@Veldey Photos depend what you need. For vector animation I cant imagine give up Illustrator and After Effects. Especially latest update makes AI superior over AD. I have both, year ago AD was better now AI is better choice for complex and Rich illustrations
Yeah I still definitely prefer Illustrator, but I also have like 15 years of experience with it. Affinity is a great tool to add to the toolbox though.
- 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!
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
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.
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.
I just wanted to say thank you for your videos on Affinity's line, it was just what I was looking for and I actually enjoy them more. This video was great and I've saved it for later as there's some great tips here. Thanks again!
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.
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!😆
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.
Thanks for excellent tips! I bought Affinity Designer a few weeks back and have been loving it :) I definitely learned a few new tricks from this video :)
I just wanted to say that I got your Udemy course for Affinity Designer, and it’s fantastic! I know how to use Illustrator, but was having a hard time figuring out some things in Designer. You cover a lot of information in a way that’s easy to follow and very entertaining! There are so many videos I can’t watch because they’re too dry and it takes forever to get to the actual “how to.” I’ve subscribed here, and I’m already looking at some of the other Udemy videos created by you. I wish all of them were this good!
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.
This is the best video I’ve found on Designer! I also started with Illustrator and have been confused with some of the differences. I only do it for fun, but I’ve purchased EVERYTHING from this company because it’s such a great deal. I have Designer and Photo for my computer and my iPad. I just started playing with Designer to help with some painting ideas. (I wish you’d write a book.)
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.
Awesome video, I'm barely jumping into Affinity and you touched on some points that were getting on my nerves. Understanding the pixel persona was plus! Thank you :)
I started using affinity designer today. And I just loved it. It's so easy to grasp. And above all it's so snappy. Photoshop lags in my i5 machine but affinity just killed it. Loved using it. Hope to be happy with it forever.
as a 23 year user of many vector programs, I am definitely going to purchase this! All the things you describe used to be available on this old cad software I used to use in the large format industry and really missed those functions when I had to switch to illustrator back in 2003. edit: the cad software I had to use for this flat bed printer was really cool but....$5000 that is why I had to switch to illustrator.
Great video - a good mixture of the right Information, succinctness, tempo, Zest and enthusiasm without being in-your-face like a lot of TH-cam presentations are. A few things occurred to me though, while watching:
I like how this video cleared up some Illustration frustration for me. But at the same time, I just find that Designer's approach to the same tools makes a bunch more sense
Great video - I am thinking of swapping over but it’s hard to know how much time it’s going to take and if it’s going to be worth the learning time when you don’t know if a show-stopper is going to suddenly appear! So this was really helpful.
Hi, For No. 01: in illustrator, holding shift while picking a color from a gradient or text or any other styles, will pick only the color like what u show in Affinity.
I've been having a proem and watched so many videos for how to basically mask a shape into another in designer. I can't believe I didn't think about the layers thing, I was trying different geometry. I just happen to watch this for entertainment and I slowed down to 0.25 speed and you taught me at 0:25
Affinity gives me such confidence. With illustrator I have to pump myself up. I mean that zombie composition in the beginning of this vid, i SEE that abd feel pretty confident i can that on the fly, AND I'm filled with so many ideas. God I love Affinity
Hi, Awesome video !!!! new subscriber here. I jusst bought this software last week and I love it. Im an amateur on this field. I am not familiar with illustrator either. But I bought this to create designs for tshirts. I hope to learn this software up and down and not only use it for that purpose. I saw that you can use it for E-commerce as-well. a lot to learn. Cheers
Thanks for this super clear review! The workflow reminds me a lot of CorelDraw. Have always been turned off by AI's workflow, so I'm glad to see a good alternative on Mac.
0:55 You can copy+paste the style of an object on to a new layer with Paste Style (Go to Edit -> Paste Style to find it or use a shortcut for it). Just ctrl+C a regular object and then paste the style. Pretty much what the Colour Picker Tool does in Illustrator, but without needing a tool to do it. I honestly prefer it this way, since I always preferred how colour picking worked in Photoshop than in Illustrator (I just want one colour darn it! :P).
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.
Awesome piece of software - I downloaded the trial. because I don't know what to get; illustrator or designer... guess ill try them both out and pick for myself. thx for the vid and the insight!
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!
For anyone that wants to know - Affinity works flawlessly and really smooth on the M1 Macbook Pro with the new Affinity 1.9 update. I noticed in the vid it was a bit 'glitchy' looking but it runs very smooth for me. I would highly recommend making the purchase especially with 50% off at the mo! Great vid Brad - cheers from the UK 🇬🇧✌️
I agree, if you've never touched a vector tool it seems more intuitive, probably because there just isn't as much extra edge case type features in there.
That's why I use Affinity Designer in the first place. I was too overwhelmed by the tools that is in Adobe Illustrator that I only staring the blank workspace because I don't know where to start
Same here. I started with vector because of affinity. I wish illustrator would have been like affinity years ago. However, because of lack of competition Adobe has gotten away for years with small updates every year yet high prices.
i agree, affinity designer is an awesome program but It lacks some tools as shape builder tool,smooth tool and the knife tool, but that's ain't a problem because affinity team promesed that they will add all this stuff very soon.
Is there a "shape builder" equivalent in Designer? I love being able to have multiple overlapping shapes in Illustrator and select section by section what to remove, or combine with other shapes. I use Illustrator on the desktop, but recently picked up Designer for ipad and couldnt find that feature anywhere. Wondering if its in the desktop app. Also, it seems like you cant warp text in Designer on the iPad. Is it in the desktop version?
I have been a CorelDraw user since version 2. I found it easier than Illustrator. I've been curious about Infinity for a while. All these tips seem to work the same way Corel does. I'm going to have to take a serious look at Infinity now. Thank you.
I used affinity designer when it was in beta for windows. Biggest flaw for me as a logo/icon designer is the lack of a shape builder tool and offset path. Really kills my workflow and makes everything slower due to having to copy/paste everything when using path finder
Exactly my point! I use Illustrator for all my mascot logos simply because of the Offset Path feature. This has been requested from many users of Affinity for years now and they haven't implemented it yet. I now just use Affinity to make Twitch Panels, UI mockups and so on.
forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/54699-creating-offset-paths-in-affinity-designer/ I use Illustrator at work, and AD at home as I can't afford Illustrator. AD is more clunky and funky, but some of its features I like more than Illustrator, working in both is a lot of fun, for the price of AD its a gem.
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.
your second 'need to do' have solution: in preferences/default have to check option for 'select object when intersects with selection marquee' - the you can select in illustrator fashion
I think my primary question would be the export capabilities. I want to do things like pins, patches and stamps. The companies that do this always ask for .ai or vector .pdf I've tried to look for the information but I can't find if the .pdf is a vector pdf of if things get exported as a raster image. Does anyone have info about this particular issue??
Dimas Aditjondro it uses more than one core of the cpu which means that it utilizes more of the cpu and can run faster and do more in theory than a program that uses only one core.
Wait what? For real? AI has no multi-thread support? What is this 2005? And here I was always wondering why AI is so fucking sluggish. Just tried Affinity today and the first thing you notice is just how smooth simply moving around on your artboard is, compared to the jittery performance in Adobe. Night and day.
I used to hate drawing bezier curves in Illustrator and avoided them like the plague; it just did not feel natural. But in Affinity Designer, the interactions in the bezier tool just feels so intuitive and natural, and now I LOVE drawing free form bezier curves! I do wish Blender could take a cue from Affinity in their bezier tool,
I am almost 70% through the course on here and its very good, while i have used Vector drawing before, I did learn a lot about Affinity Designer. I would say that Affinity Designer works more like Corel Draw that Illustrator, and I used Corel for a long time, so found Affinity quite easy to convert to.
regarding selections, for iOS AD, i found a pref setting "select object when intersects selection marquee", that will select a shape when you barely overlap it. (i'm and AI user since the late 80s, and am trying to be as good in AD as i am in AI).
I create a lot of logos and title fonts for my projects. Illustrator has a set of Text Envelope icons that instantly transform the outline of a word into specific shapes, i.e. Inflare, Squeeze, Twist, Arc, etc. This doesn't seem possible in Designer without first creating a shape and then applying it to the words. In CorelDraw, I have a page of shapes that I can bring up, copy and paste into my document until I'm done with it. Is this my only option in Designer?
Hi Brad Colbow, thanks for sharing. Have been using adobe illustrator for decades as a professional, so i decided to try out affinity designer and affinity painter, after spending about an hour on this program i found it to be very basic when it comes to advanced illustration, a lot of tools that are needed in the pipeline of advanced illustrations are not included, the clipping of object within the program can get annoying when it comes to multiple clipping between different element, also the layers panel is also a bit stressful scrolling up and down because i can't easily modify my layout like in illustrator. In illustrator when am working on lots of layers i usually set my layers panel to take the right side of my screen ( having a long list of my path without having to scroll a lot. the color picker is also not time effective and it creates styles which i put back on my shape, that is really not needed. exporting lots of artwork is also a long process. there is no mush different between Affinity Designer and Affinity Painter, the core development of the programs are the same, which is not great ( a professional will ask "what is the different" and not just saying one is pixel base and the other is vector base. digital art using affinity Painter is a headache ( i hate repeated tasks ) and affinity Designer and Painter does not help with repeated task. switching between Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop while working on a project is perfectly fine, because i am getting limitless power from both ends. Overall Affinity Designer and Affinity Painter are easy to use program for people who are looking to create cool arts and not having to spend hours learning the program, both programs, but if you want to create advanced and professional works go for Adobe illustrator and Photoshop, the learning curve is perfectly alright for someone looking to be a pro ( what really makes the learning curve long is the amount of advanced tools, tricks and tips. If you are a professional artist or you love creating your own world and setting things as you like, Affinity is not for you. One major reason, you can't modify your work space to your taste. Loool
I wouldn't say that it isn't for professionals. There are lots of artists that are professionals that use this software. What is a professional? Some of the issues may be because not understanding the program maybe? Oh and there is no such thing as Affinity Painter lol
evtonic3 exactly. This guys is clueless on clarifying his point. There are professionals much experienced in using Affinity Designer than AI. Also lots of people don’t have the time to figure out the new application. So they come up with excuses.
In point 2, in Affinity Designer, we can also select the objects as in AI, simply by touching them, you only must go change that in preferences. I have both apps in my computer, but I prefer Ai for my work. I tell you why: I sell my work on a big free-royalty vectors company, and they want the illustration only in a EPS10 version. Unfortunately, Affinity its not a good EPS exporter. You don't have the option to choose a version of the EPS. It converts gradients and shadows to a embedded images not editable. :-/
Or sell it as bitmap. 99% of current Illustrator files are nowhere vector and render in bitmap. Just throw one in InDesign, and you can see most show up as raster image in the linked image list. One hint of transparancy or a single effect make the images turn rasterized.
No Autotrace, No text warp tools like Perspective, bulge, etc... I do t-shirt design and i have to use Inkscape to do the more advanced text effects! Inkscape is free and allows the same controls over shapes.
I miss 'image trace'...probably one of the big reasons I didn't fully switch yet. Great post though...made me want to switch more. Maybe I'll make the plunge!
To Nr 10: Geometry tools (aka Pathfinder): You can Shift-Click the Icons. With that you can edit (for example move around) the initial objects. Very handy!
I have been a graphic artist since the days of xacto knives, stat cameras and waxing machines. My whole professional workflow since computers came along has been using Adobe products (except for the long period of QuarkXpress dominance in page layout). I just became aware of the Affinity graphics programs and they look like interesting alternatives. The reason I am looking to bail from the Adobe lineup is solely due to their subscription model. They have a "locked in" user base, given the pro-world runs on Adobe products. So what do they do to these loyal customers? They are ream 'em a new one-every month! Sure, big design firms can afford these prices, but for little shops like mine their subscription costs are just one more drain on my income. They are more like a utility company now. Don't pay your bills and your way of making a living is cut off. In regards to feature sets between the individual products I remember when Pshop added non-destructive editing and adjustments. WOW! What a game changer! So what if the Affinity products lack some of the features of their adobe counter parts? Compared to what we were using back when Illustrator 8 and Photoshop 2 were kings of the hill, the Affinity products are feature-packed. I have not left Adobe's CS products.They are still great tools. But I am REALLY turned off by their subscription model. I guess when my beast of a 2012 Mac Pro finally dies I will have to cross that bridge. But until then I will stick with what I paid for and OWN and pocket the extra that would otherwise be going to a giant tech company. Meanwhile, I am going to start messin' around with Affinity's products and see if I can wean myself from the Adobe teats.
I use Illustrator heavily every day, but I bought this just to help affinity get better and become a threat to Adobe's monopoly
@Veldey Photos depend what you need. For vector animation I cant imagine give up Illustrator and After Effects. Especially latest update makes AI superior over AD. I have both, year ago AD was better now AI is better choice for complex and Rich illustrations
Yeah I still definitely prefer Illustrator, but I also have like 15 years of experience with it. Affinity is a great tool to add to the toolbox though.
adobe should think of their monopoly. Its not fair for his competitors.
@@sirajdey Adobe: Our monopoly isn't fair to our competitors.
Also Adobe: THAT'S AWESOME!
Nice
- 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!
Nice! I had a hunch there might have been a couple things I missed when I was using it. Thanks!
You, sir, are a hero. The problem of the first tip bothered me big time in Affinity. Now it's gone. Thanks a lot!
Toma Alexandru Official Be on the lookout for the IPad Pro x that’s gonna be live at WWDC 2018 today!!
Edit: Never mind nothing on the iPad
Toma Alexandru Official transcript
That was atypo lol
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
Finally adobe has competition
We as the consument have more benefit
And is awesome, a young app competing very close
Adobe has always had competition. Corel is the main one, BTW “serif” the company who produces affinity is like 20 years old... is not a “young” app
Yes!!!
its Affinity softwares own competition but not for Adobe
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.
Thanks! you've been here a while, glad to hear not everyone here is 17 years old :D
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
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.
I just wanted to say thank you for your videos on Affinity's line, it was just what I was looking for and I actually enjoy them more. This video was great and I've saved it for later as there's some great tips here. Thanks again!
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.
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!😆
in the first point, just press SHIFT before clicking and you'll take the color only and not the entire style :)
Great advice. Thanks!
You just saved my life.
And if you choose eyedropper tool and press enter, you can select what you want to copy from a list that pops up
Same like in AI. U guys know it?
It's like Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw had a baby.
mljarmin I agree 😂😆
I agree and confirmed by me, user of both programs
Babe's name is Xara
Children are often born more beautiful than their parents.
More like Xara had a baby
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.
No shape builder tool
Ouch, that's a deal-breaker!
Thanks for excellent tips! I bought Affinity Designer a few weeks back and have been loving it :) I definitely learned a few new tricks from this video :)
Great presentation! You're really good at showing affinity power over illustrator. I should checkout your course soon!
I just wanted to say that I got your Udemy course for Affinity Designer, and it’s fantastic! I know how to use Illustrator, but was having a hard time figuring out some things in Designer. You cover a lot of information in a way that’s easy to follow and very entertaining! There are so many videos I can’t watch because they’re too dry and it takes forever to get to the actual “how to.” I’ve subscribed here, and I’m already looking at some of the other Udemy videos created by you. I wish all of them were this good!
Great info... thank you a lot. Using Illustrator for work for ages. This was exactly what I needed to make me try it.. thanks again
Thanks so much for this - gave me a lot of great information to know if Affinity Designer will work for me.
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.
Brilliant - I was just learning about the Designer tools, thanks for sharing.
This is the best video I’ve found on Designer! I also started with Illustrator and have been confused with some of the differences. I only do it for fun, but I’ve purchased EVERYTHING from this company because it’s such a great deal. I have Designer and Photo for my computer and my iPad. I just started playing with Designer to help with some painting ideas. (I wish you’d write a book.)
The thing I love most in Affinity Designer is Grids/Axis Manager. I am in love with isometric grids etc.
Thanks for taking the time to create this great video. Will he taking your course soon
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.
Actually i miss many automatization options. Offset is one of these. Good Point.
Awesome video, I'm barely jumping into Affinity and you touched on some points that were getting on my nerves. Understanding the pixel persona was plus! Thank you :)
I started using affinity designer today. And I just loved it. It's so easy to grasp. And above all it's so snappy. Photoshop lags in my i5 machine but affinity just killed it. Loved using it. Hope to be happy with it forever.
as a 23 year user of many vector programs, I am definitely going to purchase this! All the things you describe used to be available on this old cad software I used to use in the large format industry and really missed those functions when I had to switch to illustrator back in 2003. edit: the cad software I had to use for this flat bed printer was really cool but....$5000 that is why I had to switch to illustrator.
Great video - a good mixture of the right Information, succinctness, tempo, Zest and enthusiasm without being in-your-face like a lot of TH-cam presentations are. A few things occurred to me though, while watching:
love your videos man, also love the intro music! :)
Great! The concept of these tools work like the tools in my old Freehand. :)
Also also, Gradient and Transparency can be applied to the same object. They are independent of each other.
oh yeah, great point!
2. You can actually change this in the settings. I have it changed to where I only have to highlight a tiny part of the object for it to be selected
wot'n tarnation - Wow, really. That’s awesome. Mmmmmm. Maybe I should at least buy it to try.
Wow, an addition material to the course. Thanks.
Thank you for highlighting some tips. Your udemy course seems interesting as well. May have to check it out after I get AD.
Great tutorial. Well paced, delivered and edited. 👍
I like how this video cleared up some Illustration frustration for me. But at the same time, I just find that Designer's approach to the same tools makes a bunch more sense
Thank you for explaining this thoroughly!
This video actually makes me want to try out the Affinity, it looks so user-friendly.
Great video - I am thinking of swapping over but it’s hard to know how much time it’s going to take and if it’s going to be worth the learning time when you don’t know if a show-stopper is going to suddenly appear! So this was really helpful.
Hi, For No. 01: in illustrator, holding shift while picking a color from a gradient or text or any other styles, will pick only the color like what u show in Affinity.
Thanks for this vid, I am starting to learn this...
BROTHER, YOU ARE THE BEST!!! You oooh really helped me!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
I've been having a proem and watched so many videos for how to basically mask a shape into another in designer. I can't believe I didn't think about the layers thing, I was trying different geometry. I just happen to watch this for entertainment and I slowed down to 0.25 speed and you taught me at 0:25
Affinity gives me such confidence. With illustrator I have to pump myself up.
I mean that zombie composition in the beginning of this vid, i SEE that abd feel pretty confident i can that on the fly, AND I'm filled with so many ideas. God I love Affinity
Wow, thanks tis was unbelievably helpful. More than you would know.
Hi, Awesome video !!!! new subscriber here. I jusst bought this software last week and I love it. Im an amateur on this field. I am not familiar with illustrator either. But I bought this to create designs for tshirts. I hope to learn this software up and down and not only use it for that purpose. I saw that you can use it for E-commerce as-well. a lot to learn. Cheers
Thanks for this super clear review! The workflow reminds me a lot of CorelDraw. Have always been turned off by AI's workflow, so I'm glad to see a good alternative on Mac.
0:55 You can copy+paste the style of an object on to a new layer with Paste Style (Go to Edit -> Paste Style to find it or use a shortcut for it). Just ctrl+C a regular object and then paste the style. Pretty much what the Colour Picker Tool does in Illustrator, but without needing a tool to do it. I honestly prefer it this way, since I always preferred how colour picking worked in Photoshop than in Illustrator (I just want one colour darn it! :P).
OK, I didn't know about the edit all layers/edit current layer toggle, so this video was worth it, just for that little tip!
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.
Yes, offset paths is a real pain in the onions in AD, I struggled, watched tutorials, struggled again then gave up and did it in AI in seconds...
Awesome piece of software - I downloaded the trial. because I don't know what to get; illustrator or designer... guess ill try them both out and pick for myself. thx for the vid and the insight!
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!
Best video for Affinity! Thank you
Cool tips bro! Thank you!
Very well explained. Great job
I love Affinity designer I have almost completely moved to work on it but there’s still some little things that only illustrator has
Majo C Like what? I’m thinking of switching.
@@scribbles1440 Like the automatic vectorisation and the shape conceptor
@@Lingatsu How about Mesh Tool
@@muhammadghifardan2259 didn't know this tool
For anyone that wants to know - Affinity works flawlessly and really smooth on the M1 Macbook Pro with the new Affinity 1.9 update. I noticed in the vid it was a bit 'glitchy' looking but it runs very smooth for me. I would highly recommend making the purchase especially with 50% off at the mo! Great vid Brad - cheers from the UK 🇬🇧✌️
good work king, love you
You can adjust the color picker in illustrator to only choose the color. Just hit enter while on the color picker tool.
wow thank you! This guide is very helpful and fun to watch! This video makes me want to buy Affinity Designer xD
Great tips. Designer looks great. Thank you.
Affinity is such a great tool. I think it's easier than Illustrator if you're a beginner.
I agree, if you've never touched a vector tool it seems more intuitive, probably because there just isn't as much extra edge case type features in there.
That's why I use Affinity Designer in the first place. I was too overwhelmed by the tools that is in Adobe Illustrator that I only staring the blank workspace because I don't know where to start
Same here. I started with vector because of affinity. I wish illustrator would have been like affinity years ago. However, because of lack of competition Adobe has gotten away for years with small updates every year yet high prices.
i agree, affinity designer is an awesome program but It lacks some tools as shape builder tool,smooth tool and the knife tool, but that's ain't a problem because affinity team promesed that they will add all this stuff very soon.
@@ajinasawor you start by earning the software
Is there a tool that equivalent to Illustrator's Shape Builder tool?
switching to....
Which one is most cpu efficient and snappy in performance?
Someone earlier in the posts said that affinity uses more than one core so it is faster than ai which uses only one and is said to be much slower.
Affinity Designer runs better than Adobe Illustrator
Affinity is very very optimized even for a old computer I sometimes do some quick edits on
Is there a "shape builder" equivalent in Designer? I love being able to have multiple overlapping shapes in Illustrator and select section by section what to remove, or combine with other shapes. I use Illustrator on the desktop, but recently picked up Designer for ipad and couldnt find that feature anywhere. Wondering if its in the desktop app. Also, it seems like you cant warp text in Designer on the iPad. Is it in the desktop version?
I have been a CorelDraw user since version 2. I found it easier than Illustrator. I've been curious about Infinity for a while. All these tips seem to work the same way Corel does. I'm going to have to take a serious look at Infinity now. Thank you.
3:50 Use the Pen tool (P) and select a node by holding Alt when clicking on it, then hold Shift to create two curves or Alt to create one.
I used affinity designer when it was in beta for windows. Biggest flaw for me as a logo/icon designer is the lack of a shape builder tool and offset path. Really kills my workflow and makes everything slower due to having to copy/paste everything when using path finder
Exactly my point! I use Illustrator for all my mascot logos simply because of the Offset Path feature. This has been requested from many users of Affinity for years now and they haven't implemented it yet. I now just use Affinity to make Twitch Panels, UI mockups and so on.
This is good to know. It's not something I use much so I didn't notice its absence.
The shapebuilder tool is one of the most crucial worksafers. Never would want p give it up
PAdenmark well, I guess I’m not getting into AD! I rely on those features every 5 seconds.
forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/54699-creating-offset-paths-in-affinity-designer/
I use Illustrator at work, and AD at home as I can't afford Illustrator. AD is more clunky and funky, but some of its features I like more than Illustrator, working in both is a lot of fun, for the price of AD its a gem.
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.
your second 'need to do' have solution: in preferences/default have to check option for 'select object when intersects with selection marquee' - the you can select in illustrator fashion
I love affinity designers. Amazing.
I think my primary question would be the export capabilities. I want to do things like pins, patches and stamps. The companies that do this always ask for .ai or vector .pdf I've tried to look for the information but I can't find if the .pdf is a vector pdf of if things get exported as a raster image. Does anyone have info about this particular issue??
I think it's important to know that Affinity Software is multi-threaded unlike Adobe's.
What does that mean?
Dimas Aditjondro it uses more than one core of the cpu which means that it utilizes more of the cpu and can run faster and do more in theory than a program that uses only one core.
Wait what? For real? AI has no multi-thread support? What is this 2005? And here I was always wondering why AI is so fucking sluggish. Just tried Affinity today and the first thing you notice is just how smooth simply moving around on your artboard is, compared to the jittery performance in Adobe. Night and day.
@@tonyjohnson5669 That explains a lot! Affinity Designer has always ran better on my Mac than Adobe AI. Now we know!
I think $50 is well worth the adjusting.
Thanks for making this video.
Wanna know how blending and stroke works, and does the gradient tool provide angle and dimension
I used to hate drawing bezier curves in Illustrator and avoided them like the plague; it just did not feel natural. But in Affinity Designer, the interactions in the bezier tool just feels so intuitive and natural, and now I LOVE drawing free form bezier curves! I do wish Blender could take a cue from Affinity in their bezier tool,
I am almost 70% through the course on here and its very good, while i have used Vector drawing before, I did learn a lot about Affinity Designer. I would say that Affinity Designer works more like Corel Draw that Illustrator, and I used Corel for a long time, so found Affinity quite easy to convert to.
regarding selections, for iOS AD, i found a pref setting "select object when intersects selection marquee", that will select a shape when you barely overlap it. (i'm and AI user since the late 80s, and am trying to be as good in AD as i am in AI).
I create a lot of logos and title fonts for my projects. Illustrator has a set of Text Envelope icons that instantly transform the outline of a word into specific shapes, i.e. Inflare, Squeeze, Twist, Arc, etc. This doesn't seem possible in Designer without first creating a shape and then applying it to the words. In CorelDraw, I have a page of shapes that I can bring up, copy and paste into my document until I'm done with it. Is this my only option in Designer?
Very useful, thanks!
Hi Brad Colbow, thanks for sharing.
Have been using adobe illustrator for decades as a professional, so i decided to try out affinity designer and affinity painter, after spending about an hour on this program i found it to be very basic when it comes to advanced illustration, a lot of tools that are needed in the pipeline of advanced illustrations are not included, the clipping of object within the program can get annoying when it comes to multiple clipping between different element, also the layers panel is also a bit stressful scrolling up and down because i can't easily modify my layout like in illustrator. In illustrator when am working on lots of layers i usually set my layers panel to take the right side of my screen ( having a long list of my path without having to scroll a lot. the color picker is also not time effective and it creates styles which i put back on my shape, that is really not needed. exporting lots of artwork is also a long process.
there is no mush different between Affinity Designer and Affinity Painter, the core development of the programs are the same, which is not great ( a professional will ask "what is the different" and not just saying one is pixel base and the other is vector base. digital art using affinity Painter is a headache ( i hate repeated tasks ) and affinity Designer and Painter does not help with repeated task.
switching between Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop while working on a project is perfectly fine, because i am getting limitless power from both ends.
Overall Affinity Designer and Affinity Painter are easy to use program for people who are looking to create cool arts and not having to spend hours learning the program, both programs, but if you want to create advanced and professional works go for Adobe illustrator and Photoshop, the learning curve is perfectly alright for someone looking to be a pro ( what really makes the learning curve long is the amount of advanced tools, tricks and tips.
If you are a professional artist or you love creating your own world and setting things as you like, Affinity is not for you. One major reason, you can't modify your work space to your taste. Loool
I wouldn't say that it isn't for professionals. There are lots of artists that are professionals that use this software. What is a professional? Some of the issues may be because not understanding the program maybe? Oh and there is no such thing as Affinity Painter lol
evtonic3 exactly. This guys is clueless on clarifying his point. There are professionals much experienced in using Affinity Designer than AI. Also lots of people don’t have the time to figure out the new application. So they come up with excuses.
Are these also available on the Designer for iPad?
Obviously not the same layout but the options themselves.
Whoa I just subscribed for ur udemy course and now I see you on YT 😂
In point 2, in Affinity Designer, we can also select the objects as in AI, simply by touching them, you only must go change that in preferences.
I have both apps in my computer, but I prefer Ai for my work. I tell you why: I sell my work on a big free-royalty vectors company, and they want the illustration only in a EPS10 version. Unfortunately, Affinity its not a good EPS exporter. You don't have the option to choose a version of the EPS. It converts gradients and shadows to a embedded images not editable. :-/
Or sell it as bitmap. 99% of current Illustrator files are nowhere vector and render in bitmap. Just throw one in InDesign, and you can see most show up as raster image in the linked image list. One hint of transparancy or a single effect make the images turn rasterized.
Thankyou for this.
great video! Thank you!!
No Autotrace, No text warp tools like Perspective, bulge, etc... I do t-shirt design and i have to use Inkscape to do the more advanced text effects! Inkscape is free and allows the same controls over shapes.
Still an Inkscape aficionado ;) Still loving the vector + raster combo though!
THe only problem with Inkscape is that cmyk thingy..
This program is really woooooow I will try it 🥰😍
I miss 'image trace'...probably one of the big reasons I didn't fully switch yet. Great post though...made me want to switch more. Maybe I'll make the plunge!
Warp and/or distort tools! - are there any, or a decent work around?
To Nr 10: Geometry tools (aka Pathfinder): You can Shift-Click the Icons. With that you can edit (for example move around) the initial objects. Very handy!
love it ! thank you
2. Hold down control key to select your objects.
Brad, now I can take a class from you. I love it when you do these types of videos. Great job!
I have been a graphic artist since the days of xacto knives, stat cameras and waxing machines. My whole professional workflow since computers came along has been using Adobe products (except for the long period of QuarkXpress dominance in page layout). I just became aware of the Affinity graphics programs and they look like interesting alternatives. The reason I am looking to bail from the Adobe lineup is solely due to their subscription model. They have a "locked in" user base, given the pro-world runs on Adobe products. So what do they do to these loyal customers? They are ream 'em a new one-every month! Sure, big design firms can afford these prices, but for little shops like mine their subscription costs are just one more drain on my income. They are more like a utility company now. Don't pay your bills and your way of making a living is cut off. In regards to feature sets between the individual products I remember when Pshop added non-destructive editing and adjustments. WOW! What a game changer! So what if the Affinity products lack some of the features of their adobe counter parts? Compared to what we were using back when Illustrator 8 and Photoshop 2 were kings of the hill, the Affinity products are feature-packed. I have not left Adobe's CS products.They are still great tools. But I am REALLY turned off by their subscription model. I guess when my beast of a 2012 Mac Pro finally dies I will have to cross that bridge. But until then I will stick with what I paid for and OWN and pocket the extra that would otherwise be going to a giant tech company. Meanwhile, I am going to start messin' around with Affinity's products and see if I can wean myself from the Adobe teats.
You won me with the rastor brush for a vector illustration - omg I was infuriated with the all the vector brush points on Ai
Hi - love your videos - question: What version of AD are you using in your crash course? Thanks!
Hello Sir... i bought your Affinity Designer for iPad course on udemy and I think im gonna buy this one as well .. thanks!