Are you able to work with Affinity Designer only in this Adobe world?

[Royk]

I ask this question to all the profesional designers and illustrators, who work with other clients that most of the times are in the Adobe loop. I am trying to work with Affinity Designer only as my main driver. And so far, it goes wel. But i keep bouncing on this big Adobe wall when i collaberate with clients that are in the Adobe loop (most of them are). Specially things like shapes in shapes, gradients and effects are tricky to export and takes all kind of trail and error rounds before things work out. So far, exporting in svg seems the way to go. But this export stuff is on my mind the whole time i create artwork. And that is hunting me in a bad way.

I am very courious how other people in the industry here are fighting this match and I hop you can share some thoughts or tips maybe to work with others in the Adobe loop?

[deeds]

IF I need to share in a collaborate manner, with others using Adobe software, I either use Adobe (or CorelDraw) so that I can export as a stable Adobe AI file for them to work with. Affinity can't do this, so you always end up in that trial and error circle that REALLY pisses off the people you're dealing with, adds immeasurably to the time it takes for things to be worked out between your groups/fellow workers, and eventually curtails what you can do creatively, too - both as a function of time lost and for technical reasons regarding compatibility of features etc.

 

If you really don't like Adobe and/or refuse to deal with their subscriptions, CorelDraw has a quite good Adobe Illustrator export feature. 

And CorelDraw is still much more powerful and fun to use as a vector tool than any of the current competition. 

[Royk]

Thank you for your insights @deeds

 

I am not negative about the subscription model with Adobe. But saving some bucks is always nice right. So that is why I tried the AD route. So far, drawing is much more fun in AD. It seems to be designed for that. While AI is more towards production, i guess. I worked with Coreldraw many years ago. That was a nice tool too. In The Netherlands, Corel is not something you will see often in the creative sector. 

[deeds]

13 minutes ago, Royk said:

Thank you for your insights @deeds

 

I am not negative about the subscription model with Adobe. But saving some bucks is always nice right. So that is why I tried the AD route. So far, drawing is much more fun in AD. It seems to be designed for that. While AI is more towards production, i guess. I worked with Coreldraw many years ago. That was a nice tool too. In The Netherlands, Corel is not something you will see often in the creative sector. 

Agreed! Working in AI is extreme tedium. Worst of Adobe's products, and that's really saying something, as they have some shockers.

Corel is the great secret, still. When working with others on something complex, they never realise I don't use Adobe for creative works, as I export from Corel, open in Adobe, export for the others and send. It makes the whole process smoother, and prevents the inevitable discussions about which software is best, which wastes too much time.

I do much the same with Affinity to Adobe if it's just simple vector works, as for this I think Affinity is nearly as fast as Corel, and it saves me turning on a windows machine to use Corel. If Corel worked well on a Mac (it doesn't) I'd probably have never tried Affinity.

[AlainP]

Any of my clients has ever care for the software I used to get their job done. All they want is getting what they asked for. 

The only "collaboration" I have to do is with the printer. Once he gets the files in the format he needs, which has always been PDF, the client is happy once he sees the job.

I first used (years ago) Corel Draw, then went to Draw Plus and PagePlus, which is the one I always preferred, then switched to the Adobe Suite. After a few years I tried Affinity Photo then Affinity Designer. After a few months of trial, I quit Adobe and never regret it. 

I now do most of my jobs using Designer and sometimes Photo. I still have to get something done in Publisher. Software programs are just tools, and there is no "one size fits all". 

 

[Royk]

10 minutes ago, AlainP said:

Any of my clients has ever care for the software I used to get their job done. All they want is getting what they asked for. 

The only "collaboration" I have to do is with the printer. Once he gets the files in the format he needs, which has always been PDF, the client is happy once he sees the job.

I first used (years ago) Corel Draw, then went to Draw Plus and PagePlus, which is the one I always preferred, then switched to the Adobe Suite. After a few years I tried Affinity Photo then Affinity Designer. After a few months of trial, I quit Adobe and never regret it. 

I now do most of my jobs using Designer and sometimes Photo. I still have to get something done in Publisher. Software programs are just tools, and there is no "one size fits all". 

 

That is nice. In my case i need to collab with animators, content creators for flyers and books, etc. So i am a part of different teams. There is where i strugle in the Adobe loop.

[Filo63]

The exchange of files through pdf hardly creates problems. Obviously, if your work involves factors of very close collaboration, so your customers rework your graphics to the point of modifying their nuances or effects... you must necessarily use the same tools. When you work in a team, and everyone needs to be able to rework files, it is certainly necessary to work with the same software. Differently for those who work as a freelance and close their portions of work, AD exports in pdf with files that are clean and workable.

This is my experience