Affinity Designer is a comprehensive graphic design app for UI design or illustration. We use it now for more than 1.5 year, and it is surpassed our expectations.
In this small collection, we collected 5 of our favorite solution/tool in Affinity. Of course, most of these functions are available in other applications with more modest or more significant differences, but in this program, we like them a lot.
As any graphic design tool Affinity Designer has a lot of useful features; for the full list go to the official page.
Export persona
In this case, the persona means a central section of the application. In Affinity, there are three of them named Draw, Pixel, and Export.
We can see that the exporting functionality was a top priority at the development phase. It’s well thought out and easy to use.
The slicing behavior is similar to Photoshop. You can set different export settings – like the format, size, ICC profile and so on – for your slices or artboards.
Snapshots
The history section of Affinity is a real heavy weapon. You not only can undo or redo over 8,000 history steps but also can make snapshots.
A snapshot is a specific version of your file. It is something like version control. No more multiple saved files with tricky naming convention, from here you can make a various version of your project just in one file.
The snapshot function works smooth. To turn on the panel go to View -> Studio menu and select Snapshots option. In the board, you can make a new shot and name it as you want; if you’re going to switch to another version just select the correct one and click to “Restore Snapshot” button.
Dark and Light UI
Strictly the UI scheme is not a feature which helps you make better products, but it is still a useful one. It is a personal preference which color scheme is the best for you. Nowadays the trend is the dark, but in sunlight, it can be tiresome for the eyes.
With the 1.6 release now you can customize this too in the Designer and the Photo also. To set another UI style go the Edit -> Preferences -> User Interface and here toggle the UI Style row.
Autosave
Sometimes this function worth a lot. If you are so unfortunate that your computer restarts or crashes this function can be a lifesaver. Affinity autosave your files seamlessly so if your system shutdowns unexpectedly or you close your files without saving there is a good chance that you don’t have to redo your work.
Typography Panel
The typography functionality always was advanced in AD, but with the 1.6 update, it is a way better. The typography panel was rebuild from the ground. Now you can preview, browse better your typefaces and you also can collect your favorites.
