Swapped from Illustrator to Affinity for basic icons and it cut my time in half

I recently had to make 30 simple app icons for a client project and normally I'd grind through them in Illustrator. Tried Affinity Designer 2 on a whim because I saw someone talking about its vector tools being faster. No joke I finished all 30 in about 4 hours instead of my usual 8 because the boolean operations and grid snapping just work smoother for me. Has anyone else found a program that unexpectedly sped up a specific type of design task?

2 comments

2 Comments

barnes.kai23d ago

Hell yeah, that grid snapping in Affinity is no joke. For icons especially it saves so much time cause you can just line stuff up perfectly without having to nudge everything by hand. I had the same thing happen when I tried it for some UI buttons, the boolean tools felt way more intuitive than Illustrator where I always have to click through three menus to subtract a shape. It really does make you wonder why Adobe drags their feet on basic QoL stuff for so long.

the_caleb22d ago

Wait, do you actually find the boolean tools in Affinity more intuitive? I gotta push back a little on that one. I've been using both for years and honestly, the boolean operations in Illustrator make way more sense to me once you get past the initial menu hunting. In Affinity I swear half the time I try to subtract a shape it either gives me a weird result or I have to click like three different buttons to get what I want. And don't even get me started on the grid snapping in Affinity - it's nice for icons and UI stuff but for anything organic it just fights you the whole time cause it keeps snapping to things you don't want. I guess it depends on what you're making but Adobe's been around so long they just have more polish on the basic stuff even if the menus are buried.