Affinity Designer on iPad: A Journey into Mystery
Last week, Serif released Affinity Designer on the iPad joining its brother Photo for the first time. As a digital artist I’ve been waiting for a really good vector app to come to the iPad to finally allow me to take my art everywhere. Unfortunately, when it installed I was washed in confusion frustration which culminated in regret.
For months, I’ve hounded Serif on twitter asking when Designer would come to iPad. I watched videos of leaked footage of creatives using the mysterious program on YouTube. I even downloaded the app for desktop to try and get the feel for it but time constraints of work kept me from spending any of the 10 day trial doing any real work in the app. When I finally had the iPad app in my hand I carved out time to dig deep into some art in Affinity Designer.
I immediately failed at everything I tried to create.
After staring at the beautiful Illustration by Juan Ma Orozco @jml2art , the app opens to the select screen I choose new document and I am immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of tools and icons that line the edges of the screen. Along each side of the screen lies a row of icons surrounding the blank canvas waiting to pounce on any mark I threw down. For the next 30 mins, I struggle to figure out how the pencil works. Why is it so hard to select lines I just created? Why can’t I get pressure sensitivity from the brush tool? Each idea I tried burst into flames like vampires on the end of Blades… blade?
Was this app terrible or was I doing something wrong? I did what any informed citizen of this century does I went to complain on social media. In that post a comment mentioned that Serif offers a wide selection of tutorials on their site. I love tutorials and basically live on youtube, it couldn’t hurt checking it out. You can find those here.
After watching the pen tutorial I immediately understood what was wrong. I went into using Affinity Designer as if it was Adobe Illustrator and they are vastly different programs. They both specialize in creating vector based artwork but Designer appears to have a more granular take on the subject while Adobe Illustrator takes a macro approach. My frustrations with Designer came from Serif’s pen tool not acting like the Adobe pen tool. A tool I’ve been using for well over a decade.
Since that revelation, I’ve been making some progress in my journey into mystery that is Affinity Designer. I realize now that I have to look at my embracing of Designer has to be an open welcoming process and not a me trying to make it work how I WANT it to work. I accept that it has its own benefits and shortcomings. In doing so I can put myself in a place where I can learn it faster and retain more.
PS: Serif has created one of the best stroke tools I’ve ever seen who’s speed and control are unrivaled by even Adobe Illustrator our vector lord.
