Affinity Designer is a graphic design software developed by Serif, a UK-based software company. It is part of the Affinity software suite, which also includes Affinity Photo (photo editing software) and Affinity Publisher (desktop publishing software).
Affinity Designer is a vector design tool used to create graphics and layouts for print and display. It includes a wide range of drawing and design tools, such as shapes, brushes, text and layers, and allows you to work with high-resolution files without losing quality. It also includes advanced features such as color adjustment and export to a variety of file formats, such as PDF, JPG, and PNG.
Affinity Designer is available for Windows and macOS and is paid software, but there is a free trial available for users to try before purchasing.
Functionality
Affinity Designer works as a successor to DrawPlus, Serif’s software that the company stopped producing in 2017 to focus on Affinity’s product range. The tool has been described as an alternative to Adobe Illustrator and supports common graphic file formats, including Adobe Illustrator, SVG, Adobe Photoshop, PDF, and EPS.The application can import data from Adobe FreeHand files (specifically 10 & MX versions).
Affinity Designer includes a vector pen and modeling tools, support for custom vectors and rasterization brushes (including the ability to import brushes from Adobe Photoshop), dynamic symbols, stabilizers, text style managers, and options for exporting vectors/pixels.
Affinity Designer contains non-destructive editing features in all its layers, with pans and zooms at 60 fps and real-time vision for effects and transformations.It supports RGB, RGB Hex, LAB, CMYK and grayscale models, along with PANTONE color mixers and ICC color management for end-to-end workflows with CMYK and 16-bit per channel edit.
Development
Affinity Designer started as a vector graphics editor solely for macOS. It was developed from the ground up for this operating system, allowing the implication of key technologies such as OpenGL, Grand Central Dispatch and Core Graphics.
The first version was released in October 2014, being the first Affinity app released by Serif (and, at the same time, its first release on macOS).At the time, Serifa’s vector graphics app for Windows was DrawPlus; however, following the release of Affinity Designer for Windows, this product has been replaced.
In April 2015, version 1.2 was released, introducing new tools and features, such as the Corner Tool and the mode to force pixel alignment.In December 2015, version 1.4 was released, introducing changes intended for printing.In October 2016, version 1.5 was released, with new features related to symbols and text styles.
The app began expanding to other platforms in November 2016 when it was first released for Microsoft Windows.
Version 1.6 was released in November 2017, introducing performance improvements.
The first release of a version of Affinity Designer for iPad took place in July 2018.
In June 2019, version 1.7 was released, adding key features such as HDR support and major performance improvements.Version 1.8, released in February 2020, also allowed users to define their own document templates and keyboard shortcuts.