Document. Also, whenever I had a doubt or got stuck, I could turn to the active use base on platforms like Reddit and YouTube.
Save History with Document option on Affinity Designer
However, Affinity Designer isn’t without its limitations. As mentioned earlier, it does have a steeper learning curve, especially for beginners. Also, it doesn’t include features like image trace or gradient mesh. While honestly, those aren’t functions I use often for my design needs currently, this is something professional designers definitely care about.
