For folks who use design and publishing products, yesterday’s news that Affinity was bought by the popular online design platform Canva was a surprise.
Affinity, with its Designer, Photo, and Publisher programs, offers stand-alone products on Windows, Mac, and iPad for a one-time fee.
While Affinity products may not have the breadth of features offered by Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription-based Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign products, I’ve recommended Affinity products for years to small businesses, bloggers, photographers, and many designers as an affordable alternative to Adobe products.
Highlights from the Affinity and Canva Press Releases
Used by 170+ million customers, Canva‘s products focus on people without design training. With their purchase of Affinity, Canva’s focus expands to include professional designers.
A few items from the press releases that stood out for me:
- Affinity will remain separate from Canva, but some integration will occur in the future
- The entire 90-person UK-based Affinity team will join Canva
- No changes in the one-time fee pricing model for Affinity
- I didn’t realize Affinity only has three million users of their products. Somehow I thought they had more customers
Reactions from Affinity Users
From what I’ve read in blog posts and social platforms, reactions from Affinity customers to the news hasn’t been overwhelmingly positive.
Some users are concerned Affinity products will become subscription-based and possibly web-based.
Personally, I’m a bit concerned as well.
But I’ve used both products and see their benefits. I can imagine how Canva’s marketing team could educate potential customers and expand Affinity products to a wider customer base.
And how Affinity’s development team can add new features to Canva’s current online offerings.
The Pledge
It seems Canva and Affinity are listening to discussions and concerns from users.
Today they published The Affinity and Canva Pledge, a four point pledge to their users that appears to have put some minds at ease.
- We are committed to fair, transparent and affordable pricing, including the perpetual licenses that have made Affinity special.
- We will double down on expanding Affinity’s products through continued investment in Affinity as a standalone product suite.
- We will provide Affinity free for schools & nonprofits (NFPs).
- We are committed to listening and being led by the design community at every step in this journey.
Wrapping Up
With its purchase of Affinity, Canva expands its product offerings to include professional designers and others choosing affordable alternatives to Adobe’s subscription-based products.
While there’s a long history of promises and pledges made by companies when they are bought out, I am cautiously optimistic Affinity will continue to offer standalone non-subscription products.
