Affinity Publisher Beta now available
- Thread starter hankscorpio
- Start date
Paul Murray
Ultimate Member
YES! Cool fact, the Photo and Designer workbooks they sell were designed with PagePlus, the precursor to Publisher.
Cool it's in new Forum! Thanks whomever did that!
Drifter
Member
Thanks Hank , I'll go to the link, download it and try it.
Even though their - trying too hard to be trendy - Affinity Designer's beta's black hole black interface pained my poor eyes terribly.
''We will be starting a free public beta before the end of August. ''
umm..
finally (ˈfaɪnəlɪ) adv
After a long time, typically when there has been difficulty and delay it finally arrives...
Or in this case hasn't..
Anyway, can any marketing expert explain how Serif's DrawPlus, and PagePlus can go from billy no mates to something achingly desirable
just by changing its name to Affinity Designer?
Thanks Hank , I'll go to the link, download it and try it.
Even though their - trying too hard to be trendy - Affinity Designer's beta's black hole black interface pained my poor eyes terribly.
''We will be starting a free public beta before the end of August. ''
umm..
finally (ˈfaɪnəlɪ) adv
After a long time, typically when there has been difficulty and delay it finally arrives...
Or in this case hasn't..
Anyway, can any marketing expert explain how Serif's DrawPlus, and PagePlus can go from billy no mates to something achingly desirable
I jumped the gun and got excited, but you can sign up to get news on the Beta relase.
They actually rebuilt the programmes from the ground up. What I like about them; compared to Adobe, only rival worth mentioning; is that there is no bloat in the programmes.
Illustrator has a lot of bloat - tools added that nobody really uses. Pop up information and difficult navigation for easy tasks.
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Photoshop has a lot of bloat - I can't navigate the tool panel in PS anymore, it's a complete mess. And has a lot of bloat added to it.
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InDesign - which I am most familiar with - has a lot of bloat. There's still Flash export, there's HTML export, there's interactivity, Web Overlays, defunct interactive and loads loads more.
Yet, the core of the programme, what it was designed to do hasn't been updated in years!
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What you're getting with Affinity is a streamlined, built from the ground up software to do what it needs to do.
I know for a fact that Adobe's model for expanding the functions in their programmes goes a little something like this:
They go into big corporations and bandy around key words that they want to hear. Because if a big corporation, e.g, a global newspaper, buys the software, that's a mega-bucks deal.
So they bandy around words they want to hear. Like, do you want us to concentrate on making footnotes span columns, or we could work on making your InDesign files a live online fully functioning all juggling singing dancing interactive wonder!
Remember, they talk to the head guys, not the people on ground level, using the software. So if someone says to you, I can improve your car by putting new tires on it, or I can put a jet engine on it and send you to the moon, you'd pick the latter option, every time. Although, new tires would be a much more practical improvement.
Affinity software is quite cheap - for now. They don't have a subscription model - you buy it and use it and update it as you go along. Seems pretty sweet.
You can actually buy their entire suite of Designer, Photo, and Publisher for about £150 flat fee - which compared to a monthly subscription of Adobe which costs upwards of £600 a year.
So yes - it's very interesting software - rebuilt and reimagined to do all the things we wished Adobe to do for over a decade.
Finally it's here - a competitor. And I, for one, am excited!
Paul Murray
Ultimate Member
There's been something of a shift in the design industry. Adobe are still the leader thanks to large agencies, but a lot of smaller studios and freelancers, particularly those in the digital/web design industry are moving to alternatives like Sketch, Figma and Affinity because they just do exactly what they need. That's the essence of good marketing – just give customers what they want.
Sketch has a bazzilion plugins for doing just about anything, and Affinity actually lets you design responsively. Resize the canvas and your content will resize too, mimicking a browser window. It also has pre-made buttons and other assets for mocking up interfaces.
As Hank said, much of the Adobe software is bloated and unfocussed. These specialist apps are not. Many of these also have an annual fee of about £90 each on average, meaning you can build your own design, animation and prototyping pipeline, often for much less than an annual Adobe subscription.
Word of mouth is also a pretty big part of their marketing. I heard about it from a friend, who heard about it from a friend, and so on. Combine social proof with the cheap, one-off price and you've got a pretty attractive product. It's also very affordable for consumers and non-design businesses.
Sketch has a bazzilion plugins for doing just about anything, and Affinity actually lets you design responsively. Resize the canvas and your content will resize too, mimicking a browser window. It also has pre-made buttons and other assets for mocking up interfaces.
As Hank said, much of the Adobe software is bloated and unfocussed. These specialist apps are not. Many of these also have an annual fee of about £90 each on average, meaning you can build your own design, animation and prototyping pipeline, often for much less than an annual Adobe subscription.
Word of mouth is also a pretty big part of their marketing. I heard about it from a friend, who heard about it from a friend, and so on. Combine social proof with the cheap, one-off price and you've got a pretty attractive product. It's also very affordable for consumers and non-design businesses.
Paul Murray
Ultimate Member
It handles digital painting quite well from what I hear, though I haven't used it for that myself. Their flashy video seems to focus more on their powerful image editing capabilities.
This isn't their original flashy Designer video, but it gives some good examples of the software's capabilities:
This isn't their original flashy Designer video, but it gives some good examples of the software's capabilities:
Paul Murray
Ultimate Member
Krita is pretty cool, I like it's mirror mode.
thefrecklepuny
New Member
In addition, the price point at which Affinity places itself makes it very attractive to firms already using rivals such as Adobe and/or Corel. For many. For some it'll be a case of ''we'd be stupid NOT to use it at that price''.
Given the Affinity range is Windows and Mac based, some design studios may well have a designer use both Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer in the same way some let designers use either Illustrator or Freehand when the latter was in it heyday.
The danger for Adobe lies in a percentage of their clients using Affinity as much as or possibly even more than their own. Not to mention brand new start ups who may well cut Adobe and their subscription tax out of the loop altogether.
Paul Murray
Ultimate Member
The Affinity license are locked to specific platforms though, which seems a tad anti-consumer. If you use both Win and Mac you'll need two licenses. Still not gonna break the bank but it's a bit annoying, and I know some people found out the hard way that their license was non-transferable.
I agree wholeheartedly with your point though, the end result should be left entirely up to the designer or illustrator, it should not be dictated by the industry-standard software. Things do seem to be shifting in the industry with designers having more choice for pipelines now. Adobe are even playing nice with things like Sketch and Zeplin, letting you import artboards into XD and export to Zeplin. I think the main reason to stick with an industry-standard package is because in the design industry files are often shared across designers and from one studio to another, so everyone being able to open and work on them makes sense. But I definitely welcome a more open approach to design.
thefrecklepuny
New Member
Well, Freehand shared the 'industry standard' tag for a few years along with Illustrator. Which is why vacancies for graphic designers in the mid-'90's would often ask for Freehand experience a lot more than say, CorelDraw. Files formats are a lot less important these days esp. with PDF becoming an ISO open standard and most photo editing packages able to open and save PSD files.
I guess what matters is workflow. An all Adobe workflow helps simplify things. Pre-InDesign, this workflow was interrupted somewhat with QuarkXpress often being the final part of the design process but sporting a non-Adobe toolset. Made all the starker when Photoshop and Illustrator began to gain common tools and share a common interface and keyboard shortcuts. InDesign appearing was the final major piece in the Adobe workflow puzzle. Not only gaining an Adobe look and feel but allowing the import and in place modification of native Photoshop and Illustrator files. Made possible by also sharing a common Adobe graphics engine and clipboard. This, the lower cost and Quark's poor customer service locked QuarkXpress out of the loop for many designers. And the rest is history.
Affinity it would appear is aiming to do the same at a lower cost. It is not just Adobe who should be taking note. Corel and Xara should be too. Good to see things being shaken up somewhat in the graphics software market.
rosssmith
Member
In an inquisitive heart, Pulled up a question
I've found the Cintiq, But there are many models, Which is your favorite one? ( need a professional view, I saw you've a nice portfolio)
Jimlad
Well-Known Member
Thanks. I use a Cintiq 13HD. It's quite old now but still very good.In an inquisitive heart, Pulled up a question