To Affinity and Beyond ... (I'm so sorry!)

A recent operating system update forced us to consider replacing some of our older software, predominantly our ancient version of the Creative Suite. Of primary concern was Illustrator, a vector graphics package I use extensively. As much as I love the software it has grown ever more temperamental and clunky over the years and I knew the day would come when it would throw all its pencils out of the box and flat refuse to operate any more.

Luckily he who fixes the computer put me onto a relatively new package called Affinity Designer. With a deal of scepticism I approached the free trial, fully expecting to hate it. Within minutes of my first 'play' I had fallen in love with it. Sometimes it's so nice to be proven wrong.

I haven't yet worked out how to do everything I did in Illustrator, and I admit to being confounded by its Transparency tools, but I shall persevere. It's definitely worth it. No more hanging, or laggy refreshing and zooming, this package has been designed to be as intuitive as possible, with the possible exception of the Transparencies (this is of course user inadequacy, I shall keep working at it until I finally get it!).

The creation of buttons and logos is always a good place to start in feeling your way into a graphics package, so with that in mind, here are two of my early efforts:

This one will hopefully be familiar to Linux users. The strange little 

chap in the corner is my line drawing.

This is my Union Jack button, just because I was feeling

patriotic!

The practice continues. I will master transparencies, I will, I will! Perhaps once I've familiarised myself with the software I'll have a look at redesigning some of my book covers, just for fun. If I have any major breakthroughs I shall of course share them here.

Have a great weekend.

K.