"Artists Beware"

So, I like Affinity Studio, I like the products a lot. I like the interface, I like what they do, I like the ease of use with vector tools, I like the range. They're very close to being an actual replacement for Photoshop in ways no other application has been before it. I purchased the total suite of Affinity 2 at launch for 100$, an incredibly affordable price and well worth the tools for photo editing, vector work, and page layouts.

Some time ago, the Affinity suite of applications' parent company, Serif, got acquired by Canva. There was concern about this, a lot about what Canva stood for and the growing amount of generative tools being shooed in with little oversight. But for a time Canva left the Affinity Suite alone and it made some wonderful advancements. Affinity Publish is a big reason why I was able to start making zines, as it's interface was easy to pick up on and especially intuitive.

A couple months ago, Affinity was made into a singular program and released for free, and I have some mixed feelings about that.

NOW

I have no complaints about the fact that they made free something that once was paid. I don't think that's a bad thing, I don't feel I'm 'owed' anything. I paid for a digital license, not exclusivity. I still have the installs and backups, I can install it wherever and whenever. And in some ways, I think it's a good thing.

When trying to teach people basic photo editing, there's an ease of use that simply does not exist for Krita or GIMP. You can certainly learn to use those two, but there's a very stark learning curve that can get incredibly frustrating. And then, there's the text tools. There's one thing very few free services have gotten right and that's text tools, GIMP is a lot better than it used to be, but both Krita and Inkscape have some very odd controls for text editng. I've guided a lot of tech-inexperienced people through a lot of applications, and the truth is, Affinity and Photoshop have consistently been easier for tech newbies to pick up on than GIMP and Krita.

When the announcement hit about Affinity being rolled into a new program and it would be free, the first thing I thought was.. 'Oh I finally have a free tool I can point a whole lot of people to that they'll be able to pick up pretty easily and learn from. I know a lot of 'non artists' that would benefit greatly from being able to have a tool to do minor image editing. I can make PSD templates and they'll work completely, intact text layers and all, in affinity. And that's before even getting into how people that want to make Zines and don't have the money for fancy software can now look to Affinity. Most the free zine makers are for the really small zines, and then scribus is free but it isn't nearly as robust as Affinity. Like, in a lot of ways, Affinity going free is honestly, kind of amazing for the overall accessibility of design.

The thing that I'm actually concerned about this distribution model, is the long-term access.

With the applications I pay for, I typically get access to previous versions that I can install as needed if a change happens that I don't like. This type of free model, one that isn't open source, these companies rarely allow for access to previous versions which means if it changes, you're often unable to roll back to a previous version if you don't like the new changes. And if they ever decide the project isn't worth it to keep onto anymore, they can scorched earth the whole thing and there'd be nothing for it. Or they can switch back to a paid model, but only subscription once again locking others out of the ability to work on their projects lest they conform and hope they have it saved as another format.

So while I'm very excited for there to be something viably comparable for matters of graphic design for anyone low or no income, I'm very wary about the future of what that might mean and the access to the tools in question.