Full disclosure: If you are new to Pixels to Pages, I think it’s important to know I have the Universal License for Affinity, and a Pro Account with Canva. I also subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, but am very close to letting this go.
Last week UK-based company, Serif, the developers of the creative design software, Affinity, announced it was acquired by Australian-based company, Canva. Many of you know I use Affinity Photo for iPad for memory keeping and teach others how to do the same. I’ve received many DMs and emails from customers and students, asking me “Do you think Affinity is to become obsolete?,” “Do you think Affinity will be going to a subscription platform?” “I’m a Canva user, should I learn Affinity?,” “What do you think is going to change?” Instead of answering all of these questions individually, I felt it best to put my thoughts in a few blog posts instead.
Please understand that I have no affiliation with Affinity or Canva. When students enroll in my Affinity Classes, I receive no payment from Affinity or anything like that. I have no insider info. What I’m going to say in the next two blog posts are just my own thoughts, opinions, and predictions. Whatever changes come along, they may not change the way we a memory keepers use either app/program. We’ll just have to see what happens!
Moving on.
Let me begin by saying that I don’t see Affinity disappearing at all, I see it remaining as its own separate product from Canva. It’s not going to be swallowed up into Canva and become unrecognizable. I truly believe in the 4-point pledge Canva + Affinity released the day after the announcement was made. The link is right here, and pay close attention to the first point. Don’t just gloss over the graphic. Read the entire article!
We need to keep in mind that these programs and apps were not created with the scrapbooker in mind (although we like to think so)! Affinity and Adobe products are geared to the professional designer, illustrator, photographer, design firms, etc., with Adobe products being the industry standard for professional designers. When Adobe went to a subscription-based platform, users were fuming (that's putting it lightly). It led many to seek alternative programs, eventually finding Affinity. The ability to purchase and “own” the program and have free updates along with it was much more appealing and cost effective than having to subscribe to one.
Canva, on the other hand, came on the market as an easy-to-use, entry-level alternative to those programs with a steeper learning curve. While there are experienced designers that use Canva, it is more popular amongst those who may not have a ton of design experience, but want polished graphics for social media and other materials.
I believe this acquisition happened because both Canva and Affinity want to give Adobe a run for their money. However, each of these companies cannot do it alone. While both Affinity and Canva are powerful design apps/software, they each have their limitations:
Affinity is still lacking some high-level features that Adobe has (most of which we memory keepers wouldn’t use anyways) and there is no AI integration (again, most likely we wouldn’t use). In addition, there is no syncing of the software between devices, which could be helpful for those of us who work both on the iPad and desktop.
The main issue with Canva is that it is lacking many intricate design tools that professional designers use in Affinity (or Adobe). For example, if you are familiar with Affinity Photo or Photoshop, you can create a path with pen tool, then add text on that path. Canva doesn’t have a pen tool, there’s no Selection tool, Node Tool, etc.
They need each other.
Affinity only employees around 100 people. That just isn’t enough manpower to add those missing, Adobe-like features to Affinity as quickly as their users want them to, which was causing Affinity to fall further behind Adobe. With Canva acquiring them, their staff of over 3000 employees will help to accelerate this process and at the same time incorporate some of those advanced features that Affinity has into Canva.
“Do you think Affinity will become subscription-based?”
This is the number one question people were asking me in their DMs and emails.
My answer is yes and no.
It would be a great disservice to Canva by ONLY offering a subscription for Affinity. Because they are wanting to be a direct competitor with Adobe, it also means they are going to be targeting a higher level of professional designer/firm. Those designers/firms will just end up sticking with or going back to Adobe, since it is the industry standard. It’s only in Canva's best interest to keep an option of a perpetual license for Affinity products available.
That being said, I foresee some sort of subscription offer (maybe some tiered subscriptions), and possibly a price increase for the Canva Pro Plan. Friends, let’s be realistic. Users of both platforms shouldn’t expect all the things on their software feature wish lists to be granted without some sort of cost increase. For what both products offer right now, the Canva Pro Plan and the one-time purchase(s) of Affinity software is a really good deal and I see both Canva and Affinity only getting better.
I am going to close this post right here. I don’t want this to get too lengthy. Tomorrow I will be back with my predictions on what features I can see being brought to both apps in the short and long term. Thanks for reading!
Wait...BTW...if you are considering giving Affinity a try, I know they are having a site wide sale right now. Again, am not an affiliate. Here is a link to check out the sale.