Serif Affinity Designer

About this release

Affinity Designer's central trick is that vector and pixel work happen in the same document, switched by a control at the top of the window. Draw the shapes as vectors, then switch persona and paint texture straight onto them with brushes, then switch back and keep editing the paths. Anyone who has spent years bouncing a file between a drawing application and an image editor will understand immediately why that is worth something.

The drawing tools themselves are strong and unusually precise. The pen and node editing behave predictably, the corner tool rounds and chamfers live rather than destructively, boolean operations stay non destructive as compound shapes, and the contour tool insets and outsets whole objects properly. Strokes support pressure profiles and can be expanded cleanly when the file has to go to a cutter.

Performance is the thing people remark on first. Pan and zoom stay smooth on documents with thousands of objects and live effects, the zoom range goes far past anything the work needs, and the undo history is effectively unlimited and persists with the document. There is no waiting for a redraw, which changes how willing anyone is to experiment.

The document model is built for real output. Artboards hold a whole asset set in one file, export persona marks slices that write every size and format in a single pass, and the colour handling covers CMYK, spot colours, end to end colour management and press ready PDF output. Files from the major vector and layout formats open with layers intact, and its own files open in the rest of the same application family.

What it does

Vector and pixel in one document

Switch persona to paint raster texture onto vector artwork without leaving the file.

Non destructive shape operations

Booleans stay editable as compound shapes and the corner tool rounds live.

Very fast canvas

Thousands of objects with live effects still pan and zoom without a redraw wait.

Artboards and export persona

A whole asset set in one file, sliced and exported to every size and format in one pass.

Production colour

CMYK, spot colours, colour management and press ready PDF output.

Persistent unlimited history

Undo steps survive saving and reopening the document.

Changed in this version

• Faster rendering on documents with large numbers of live effects.
• Improved import fidelity on layered files from other vector applications.
• Export persona gains better handling of very large slice sets.
• Node editing tools reworked with clearer snapping behaviour.
• Reduced memory use on documents with many artboards.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive to a short path.
2. Run the installer and let it complete without interruption.
3. Launch once so the font database and brush libraries build.
4. Set the default document colour profile for the kind of work the machine produces.

Worth knowing before you start

File details