There's Sketch, a popular tool for digital design, which offers a relatively cheap subscription, though is native to the Mac only Inkscape is free and open source but lacks the pro speed and depth of Affinity Designer and CorelDRAW, which is a step removed from the usability of Illustrator and Designer, is more complex, and well… just different. Like similar apps, it does have a learning curve associated with it, especially for new or general users, but the sheer quantity of easily accessible tutorials should have you creating stunning vector art in no time at all.Īside from Illustrator, Affinity Designer still has little competition, though there are a few Illustrator alternatives worth mentioning. (Image credit: Serif)Īffinity Designer is a capable and reliable piece of software. Affinity Designer 1.10 review: usability and what’s missingĭesigner’s tools will feel familiar to those with vector experience. Not only does this help with your workflow, but with the raster brushes in situ, it also allows you to add that much maligned texture or 'noise' otherwise missing from vector art.

While in Affinity Designer, you can switch from the Designer persona (vector) to the Pixel persona (raster/bitmap) without changing apps. The ability to manipulate pressure sensitivity and gestural mark-making give you more control in variance and tone.Īlthough not a new feature, the ability to switch ‘personas’ in Affinity Designer only adds to the smoothness of the app, if not the whole suite’s, usability. Of course this all becomes a lot more fun and expressive with the use of a stylus and a drawing tablet, even more so with one of the best iPads for drawing and an Apple Pencil (see our Apple Pencil deals post if you need to invest in one).

The ability to tweak, edit and reassign different brushes to strokes gives you more than enough wiggle room, so-to-speak. Raster brushes can be used in situ, without leaving the app (Image credit: Serif)Īffinity Designer is certainly not as expressive a program as Corel Painter, but its vector brushes are not to be sniffed at.

Affinity designer windows 10