Affinity vs Adobe: The Real Shift
Affinity vs Adobe: The Real Shift
For most designers, Adobe isn’t just the industry standard — it’s the operating system our careers were built on. I’ve been using Adobe software for over twenty years. In that time, entire workflows, pipelines, and expectations have been shaped around it. Clients assume it. Agencies depend on it. Universities teach it. And for the most part, it has earned that dominance.
My own journey with Adobe started unusually early. While most designers of my generation discovered Photoshop through cracked copies and shared downloads, I had a legitimate version at home. My late father was a designer, and our house was filled with software discs — the boxed kind — alongside Quark manuals, print samples and whatever he was experimenting with at the time. He was in the middle of transitioning from Quark to Adobe, still holding onto Quark’s desktop publishing tools even as the industry began shifting toward the Creative Suite.
Because of that, Adobe wasn’t something I stumbled into. It was something I grew up around, installed properly from a disc, and explored during my school work placement and in my own spare time. It arrived in my life at the same moment the wider design world was changing too.
But Adobe’s grip on the industry didn’t come from nowhere. Before Adobe became “the way things are done”, Quark ruled the roost. QuarkXPress was the tool every studio relied on for layout, publishing, and production. It felt immovable.
And then, seemingly overnight, the industry shifted.
Adobe InDesign arrived with a fresh perspective, smarter features, and a more intuitive experience. Designers started to experiment with it. Freelancers adopted it. Studios gradually allowed it. Then preferred it. Then depended on it. Quark didn’t disappear immediately — but it faded. And Adobe became the new default.
I remember watching that shift happen in real time through my dad’s work and my own early experiences. You could feel the momentum — a slow rumble that eventually became a hard turn. We’re feeling that rumble again now.
Only this time, the challenger is Affinity.
Affinity Isn’t New — But Its Moment Is
Affinity has been around for years. Designer, Photo and Publisher have always been solid tools. Some creatives swore by them. Many were quietly impressed. But the broader industry treated Affinity like a side option — interesting, but peripheral.
That changed with its acquisition and relaunch.
The new identity arrived with clarity and purpose. The launch felt intentional, confident and timely. Not scrappy, not experimental — but mature. The brand signals that Affinity isn’t positioning itself as a cheaper dupe of Adobe. It’s positioning itself as a credible, capable alternative with its own point of view.
And just like InDesign did two decades ago, Affinity is stepping into an industry that was quietly ready for change.
Cost Matters — But It’s Not the Real Story
The cost difference between Adobe and Affinity is the headline that gets people talking. Adobe’s subscription ecosystem has stretched many designers thin. Affinity’s affordability feels refreshing, even fairer.
But price alone doesn’t shift an industry. Quark wasn’t beaten on cost — it was beaten on experience.
And Affinity’s moment mirrors that. The design community isn’t excited simply because it’s cheaper. They’re excited because the software is good. Because the update feels considered. Because the ecosystem feels like it’s finally aiming for something bigger. Because the new visual identity and launch showcased Affinity as a platform with ambition, not desperation.
A tool only becomes a standard when it changes how people want to work.
And Affinity is beginning to do that.
The Parallel: When Tools Change, Everything Changes
When Adobe replaced Quark, it didn’t just give designers a new interface. It changed processes, file expectations, production methods, handover workflows, team training — everything. Studios had to rewrite internal playbooks. File types changed. Print workflows changed. Collaboration changed. Even vocabulary changed.
Affinity introduces a similar possibility.
If a designer delivers an .afdesign file today, many studios won’t know what to do with it. But more designers are beginning to use Affinity by choice rather than necessity. More students are learning it. More freelancers are experimenting with it. And more agencies are being exposed to it.
The moment these tools enter a real workflow — used by real teams, on real projects with real deadlines — the wider industry starts adapting. Slowly at first, then suddenly.
This was exactly how the Quark-to-InDesign migration started.
A few brave studios used it.
A few designers insisted on it.
A few clients accepted it.
And then, one day, it was the default.
Affinity is still early in that trajectory, but the trajectory exists.
The Good: A Wider, Fairer Creative Landscape
One of the best outcomes of this shift is accessibility. Not everyone can afford a full Adobe suite. Not every freelancer wants to rent software forever. Not every student should have to take on extra work just to cover their Creative Cloud bill.
Affinity makes entry into the industry more democratic. And that matters.
Creativity thrives when more people participate, not fewer. It gets richer, more diverse, more surprising. More accessible tools mean new voices can enter the industry without financial barriers shaping their path.
There’s also a creative benefit. When different tools exist and are respected, designers stop conforming to one system’s boundaries. They think differently. They produce differently. They innovate differently. Competition doesn’t fragment creativity — it strengthens it.
The rebrand also deserves praise. The new look is confident and contemporary, and it lifts Affinity into a space of seriousness. It signals that the brand understands the weight of a design tool’s role in a designer’s life. It feels intentional, not performative.
The Difficult Part: Fragmentation and Growing Pains
It would be naïve to pretend the shift is frictionless. Mixed-software environments complicate collaboration. File conversions break things. Legacy workflows struggle. Agencies have to question decades-old assumptions. Production teams need new safeguards. Clients still expect Adobe file formats. And many studios simply can’t pivot fast — they’re too embedded.
When the Quark-to-Adobe transition happened, the early years were filled with broken files, corrupted text flows, missing glyphs, and last-minute panic in print houses. Designers who lived through that era haven’t forgotten it.
We’re likely to see similar moments now.
But friction is not failure. It’s part of evolution. And every significant shift in digital tools has followed the same pattern: resistance, experimentation, adjustment, and eventual acceptance.
Affinity won’t replace Adobe. But it doesn’t need to. It only needs to introduce choice — and it already has.
Where This Leaves the Industry
What we are seeing is not a software battle. It’s the beginning of a cultural shift. Affinity isn’t trying to overthrow Adobe — it’s challenging the assumption that Adobe must be the only answer. This moment widens the creative landscape. It expands what’s possible. It allows designers to choose their tools based on how they think and create, not on what the industry tells them they “should” use.
The Quark-to-Adobe shift didn’t make Quark irrelevant overnight — but it made the industry rethink its defaults. Affinity’s new era invites us to do that again.
The fact that designers are talking about Affinity with seriousness, optimism and curiosity is evidence that the ground is already moving. For the first time in a long time, creative software feels open again — not locked behind one brand, one subscription, one way of working.
And that can only be good for the industry.
