Canva

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, William Overington said:

Do Affinity products do things that Canva does not, or just the same things but in a speeded up manner?

It should take you no more than a minute of searching the web on "Canva" (or better yet, on "What is Canva") to see what its Canva-branded products are & how they are used, so you can answer this for yourself.

Edited May 18, 2024 by R C-R
Added the 'what is' hint

[debraspicher]

2 hours ago, William Overington said:

So were they comparing it to using Canva?

I have not used Canva. Is using Affinity products a "speed up" from using Canva?

Do Affinity products do things that Canva does not, or just the same things but in a speeded up manner?

William

 

You can sign up using your Google acct if you have one for free and it can take as little as a few minutes to get in and start working online in an editor. This is probably one reason they have so many users.

Edit: If I am honest, while Affinity is quicker once an adequate workflow is learned... Canva's learning curve seems much much shorter. So for most people, it is probably speedier.

[SallijaneG]

7 hours ago, William Overington said:

So were they comparing it to using Canva?

I have not used Canva. Is using Affinity products a "speed up" from using Canva?

Do Affinity products do things that Canva does not, or just the same things but in a speeded up manner?

William

 

Canva has way fewer features; a colleague uses to create our Eco-Logic show publicity collages (sample attached) while we are working together, and I am able to find her ways to do some things that I know should be available, but then there are others that simply are not doable (e.g., different text styles in one box).  These may be limitations of the free version vs paid, but it tells me that the program does not have the sophistication that I would expect from a program (and I use very few of the specialized features of Designer or Photo). 

[albertkinng]

The Canva presentation event was great, but I was taken aback by how often they repeated the phrase: "YOU DON'T NEED A PROFESSIONAL GRAPHIC DESIGN ANY MORE." It felt like they were trying to push us (Graphic Designers) out of the picture. I hate to sound childish, but simply subscribing to AI-powered tools doesn't make someone talented. True talent can't be replaced, not even by AI!

[Affinityconfusesme]

@albertkinng did they talk about affinity at all?

[Patrick Connor]

45 minutes ago, Affinityconfusesme said:

@albertkinng did they talk about affinity at all?

This year's event is on Thursday this week, so there hasn't been an event that could have mentioned this recent acquisition yet.

[Affinityconfusesme]

I want to know what is changing and happening because of the acquisition regarding the development. I don't think I will be able to watch it or attend it so curious what is happening.

[albertkinng]

49 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

This year's event is on Thursday this week

Thank God for Youtube! I'm talking about this: 

 

[albertkinng]

1 hour ago, Affinityconfusesme said:

did they talk about affinity at all?

No.

[nezumi]

Key note - May 23

People on the forum, May 19 - "did they talk about affinity at all?"...

ffs, guys... 😭

[pixelstuff]

1 hour ago, albertkinng said:

Thank God for Youtube! I'm talking about this: 

 

Someone at Canva needs to trim that video down.

[Patrick Connor]

2 hours ago, albertkinng said:

Thank God for Youtube! I'm talking about this: 

Sorry albertkinng whatever that is, it's not Canva Create 2024. 

https://www.canva.com/canva-create/

It's .... very long isn't it! I should think Canva create would be available to watch after the event on YouTube too, (listed under live also?)

https://youtube.com/@canva

[albertkinng]

7 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

Sorry albertkinng whatever that is, it's not Canva Create 2024

I didn't claim Canva Create 2024. What I emphasized was their continuous assertion that professional designs will become obsolete. It's crucial to pay attention to this rather than the nature of the event. The event was indeed organized by Canva and not a single Affinity tool was mentioned. Make sure to take note of this.

[albertkinng]

8 hours ago, nezumi said:

People on the forum, May 19 - "did they talk about affinity at all?

I watched the live event, but it was too cringeworthy for my taste. Just because it's not the event you want to talk about doesn't mean we should ignore other Canva events. It's clear that their focus is on attracting less skilled users who believe that AI will make them professional designers. While we, as professional designers, know that even an AI capable of creating an entire artwork in 5 seconds won't replace our expertise, others may believe otherwise, potentially harming Affinity's progress.

[Patrick Connor]

59 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

I didn't claim Canva Create 2024

No, quite so, but the comment will benefit other thread readers.

59 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

What I emphasized was their continuous assertion that professional designs will become obsolete. It's crucial to pay attention to this rather than the nature of the event. The event was indeed organized by Canva and not a single Affinity tool was mentioned.

I think it was a test "live" (re-broadcast) of bits of Canva Create 2023 in preparation for this weeks event. Some of the content certainly looks a bit odd now, given the announcements they are making this year regarding Affinity.

[Affinityconfusesme]

Patrick,

Do you know at all what they are going to say regarding affinity?

[Patrick Connor]

12 minutes ago, Affinityconfusesme said:

Patrick,

Do you know at all what they are going to say regarding affinity?

Nope, sorry. We have a watching event on Friday to see the event including a part by Ash

[Affinityconfusesme]

Do you know when he is speaking? I am curious if he is flying into the states for the event.

[William Overington]

@albertkinng

I recognize that AI will not replace the expertise of professional designers.

I like to think of this situation in terms of a concept that I thought of many years ago, namely time and microtime.

Consider, just as a basis for a thought experiment, even if not necessarily exactly the case, that human activity has units of 1 second, and consider that computer system activity has units of 1 microsecond, even though I know many modern computers are much faster.

So the 5 seconds that we observe the AI system taking to produce a picture is five units in our ambience, yet 5 million units in the ambience of the AI system.

So, what is 5 million seconds in our ambience?

5 million divided by 3600 hours

5 million divided by 3600 divided by 24 days

5 million divided by 3600 divided by 24 divided by 365.25 years

What is that? I'll start the calculator program.

57.8 days.

That is working continually, day and night.

More related to human work is the following.

5 million divided by 3600 divided by 7.5 divided by 5 weeks.

So 37 weeks of continuous 5 day week human employment.

That not counting tea breaks, bank holidays and so on.

So the AI picture produced in 5 seconds is roughly equivalent, for this thought experiment, to almost a year of a human painter producing a painting. Yet that does not mean that the two paintings are equally as good. A painting produced by any artist, human or AI, in the artist's time ambience, depends so much on the artist.

However, what needs to be considered is that I have here some framed prints of paintings produced by an AI system, indeed paintings specified in a general sense by me in a text prompt to the AI system. I appreciate that a professional art appraisal of them might not be palatable, yet the fact of the matter is that I could not have afforded to hire the services of a professional artist to produce them.

And the prints are not at "art print" print quality level.

Yet I am pleased to have them and enjoy looking at them.

However, a however within a however, I am not purporting the AI system to be better than, nor a replacement for, professional artists.

So I regard AI produced art as interesting and enjoyable, and having a place somewhere on a spectrum of art quality.

William

 

 

 

 

 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, albertkinng said:

What I emphasized was their continuous assertion that professional designs will become obsolete.

OI do not think they were saying professional designs would become obsolete. I think that instead they were emphasizing that Canva could be used by almost anyone to create professional quality designs. That in & of itself does not mean or imply that any & all professional quality designs can be created simply by using Canva, which is why products like Affinity (or Adobe) will not bed=come obsolete.

The tl;dr version is it is just marketing hype & should be regarded as such.

[pixelstuff]

3 hours ago, albertkinng said:

I watched the live event, but it was too cringeworthy for my taste. Just because it's not the event you want to talk about doesn't mean we should ignore other Canva events. It's clear that their focus is on attracting less skilled users who believe that AI will make them professional designers. While we, as professional designers, know that even an AI capable of creating an entire artwork in 5 seconds won't replace our expertise, others may believe otherwise, potentially harming Affinity's progress.

 

I had the same thoughts. I don't know if it is just a cultural difference, but the sudden shouting of a new product name, like an attempt to generate excitement, was weird and ridiculous. Then whoever dressed the presenters like a clown show should probably be fired. If the presenters chose their own wardrobe, well, that might be even worse if its an indication of the mindset for who Canva likes to hire.

Maybe I'm just used to Steve Job's style of presenting, where it felt like he was talking to you straight, and which a lot of American companies have adopted over the years.

[albertkinng]

46 minutes ago, pixelstuff said:

Then whoever dressed the presenters like a clown show should probably be fired

I believe they are clearly targeting the clueless, wannabe influencer audience. It's evident that every design company is now focusing on this new target market. Even Adobe is creating peculiar ads and speaking to the viewers as if we were five years old. It seems that all of us are being overlooked, while the new generation takes center stage.

Edited May 20, 2024 by albertkinng
adding the 'anti-pro-designers' quotes.

[R C-R]

49 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

I believe they are clearly targeting the clueless, wannabe influencer audience.

I think you & a few others are probably reading way too much into the way a few of the presenters have chosen to dress, in 'fashion forward' styles not too different from what some celebrities wear to the Oscars, Emmys, or similar high profile events.

But they are obviously in no small part targeting young people, some of whom do want to use Canva to influence others about anything from promoting their own products or personal brands to their favorite social cause or charity. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, nor does it make them clueless.

[albertkinng]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

There is nothing inherently wrong with that, nor does it make them clueless.

That's your opinion and I respected it. The fact is that if you don't know the intended purpose of a tool, it can be defined as clueless.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, albertkinng said:

The fact is that if you don't know the intended purpose of a tool, it can be defined as clueless.

Tools are not clueless but a person can definitely be clueless about how to use a particular tool.

That said, I have no idea what that has to do with how the presenters are dressed or what it says about the target audience for their products, which seems to include everything from youngsters to non-profits to corporate users.