Why I switched from Illustrator to Affinity Designer.
Tags: Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Design, Illustration

Hi! 😊 If you are reading this article, chances are you already know about adobe Illustrator. But have you heard about Affinity designer?

I completely switched from Adobe illustrator to Affinity designer and in this article, I will give you 3 reasons why I love Affinity designer(Aff.Designer).

Context

The first Adobe software I started using was Adobe Premiere Pro. It’s later on that I discovered Adobe Photoshop.

3 years ago when I started taking design as a career I could not imagine my life without Photoshop. I was designing nearly everything(flyers, business card, brochures, book covers, icons, photo retouching etc) with Photoshop. Later on, I decided to learn Adobe Illustrator(Illustrator) for vector design, especially logo design and illustration.

It took me quite some time to learn the basics of Illustrator cause it was quite different from photoshop. What I loved and still love about Illustrator is that it gives you the ability to scale up your design without losing the quality.

Some months ago I decided to stop using adobe creative cloud products

I switched from Adobe XD to Figma

From Adobe Premiere Pro to Davinci Resolve

From Illustrator to Affinity designer

From photoshop to Affinity Photo

From Indesign to Affinity publisher

Why did I switch to Affinity Designer?

Here are the 3 reasons I love Affinity Designer and why I switched.

Pricing(I would’ve spent a lot of money)

“I discovered it will cost me a lot of money” .

Since I wanted to take my design career seriously, I decided I will pay for each software I was using. I discovered it will cost me a lot of money if I had to pay for Illustrator.

If I had to pay for Illustrator and use it for one year, it will cost me USD 239.88(XAF 130 267) and the app does not belong to me.

Price of Adobe Illustrator after 1 year

On the other hand Aff.Designer cost USD 49.99 for the mac and windows app, which is approximately XAF 27 200. There is no subscription, you own the app and updates are free.

Price of Affinity designer

Did I mention Aff.Designer has an Ipad and Windows version? and a free trial version for 30 days.

Illustrator did not have Ipad version until 2 months ago and their trial version is just 5 days(or 7 I don’t remember)

Pricing for affinity designer in December 2020 (Without discount)

Let’s do some maths here:

Amount it will cost you to use illustrator after 1 year =$239 (XAF 130 267)

Amount it will cost you to use Designer after 1 year =$50 (XAF 27 200)

You save: $189(XAF 102 298)

After 2 years

Amount it will cost you to use illustrator after 1 year =$478 (XAF 258 723)

Amount it will cost you to use Designer after 1 year =$50 (and you own it)

You save: $428 (XAF 231 660)

And even if you buy the iPad and windows version you still save a lot of money

User Experience

“Pricing made me choose, simplicity made me stay”

First thing I noticed was the way the interface was so simple and intuitive. I must admit illustrator frustrated me with its complex environment. It took me one day to get started on Aff.Designer. Aff.Designer has way fewer options which are sometimes unnecessary for a beginner or amateur illustrator. Going back to illustrator will be difficult. Pricing made me choose, simplicity made me stay.

Performance

downloading Aff. Designer version 1.8 from the app store is just 755.8 Mb. It’s a very light app and using it feels very smooth. Moreover, Aff. Designer can zoom up till 10000 times with no lagging

It is important to note here that if you intend to work in agencies then I highly recommend you to learn illustrator. A lot of companies out there can’t even imagine life without Adobe products. But on the other hand, if you are a freelancer wanting to save money. while using a powerful and yet intuitive app, then give a try to Aff. Designer.

Hit me up on Twitter if you have any questions on Aff. Designer