Back in March 2024 Canva bought Serif, the company that makes Affinity Photo. At the time, there were concerns about whether that meant that meant that the perpetual licensing model was about to go away, but the Canva and Affinity teams were quick to allay those fears with 4 pledges that they made to the Affinity community. Earlier in October this year, made an announcement that “Creative Freedom is Coming…”, and stopped all sales of the Affinity design-suite, pending the big announcement later today. That had the community on tenterhooks, especially because there’s a lot to unpack and a lot at stake.
UPDATE: Here’s my post-release article, about the all new Affinity app. What do you think?
Affinity & Canva’s 4 Pledges to the Community
First, let’s take a look at the pledges that Canva and Affinity made to the community, and whether they’ve been able to uphold them so far.
1. Fair Pricing
Affinity’s apps have always considered to be priced fairly, and after the acquisition, Canva pledged that they would retain the perpetual license option, even if they do decide to add a subscription model at a later date. Till date they’ve not announced a subscription model or a change in the pricing, so they’ve up-held that pledge until now. Could this announcement bring subscription plans? Time will tell.
2. Accelerating Affinity
The second pledge mentions: “We will double down on expanding Affinity’s products through continued investment in Affinity as a standalone product suite” seems like it may be coming due now. With AI infiltrating every creative app, a number of users on Reddit and X have been speculating whether this announcement may bring in some sort of AI tool addition, and credit or subscription plan for the service. What does creative freedom mean for the Affinity Suite?
3. Accessible for All
Canva is extending their free access to schools and non-profits. It includes the Affinity suite too. Their pledge says: “We’re excited to extend this programme to include free access for schools and nonprofits to Designer, Photo and Publisher.” Seems to have been put in to action. Good work, Canva and Affinity.
4. Community Led
Canva pledged to continue to have Affinity’s focus firmly fixed on the community’s needs. Their pledge says: “Affinity and Canva were both founded on the basis that their respective communities – of expert and non-expert designers – deserved better.” … “We also believe the design community also knows best what it needs. As such, we are committed to shaping our products based on your ideas, your feedback and your needs.”
This seemed to be true with an active forum and feedback forms being opened up. However, that changed, somewhat… earlier this month. The Affinity Forums were put into Read-Only mode, and a new Affinity community was opened up on … Discord.
Hmm… Not the most convenient solution when it comes to threaded, searchable conversations – but they must have their reasons. We will find out what their long term plans are for the forum in due course.
Meanwhile, the community has – broadly – groaned at the switch to Discord. Some say, though, that it may democratise the discussion, as the forums were dominated by a handful of regulars (which needn’t really be a bad thing).
So What Are We Waiting For?
The long and short of it is that we don’t really know. It could be a new version with AI tools, it could be a version with optimised performance and new (non-AI) tools that we are looking for. Or it could be all of the above – with AI and subscription plans too. Is it something we’ve never imagined (my imagination has got the better of me here)?
Time will tell. And there is nothing else we can do but wait.
Sales Disabled, iPad Apps Free!
From the time the announcement has gone up, sales of all current versions – Mac and Windows – have been discontinued pending the announcement. However, the iPad apps have been made completely free.
Monitoring the conversation online, I see that this has created some confusion as well as concern over the lack of sales for the last one month or so. Could it mean pricing changes are in the works? Because, if the pricing was similar or the same, Canva / Affinity could simply issue upgrade codes to those who purchased Affinity apps in October. Since they chose not to do that, there is some genuine concern.
Stay Tuned For More
We will have updates about the Affinity “Creative Freedom” announcement as and when news becomes available.
UPDATE: Here’s my post-release article, about the all new Affinity app. What do you think?
