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| Photo by Herry Sucahya |
Affinity is a fantastic design app, especially because of it is a free. Like, really no cost of subscription, at least for now. If you compare it to Adobe subscription, it's a no brainer for graphic designer starters to use Affinity, if you're concerned a lot about budget.
Functionality wise, Affinity is also amazing. Even in some core function performance, like zooming, panning, brush, effects, Affinity is simply way faster and stable than the Adobe's.
For its own use, Affinity simply really really good.
But in real use, especially if you are doing some collaborative work with other design team or marketing team in other industry, you will start see some limitation of this Affinity.
Adobe has been long dominating the graphic suite app, and it really affect the tool standardization in the real world setting. Corporate companies, private companies, institutions, will not be wasting time training or adapting to new tools, if the current tools are proven to be working and still the industry standard. Adobe tools, no matter how nerdy graphic designers despise it, is still working very well. Yes, bugs are still lurking in Adobe’s software, but Affinity isn’t completely free of them either.
To be honest, I really like Affinity 3.0 where all different app types are merged into one app. I took the geniune benefit when I was working on some illustrative projects that incorporated text layout and multiple pages.
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| Photo by Herry Sucahya |
Say for example, a calendar project. I made the illustration in the Vector mode, adding extra detailed efects in the Pixel mode, and then crafting the layout, the typography and the pages in Layout mode. It was so convenient to do all that different type of graphic without needing to switch different apps. Perhaps my device was happy too, because no extra work on the ram.
But the limitation become evident when my client is asking for PSD files. Sure, there is an option in Affinity to export a PSD file. But the problem already happened even before exporting. Affinity says my file is too big, even for a small 1080x1920 in 72ppi setup. The only workable workaround is by simplifying the layer structure; merging and rasterizing the layers. After that, the exported file is not perfectly editable as well. Text layers are a hot mess when opened in Photoshop. Even I tried to export in PDF then opened in Illustrator, same problematic text box stuff. There are many more nitpicky things that make me thinking that Affinity have more limitation if I work with other teams using Adobe products.
Working alone, like working with for client and just send them some finished file in PDF or JPG or PNG, Affinity will be just perfect. But when working collaboratively with other teams in different industry, you need to be more strategic and fully aware on the technicalities in the graphic development stages. You cannot waste extra hours to fix the layers just because the incompatibility of two different apps. In the fast paced production phase, fast delivery is vital and add extra professionalism value to your work.
I love Affinity 3.0, but if your collaborative professional environment use Adobe, stick with Adobe. Or be strategic when incorporating Affinity-Adobe into your workflow.
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