Switching to Affinity Designer from Adobe Illustrator - What to know

If you've been looking to switch from Adobe Illustrator to Affinity designer here a couple of things that are good to know. If you have any tips let me know in the comments below.

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[spiderpig]

I use Illustrator heavily every day, but I bought this just to help affinity get better and become a threat to Adobe's monopoly

[miculToma]

- For copying the style, it's much easier just to hit Copy on one object and then Paste Style on the other!
- Also, for selection, in the Preferences, under TOOLS, you can actually turn on "Select object when they intersect the marquee"

Keep up the great vids!

[MatiasBaldanza]

I picked up Affinity Designer last year, because I took on a new client who hired me to create a ton of web assets (web ads, banners, and templates) and he needed source files in Affinity Designer format. Coming from Photoshop and Illustrator, it was a bit daunting at first not finding some things and having some tools behave differently, but I really ***loved*** the pixel profile for quick edits and don't get me started on the interface profiles and the slicing and exporting workflow! (It runs laps around Adobe's approach and it's so easy to work with that now I hate Adobe's even more than I used to...)
I just picked up a copy of your Affinity for Zombies course on Udemy, just to support your work (True fan here, since The Brads web comic. Keep cranking them out and I'll keep buyin' them). I'm sure that I'll pick up some useful info, as well.

[justjello]

Honestly I can't wait for affinity to truely threaten adobe, adobe has been getting away with so much when t comes to prices because it knows theres nothing that can threaten it, theres no programs that are as good

[mljarmin]

It's like Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw had a baby.

[zinouhoussoum]

in the first point, just press SHIFT before clicking and you'll take the color only and not the entire style :)

[yash]

2:21 4. Red line preview for shape parameters
5:55 7. Fx
6:50 8. Personas
8:37 9. Snap Settings
9:28 Force Pixel Alignment

[lardesouza]

I learned CorelDraw first so I never really got into Illustrator. Some of these Affinity items make me think of Corel. The 'layers' behaviour though takes me right back to college in 1988 and the Createx system which was one of the earliest vector systems. This program is just incredible. Thanks for another superb review video.

[joseonate]

For those of you that never had a chance to play with it, Macromedia/Adobe Fireworks was just like this. You could edit vectors alongside editing images, and the interface was very intuitive to let you work with both at the same time. I've been waiting 6 years for a similar tool since Adobe killed Fireworks. Affinity Designer follows along Firework's footsteps quite nicely.
This type of workflow is lighting fast for web graphics. I hope more people adopt it so that we can see this tool continue to grow.

[freelancedesigner]

bought the Affinity package when they were on sale last year, got to admit it was such a troublesome for an adobe user for 20 years, but for that price I'm willing to learn. as a freelance designer, times are pretty tough here and can't afford to subscribe for adobe anymore, thank you affinity for this great app!

[kristien]

I use Affinity Designer for my every day job. I'm a graphic designer at a screen printing shop. In terms of stagnant designs for shirts, flyers, and stuff like that, I think it works great. Yeah I'm still used to Illustrator because I was taught on it, but I'm not minding needing to take a couple small extra steps to get where I need to in AD. Obviously for designs that go beyond what I just mentioned AI would be better, but for what I do I prefer using AD.

[Mvgrafico]

Oh I'm currently using Affinity Designer but I miss a lot of things coming from Illustrator such as the Warp tool... deform text into predefined shapes is so useful... another tool I miss is the "Shape builder tool" is such a nice shortcut for the pathfinder panel... and the last thing is the power of the text edition in Illustrator... Sometimes I need to work with texts and be able to link multiple text boxes and just put the text distributed on those is a must have in my opinion.

[BorisJohnsonMayor]

Affinity Designer is great but users have requested many simple features for years now, and these changes have not been implemented yet.

One example is offset paths which for me is needed to create logos and mascots. It's a great app, with an affordable price and no subscription, but lacks the necessary features that Illustrator has. This is why Illustrator will be my main software for the work I do.

However, with that said, I love the feel and look of Affinity and use it to create more simple things like UI mockups and Icons.

If you are just starting out in vector art, this is definitely a great application to choose to help build the fundamental knowledge.

[MetroversalDesign]

Affinity is such a great tool. I think it's easier than Illustrator if you're a beginner.

[pennydoth]

This is a godsend!😫🙌I've been using Affinity Designer for a few months, which hasn't been too bad. The transition from Illustrator, though has been a little wonky. This Affinity list has most of the tools I'm used to using, but I just needed to know how to find them lol Thanks for this!😆

[capeman]

You talked about the anchor point tool in adobe like it was a positive thing, haha, the drawing tools are so simplified and more powerful Affinity. Adobe needs an anchor point tool, white arrow tool, add and delete anchor point tools to equal just the node tool in Affinity.

And let’s not forget the simplest but greatest innovation Affinity brought to the table... pressing delete on a node doesn’t leave an open shape... really, adobe? It’s 2018, time to fix that.

[ToyotaCharlie]

There are still some features I miss in Affinity Designer, for example Offsetting Paths and Optical Margin Alignment. What I absolutely love is the export function: really handy when designing assets for mobile applications.

[miroslavmajdak]

2. Hold down control key to select your objects.

[ozabot]

The thing I love most in Affinity Designer is Grids/Axis Manager. I am in love with isometric grids etc.

[revelhilary]

I love Affinity designer I have almost completely moved to work on it but there’s still some little things that only illustrator has