It’s been more than three decades since Adobe introduced us to Illustrator. All this time, Illustrator has been the go-to software for vector graphics design.

Ask any expert designer and they’ll tell you how they can’t even think of switching software. Illustrator is now part of their workflow and career. Adobe used this loyalty to their advantage, by converting their software licensing to a subscription plan.

You now have to pay a monthly price to keep using the software. For some people, it’ll still be a great deal. But for others, you’ll likely ask yourself if it’s still a good investment. That’s why you’re here, right?

Affinity Designer is everything that you want a graphic design software to be. Needless to say, it’s the best Illustrator alternative available today.

Adobe XD Essential Training: Design 2020 Q1 See all courses Avital’s public profile badge Include this LinkedIn profile on other websites Avital Sberro Currently applying for V&V Engineer roles. Open University HAIFA View profile View profile badges LinkedIn.

But, is it powerful enough to provide all the tools you need to do your work? Does it have all the essential features of Illustrator? To answer these questions, we compared Affinity Designer against Adobe Illustrator. Let’s find out which software is best.

• They implement components (Figma) or symbols (Adobe XD, Affinity Designer) which allow the reuse and easy update of common visual elements across the project They use constraints (Figma, Affinity Designer) to control behaviour of child elements They allow sharing designs for online viewing and feedback.
• Although I’ll be teaching you in Adobe XD (because it is free), I’m going to cover tools that are also found in your favorite design programs including: Adobe Illustrator; Sketch; Figma; Affinity Design; Invision Studio; and many more; The concepts you learn here can be put into practice for web graphics, web design, interaction design.

What is Adobe Illustrator?

Since it’s initial launch in 1987, Adobe Illustrator came a long way to become the industry-leading software for vector graphics. It’s now used for all types of vector design work from logo design to stationery design, poster design, and much more.

The latest version of Illustrator CC packs quite a lot of amazing features and tools that make it powerful enough to serve all types of creatives from freelance designers to Hollywood movie poster designers and everyone in between.

What is Affinity Designer?

Affinity Designer, initially released in 2014 exclusively on Mac devices, arrived on the Windows platform in 2016 with a promise of a better alternative to Illustrator. It was quite a bold approach to compete with an industry leader such as Adobe with decades of experience. Somehow, Affinity made it possible.

Affinity Designer offers all the essentials you need for vector graphics design and possibly more. One of the reasons it became so successful is not just because of the affordable price, there are even free Illustrator alternatives out there, but because of the quality of the app.

Affinity Designer Vs Adobe Illustrator

Let’s take a closer look at the tools and features offered by both software.

Ease of Use

If you’ve ever gone to any sort of a design school or even learn graphic design online watching tutorials, you’ll notice that they all use Adobe software to teach you the ways of design. That’s mainly because everyone uses Adobe software. But also because of their ease of use.

Adobe Illustrator, on the other hand, has a very complicating user interface. It’s really difficult to find your way around the software without watching some tutorial videos.

The same goes for Affinity Designer. But, it has a simpler user interface than Illustrator. Probably because it lacks some of the more advanced tools offered in Illustrator, like the mesh tool, blend tool, knife tool, and the large collection of filters and effects. They are slated to be added in future updates. But of course, they are non-essential tools you can certainly learn to live without.

Unique Tools

Adobe had decades of research and development to fine-tune all its software, including Illustrator. It’s now a complete package that offers everything you need for any kind of design work. Especially the CC versions are much more advanced than it used to be.

Clearly you can’t expect that same level of tools and functionality with Affinity Designer, which is fairly new in the market. However, the software has a tool palette with all the necessary tools to make it a vector editor suitable for professionals. In a way, Affinity Designer is at a stage where Illustrator was at when the CS5 was released.

Artboards

Artboards quickly became an essential part of Illustrator. It’s especially a useful feature creative designers used to easily organize their work in one place. Illustrator has a dedicated tool for creating artboards on the fly and customizing them to your preference.

Affinity Designer falls short in this area. You have the option to enable artboards when creating a new document. However, the software doesn’t have a dedicated tool or options for better artboard management.

Drawing Pad (Tablet) Support

While vector editing apps aren’t the best option for drawing and artwork creations, many designers still use drawing tables to craft various graphic designs such as logos, typography, and hand-drawn icons.

If drawing pad support is essential for your work, Illustrator is the best choice. Adobe has made sure it supports all popular drawing tablets.

Drawing tablet support in Affinity Designer is still a work in progress. While it works well with popular tablets, many users have expressed their frustrations of tablet compatibility issues on popular forums such as Reddit.

File Types and Compatability

When it comes to supported file types, Affinity Designer is way ahead of Illustrator. Especially because of the shared file type used by Affinity Photo and Designer software. This allows you to easily edit and customize the same file on both software. In addition to all the other popular file formats, the software also supports Adobe Illustrator AI and Photoshop PSD file formats.

Affinity Designer also has a feature called Personas. Which lets you switch between vector and pixel designs. Like for working on shapes and images at the same time. It’s like having Photoshop and Illustrator in the same place.

Needless to say, Illustrator also supports all popular file types. However, having to keep both Photoshop and Illustrator opened at the same time to work on the same file can be frustrating at times.

Pricing Difference

The pricing difference is the main reason why many users lean towards Affinity Designer. It only costs a one-time price of $49. And you get to use the software for the rest of your life and get all future updates for free.

Adobe Illustrator comes as a part of Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. You have to pay $20,99 every month to use just the Illustrator software. It would cost over $250 to use Illustrator for a full year. If you want access to all Adobe software, you have to subscribe to the $52.99 per month plan.

Templates and Resources

You’ll find resources in abundance for Adobe Illustrator. There are thousands of templates, UI kits, icon packs, vector graphics available in various design marketplaces.

Affinity Designer assets and resources can also be found in abundance. But not as much as Illustrator. Since the community is still growing, we’ll surely see more support for the app. On the plus side, all Illustrator files are compatible with Affinity Designer. So you can still use those Illustrator templates in Affinity Designer as well.

Undo Mistakes

If you tend to make a lot of mistakes or prefer to have a backup plan in case something goes wrong, Affinity Designer will have you fully covered. It lets you undo your changes for up to 8,000 times. And it includes history snapshots as well.

Illustrator has a limited amount of Undo’s allowed by default. You can change this in settings.

Clearly, no one would be crazy enough to spend hours clicking the undo button for 8,000 times. But, it’s nice to know you have the option.

Which Vector Editor is Better?

Even though we absolutely love everything about Affinity Designer, we still have to award the crown to Adobe Illustrator as the best software in the vector design industry.

In terms of usability, tools, features, community support, development, and overall functionality, Illustrator is still way ahead of all other vector design apps. For professionals, it’s the best app to use and to build a career around it.

However, you can still use Affinity Designer without all those unique traits of Illustrator. It will take some time to get used to the new environment and shortcuts, but Affinity Designer is a great alternative that’s worth giving a try. Especially if you’re new to graphic design, you should get started with Affinity Designer instead of Illustrator.

A free trial is available with all Affinity software. Give them a try to see if it’s worth the investment. And be sure to read our Affinity Photo vs Photoshop comparison as well.

Affinity Designer Templates

We're covering the basics of Affinity Designer, helpful tutorials, comparisons with other apps, and the best templates and assets to use.

Adobe XD (also known as Adobe Experience Design^[1]) is a vector-baseduser experience design tool for web apps and mobile apps, developed and published by Adobe Inc. It is available for macOS and Windows, although there are versions for iOS and Android to help preview the result of work directly on mobile devices. Adobe XD supports website wireframing and creating click-through prototypes.^[2]

History[edit]

Adobe first announced they were developing a new interface design and prototyping tool under the name 'Project Comet' at the Adobe MAX conference in October 2015. This was in response to the rising popularity of Sketch, a UX and UI design-focused vector editor released in 2010.^[3]

The first public beta was released for macOS as 'Adobe Experience Design CC' to anyone with an Adobe account on March 14, 2016.^[2] A beta of Adobe XD was released for Windows 10 on December 13, 2016.^[4] On October 18, 2017, Adobe announced that Adobe XD was out of beta.^[5]

Features[edit]

Adobe XD creates user interfaces for mobile and web apps. Many features in XD were previously either hard to use or nonexistent in other Adobe applications like Illustrator or Photoshop.^[6]

Affinity Designer Vs Indesign

• Repeat grid: Helps creating a grid of repeating items such as lists, and photo galleries.
• Prototype and animation: Creates animated prototypes through linking artboards. These prototypes can be previewed on supported mobile devices.
• Interoperability: XD supports and can open files from Illustrator, Photoshop, Photoshop Sketch, and After Effects. In addition to the Adobe Creative Cloud, XD can also connect to other tools and services such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to collaborate. XD is also able to auto-adjust and move smoothly from macOS to Windows. For security, prototypes can be sent with password protection to ensure full disclosure.^[7]
• Voice design: Apps can be designed using voice commands. In addition, what users create for smart assistants can be previewed as well.
• Components: Users can create components (previously known as symbols) to create logos, buttons and other assets for reuse. Their appearance can change with the context where they are used.
• Responsive resize: Responsive resize automatically adjusts and sizes pictures and other objects on the artboards. This allows the user to have their content automatically adjusted for different screens for different sized platforms such as mobile phones and PCs.
• Plugins: XD is compatible with custom plugins that add additional features and uses. Plugins range from design to functionality, automation and animation.

Alternatives[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Adobe Experience Design CC (Beta)'. www.adobe.com. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
2. ^ ^abLardinois, Frederic (March 14, 2016). 'Adobe launches Experience Design CC, a new tool for UX designers'. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
3. ^Rhodes, Margaret (October 18, 2015). 'Adobe's Project Comet Is a Start-to-Finish UX Design App'. Wired. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
4. ^Hassan, Mehedi (December 13, 2016). 'Adobe XD now available to Windows 10 users in beta'. MSPoweruser. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
5. ^Lardinois, Frederic (October 18, 2017). 'Adobe's XD prototyping and wireframing tool is now out of beta'. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
6. ^'Adobe XD. The New Hope'. Futurice. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
7. ^'Create and share designs, layouts, and prototypes quickly | Adobe XD CC'. www.adobe.com. Retrieved 2019-02-14.

External links[edit]

Photoshop Vs Affinity Designer