Introduce Yourself

[MEB]

Hello, I´m Miguel, a Drawplus X5 "ex-owner" (i didn´t like the software and returned it) and Xara Designer Pro user on PC, working with Macs as well since 2008. I´m totally surprised by Serif's move to the Mac platform and curious to try Affinity Designer mostly because it seems targeting a more professional user base than Drawplus on PC platform, which i think it's quite limited and too much focused on the mass consumer market.

 

From what i've seen it looks quite good. Seems to cover almost all the basics, as well as some advanced features and offers much more granularity and refined tools than Drawplus. Still feels a little like a Windows program rather than a true Mac citizen but feature-wise looks quite promising. Excited to have a new option on the Mac :)

 

Cheers,

Miguel

[MattP]

Hi Miguel, good to have you here :)

 

Don't forget you can simply choose 'Separated Mode' from the 'Window' menu to make the program more traditional Mac-like, if that's your preference :) I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the program as you get used to it!

 

Cheers,

Matt

[MEB]

Thanks Matt :)

I´m aware of the Separated Mode and it helps although i prefer the single window approach. There's less visual noise that way and most Mac apps are moving in that direction as well, notably the Adobe Creative Cloud.

 

I think the "Windows" feeling comes from the prominence of the buttons in the toolbar, and the design and color palette of the toolbar icons. Toolbar Mac icons tends to be less detailed and more "flat" and simple and the colours a little less vivid. The style of the icons should be less "cartoonish" overall. With OSX Yosemite coming soon the diference will be even more notorious. Also the different/numerous dialogs/windows when accessing different functions seems to be more on the "windowish" side....

[Lenzflair]

Hi

I'm Peter Williamson a photographer, my interest in affinity is really more towards the Photo editing and page design aspects when they come out, but i'm enjoying having tinker with the drawing package, I've been a serif user for about 10 years and have always found Pageplus & webplus to be excellent, never got on too well with photoplus it's great and has a lot of features for the price but too slow for commercial use, so i'm hoping for much better things from Afiinity Photo.

[RPJ]

I have used Serif DrawPlus and WebPlus for many years. I jumped ship from Windows after finally getting sick of the constant geek-tweaking required to keep it running. Life is about compromises and switching to Mac is one of them. Mac works as well as a it does because it makes it hard to get under the bonnet (hood US) but then again you don't really need to if you just want to use programs and not mess with the machine. It also speak English most of the time, albeit with an American accent, whereas Windows speaks a language developed by people who have 'communication with end users' at the bottom of their priority list. It has been a pain having to have Windows running under Parallels so I can use Draw and Web Plus. Thanks to Affinity there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

One of the best things about Serif is their Nottingham-based support. These guys are good and patient and have helped me in so many ways. Having English as a first language is not just about clarity, but being able to talk naturally to people. I have had many conversations about things not directly related to the application with the support team. It really helps build brand loyalty. (Marketing Dept pls note)

 

All of this leaves me with two questions:

 

1. Are there plans to put Web Plus on the Mac so I can finally ditch Windows?

2. Is Affinity going to be supported by the Nottingham team in the same way as the current Serif catalog?

 

Meanwhile, looking forward to trying out Affinity on a real project (not just playing with it) as this is where the glitches show up.

 

Cheers.

 

RPJ

[JudithCE]

Hi my name is Judith and used to use Serif on my old PC as I have changed over to MAC as my main source, but still have windows 7 on my notebook.  I am excited to see the new affinity program and cant wait to see all the things it can do.   I used to use photoshop all the time, so excited about this program  :D  :wub:

[Piers]

I'm Piers and I'm a converted Mac user. I started with Macs during the Windows Vista fiasco. I now have a MacBook Air. The Mac is so much better than Windows, I can't understand why everyone isn't using it. Cost I suppose.

 

I've had no regrets but one thing I lost was Serif DrawPlus, so I got EazyDraw instead. It's OK but, eventually I set up Windows with a Virtual Machine on my MacBook Air and went back to DrawPlus X6.

 

This move by Serif to Mac based programs is very welcome. And you get good help from the Nottingham people. I live nearby, close to Melton Mowbray.

 

My work as a railway systems consultant involves some technical drawing for books, papers and presentations. I'm not into fancy art but I need to produce camera read artwork so I want 300dpi and CMYK colour.

 

 

[TonyO]

Hi I'm Tony.  Professional Graphic Designer and part time Microstock Illustrator.
 

First time Affinity user with the Designer beta. Highly impressed!

 

This may just break my 13 year long love-hate relationship with CorelDraw and windows as a whole!

Who wants to save room on his Mac by deleting his Windows Virtual Machine? This Guy!

[MattP]

Who wants to save room on his Mac by deleting his Windows Virtual Machine? This Guy!

 

Now that's the spirit!  :D Great to have you along for the ride, Tony. Really nice work on shutterstock too!  B)

[RJK]

I publish worldwide monthly professional medical newsletters both in print and electronically.  I moved to Mac in 2006 after using PC-DOS and Windows computers since the late 80s and getting fed up with the OS and hardware problems (best move I ever made- computer-wise that is).  I had all the Serif Products when I was in the Windows world, and am anxious to see all the Affinity suite of products developed, so I can move away from "the software company that shall not be named ."   :)  I have everything that other company created (older versions), but have been reluctant to buy anything new from them because of the price - which is cost-prohibitive for us smaller companies.  Now it looks like I will have an option.  Plus, IMHO, the tech support from that other company has a lot to be desired, but that's s story in itself - although ever since a major fiasco, I have been looking to "deep 6" them.

[Nichod]

Hello. My name is Brian, and I'm a UX / UI Designer @Star2Star. I'm pretty excited to try out the new products. I've been a Draw user for years, and did a lot of freelance logo work with it before I switched completely to Mac. Interested to see what Serif brings to the Mac.

[psaldari]

Hi, my name is Paolo, and I am a puppeteer, I use vectorial softwares to make my flyers or my posters and I am looking for a software for replacing illustrator.

[Ben]

Hi, my name is Paolo, and I am a puppeteer, I use vectorial softwares to make my flyers or my posters and I am looking for a software for replacing illustrator.

 

Then you've come to the right place.   ;)

[psaldari]

Then you've come to the right place.   ;)

Thank you Ben  :D

[GFS]

I can't tell you how pleased I am to see a company like yours producing pro apps in the imaging space (and on the right platform!)  It's been too long and Adobe's crown is fit for toppling.  All these new tools that Apple appear to be producing to aid in this are contributing to give us exciting times again.

 

(For what it's worth, I still use an ancient piece of imaging software (Live Picture, also Mac only) which went out of production about 16 years ago (through poor management) and which incredibly has never been matched in several ways.  I have to admit that I'm intrigued by the idea that Affinity may in some ways make a marriage of vectors and photo-editing in a similar, resolution independant way (NB, I'm not talking non-destructive, which is something else although related).

 

Onward!  :)

[rui_mac]

Hello everyone.

My name is Rui Batista and I'm a graphic designer from Portugal.

I started out a LONG time ago, using Illustrator 1.0 and, after that, FreeHand 1.0

Ever since Adobe "killed" FreeHand, I have been forced to use Illustrator and I hate every second I use it.

I have been searching for viable alternatives and, finally, it seems that I found one. Affinity looks amazing. And at a reasonable price. I can't wait for its official realease.

[designerUK]

Hello all

Good to see mods and developers introducing themselves in this thread.

 

Like rui_mac above, I'm a graphic designer, but in the UK and started out a long time ago too, with a Mac IIfx (I've always been Mac), though with Illustrator 2. Within a month of learning it I had to switch to FreeHand because of RIP issues and discovered quickly that not all software is made equal as FreeHand was so much better. I too was unhappy when I learned Adobe had acquired Macromedia.

 

I have learned to love Illustrator though there are some aspects of it Adobe have never addressed which wind me up badly. I do not love Adobe and never have. This post https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/356-the-strategic-questions/ tells you a little more about why I've popped up here.

 

Edit: [identifiable - searchable - information removed]

 

Best

[MattP]

That's what I like to see... another cute kitten avatar! :D

 

Great to have you guys with us on the beta - your input will be very valuable :)

[designerUK]

Thanks Matt for the welcome. Couldn't resist the show of solidarity. Almost changed my screen name to Tiddles, but thought better of it.

[MikeHart]

Hi all,

 

just found out about Affinity today and was totally thrilled to see a new vector art programm on OSX. In my spare time I love to do many things. Besides writing and game development , I create art for games and illustrations. For myself and clients. For this I have used programs like Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator in the past. Lately I was using Manga Studio 5 exclusively as it has some kind of vector functionality too and the drawing part is imho the best in the industry when you love to use tablets like a WACOM Intuos 5 for an example. Which I do.

 

I run my apps mainly on a 2009 Imac with OSX 10.8.6 on it. But I have Windows machines at home too. Still, I love to work on a Mac, everything works for my needs. Got the Apple virus and no medicine will get rid of it :D

 

With Affinity, I look forward to see how I can utilize it for my game art needs. I just had it open for 5 minutes, so I am a total Affinity newbie. I have played with DrawPlus6 before but somehow it didn't click with me. Plus it was Windows only :-)

 

Anyway, looking forward to see what others are doing with Affinity and what I can create with it.

 

Cheers

Michael Hartlef

[bronxboy]

Hello,

 

I started testing out Affinity Designer but I am new to Serif products. A number of years ago I seen a Serif product but at the time QUARK was what we had in-house and did not really have time to dabble in the software. I am an avid Adobe user but am looking for an alternative software that can accomplish what I design in Adobe Creative Suite. Not fond of subscription models but upgrades are getting pricey so I hope that testing and playing around with the software can help me use and get familiar with your products.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eric

[stu.farnham]

Howdy, all,

 

I'm Stu Farnham and I'm a little bit this and a little bit that. Long-time OS developer, engineering manager, and now IT Director. Photographer, graphic designer, and web developer on the side.

 

Eagerly looking for alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud as I am tired of the way they abuse their customers. 

 

Also addicted to running prerelease software. 

 

Stu

[Crad]

Mo ki gbogbo le (I greet everyone) - in my Nigerian language. I'm Oluwakayomide from Nigeria. A visual solutions provider. I have worked with several vector programs over the years, I think the champion of which has been CorelDraw. I work with Ai too but usage isn't so rampant here just yet. When I hear people say Illustrator is industry standard, I think it needs a little clarification about which industry and how it applies to places. In Nigeria, Corel is still king. A whole lot of illustrators still patronise it because of its simplicity. Read about Affinity Designer on CreativeBloq, downloaded the beta immediately and I'm sure as with a whole lot of people I'm stunned already. It has taken the integration of Corel + Ai. It doesn't feel strange if you've at one point tried Xara or Inkscape too. I will be exploring this program really well to see if my permanent change has finally come. ...lets get this creative party started then :) 

[Kasem]

Hi All,

I am Kasem Boonmun. I run my own company that develop and distribute medical software in South East Asia but I got hook in art since I was young. I am a fan of Xara Xtreme since version 5 and (for me) it is one of the best vector tool I have used  for interface design and also price range is reasonable. I decide to move to Mac for a reason but I have found non of vector program I like. I tried Illustrator(too expensive and learning curve), Artboard, Sketch, iDraw and Inkscape and Affinity Designer would be one of the right potential  for me on Mac. 

 

Kasem

[tmatason]

Hello Everyone.

 

My name is Thomas Matason and I'm a graphic designer living in Denver, Colorado, United States. I've been using Adobe products for years, and like them just fine until the whole Creative Cloud thing happened. 

 

I heard about this project on CreativeBloq and decided to check it out. With all the amazing and talented people providing input on this program, I won't be surprised when it changes the industry standard.

 

This is an awesome opportunity!

 

-T