Serif has built Publisher around the same unified interface as Photo and Designer, defaulting to a dark UI theme you can customize to reduce eye strain, and the ability to group commonly used panels, although with a bit less flexibility than you can in the Adobe suite. Like Photo and Designer, a perpetual license for Publisher is currently $24.99.

While it won’t fit every workflow, especially publishing teams that rely heavily on complementary apps like Adobe InCopy, Affinity Publisher is an appealing option for freelance designers, students, and recent graduates, and others not dependent upon an Adobe ecosystem. And in general, it is both capable and very easy to learn. Released in June 2019, in some respects, Publisher doesn’t yet have the feature depth of its competitors. The latest addition to Serif’s Affinity suite, Publisher, is designed to provide a professional layout environment similar to InDesign or Quark Xpress.

Earlier this week, we covered Affinity Photo, and later we’ll also cover Affinity Designer. But quite a few might find these new apps (or a mix of apps) to be exactly what they need. We know some artists are OK with Adobe’s subscription plans, and none of what you’ll read is to suggest that Adobe’s solutions are anything but capable. Saving roughly $10-30 per month is a big deal for many artists, especially in challenging times. Canceling a Creative Cloud subscription and/or subscribing to only one or two apps, can drive the cost down from the default $52.99/month (and counting) to $20.99/month for most apps or $41.98/month for two.

Ultimately any switch has to benefit the user in terms of cost, efficiency, or both. It’s worth pointing out that these are not product reviews or how-to articles, but a general comparison between applications. To do their part, Serif has temporarily reduced its prices by 50% for the entire suite. If you are a creative professional or an aspiring digital artist looking for alternatives to Adobe’s subscription plans, now is a great time to consider a switch.

The Rocket Yard has readied a new series for our friends in the creative space, to introduce the Affinity suite of applications from Serif. Many OWC customers are impacted, including creative professionals like photographers, illustrators, and graphic designers-and now Work From Home (WFH). COVID-19 has dramatically changed the way millions of people work.

Illustrator alternative affinity