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Does anyone use Designer for doing basic layouts?


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I do a lot of basic layout work like mailers and such and was wondering how well Designer works in this area. I used to use Freehand as a layout tool way back and found that it actually sometimes worked better then PageMaker which was a real layout program. My laptop is currently Adobe free and I am considering the possibility of keeping it that way.

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Basic layouts should be fine.

 

If you plan on distorting your type... i.e. banner arching or warping, twisting etc... be prepared for a bit of a work around. Straight layout of copy blocks, headlines, images and backgrounds and whatnot should be fine... as long as it handles what ever you need in terms of output formats you should be fine. Probably outputting as pdf is your best bet. Myself I haven't used it for any kind of layout as yet, just illustration that I then output as high res pixel files.

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If you do not need to manage a lot of pages, like FreeHand, Affinity Designer is the perfect Application to do this kind of work.

Graphic designer from Bilbao (Spain) FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer rocks! - Diseñador gráfico de Bilbao (España). FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer ¡mola!

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I say Designer would be the appropriate choice for the job. I made a lot of UI designs myself; using vector support. Having vector tools gives a user a lot more advantages than designing layouts in bitmap programs because of the convenience of having everything be editable.

 

Some of my examples:

http://leduc-gallery.deviantart.com/art/DuckDuckMail-Concept-626444070

http://leduc-gallery.deviantart.com/art/Gemstone-Concepts-620365000

 

Also, I can't remember what video it was or how this feature works in Designer, but there is an option to resize just a frame, and all other content will stay locked. I really wish I could find this again.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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@retrograde  I don't distort type as my graphic design instructors were upset with the students that did that!

 

@bleduc  The UI features is something Serif has been trying to push. I was thinking more about replacing some of my InDesign jobs with Affinity. Frames is another thing I thought about how I would replace with Affinity. I use frames for cropping photos like this for an example. I don't immediately remember how you do that with Affinity, seems like you use a layer mask?Schedule

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The magic word (and this is similar like the old feature in FreeHand) is PASTE INSIDE.

 

Select everything you want, Command + cut, select a polygon and Paste Inside. Voilà!

 

Designer will create a layer with each pasted inside polygon. You can see each element of the layer, select it, delete, it, edit it and so on.

 

I have done so many vector logos and designs that for me is something natural. Affinity designer has for me the most clean interface, power and flexibility of all the popular design and vector applications.

 

I was fed up for the treatment Adobe had with all the users of FreeHand. Now Adobe says Illustrator will be re-optimized and so on...

Well, Illustrator WILL NOT change all the old and strange routines and ways it works because a lot of users will be kicked out.

 

Search on the web about FreeFreeHand.

 

Legions of FreeHand users had purchase Affinity Designer. What can I say? Hey, the reason is that Affinity Designer rocks!

 

Personally if I must pay every new big version for me will be a real pleasure.

Graphic designer from Bilbao (Spain) FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer rocks! - Diseñador gráfico de Bilbao (España). FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer ¡mola!

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Hehe, :) when I said distort type I was thinking along the lines of something like this:

 

https://www.behance.net/gallery/22937595/Diversity-cover-art-for-Derwent-Brass-UK

 

These piece was actually done in Affinity Designer and it was done using guides and skewing each letterform individually. In illustrator you'd probably use the Warp>Flag effect to achieve a similar effect.

 

If your layout work includes stuff like this, right now Designer is not really well suited... I believe something similar to Ai's distort feature set is on the AD feature roadmap...

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/842-affinity-designer-feature-roadmap/

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@retrograde  I don't distort type as my graphic design instructors were upset with the students that did that!

 

@bleduc  The UI features is something Serif has been trying to push. I was thinking more about replacing some of my InDesign jobs with Affinity. Frames is another thing I thought about how I would replace with Affinity. I use frames for cropping photos like this for an example. I don't immediately remember how you do that with Affinity, seems like you use a layer mask?Schedule

 

In this case you must wait for Affinity Publisher at the end of this(?) year. You can do a lot with Designer, but every app has it's own speciality.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
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@krollian  Yes, Freehand worked pretty well for putting objects inside of other objects, much easier then illustrator.

 

@retrograde  Now I understand what you meant by distort. I don't use that kind of effect too much so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

@Petar_MK  Extra emphasis on the word "some" in that sentence. I realize that if I want to do some layout work such as book layouts I will have to resort to using InDesign on my other computer. Can't wait for Affinity Publisher to come out!

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@krollian  Yes, Freehand worked pretty well for putting objects inside of other objects, much easier then illustrator.

 

@retrograde  Now I understand what you meant by distort. I don't use that kind of effect too much so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

@Petar_MK  Extra emphasis on the word "some" in that sentence. I realize that if I want to do some layout work such as book layouts I will have to resort to using InDesign on my other computer. Can't wait for Affinity Publisher to come out!

 

Having in mind what Designer and Photo offer right now, it woudn't be surprising if Publisher offers some vector and bitmap capabilities.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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Having in mind what Designer and Photo offer right now, it woudn't be suprising if Publisher offers some vector and bitmap capabilities.

 

It would be surprising if Publisher didn't offer some vector and bitmap capabilities!

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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lol!

Schedule

 

OT, I see you're still getting that weird 'Schedule' thing at the end of your posts, but not all the time! :wacko:

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Petar said what I was about to say about Publisher coming out. That might be better for you since you come from InDesign. I'm interested to see how it will differ from the other Affinity products (the key differences). I do hope the packaging and link embedding is more intuitive. There were so many cases when my links and fonts were broken.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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The interesting thing about Affinity's file format is that it uses the same files across the different apps in the suite. This means that any projects I make with Designer I will probably be able to open in Publisher. I have heard that CS6 doesn't work on the new Sierra so maybe I will just stay with Affinity alone when upgrading to Sierra on my Mac. Perhaps I will keep my desktop on El Capitan so I can run Adobe. Maybe later versions of Sierra will run CS6?

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I didn't know a new version of Mac was already out. That seems silly that CS6 won't run on it. Good to know.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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It depends on several factors and it often works for some and not others. Illustrator had problems on El Capitan but I never looked into fixing much since I am not a fan of illustrator. Sierra comes out Sept. 20 so we will have to wait and see how many versions of CS6 it ends up breaking. I usually wait about three months or so before upgrading but I might not upgrade on my desktop if it ends up breaking CS6.

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The interesting thing about Affinity's file format is that it uses the same files across the different apps in the suite. This means that any projects I make with Designer I will probably be able to open in Publisher.

 

I don't think there's any "probably" about it, Kip. My understanding is that the files can be opened in any of the apps in the suite.

 

I'm guessing that the different filename extensions are only there to tell you where the file originated. I can't think of any other reason not to use the same extension across the different apps.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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I'm guessing that the different filename extensions are only there to tell you where the file originated. I can't think of any other reason not to use the same extension across the different apps.

 

I'm thinking that each file extension should still play a very critical role. Each Affinity application can maybe open them and keep most of file properties the same, but I assume only to a certain extent. Vectors in bitmap programs are not actually vectors; they're vexels. I would think bringing a Designer file into Photo would pixelize the quality. For crossing applications, still have a copy with the original file extension.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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All affinity apps share file format and even edit ability when the hosting app doesn't natively support the feature. So if u open a Photo file with Live Filters in Designer, you can edit the live filter even thought Designer doesn't let u apply them. That's VERY Badass and the Devs Rock for such an ingenious feature!

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