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Announcement

A message to our amazing Affinity community

Today marks a momentous new chapter in our journey together.

I am thrilled to announce that Affinity is joining the Canva family.

This is a moment of great excitement, anticipation, and profound gratitude for all of you who have been part of our story so far.

We know that those of you who’ve put your faith in Affinity, some since we launched our very first Mac app, will have questions about what this means for the future of our products. Since the inception of Affinity, our mission has been to empower creatives with tools that unleash their full potential, fostering a community where innovation and artistry flourish. We've worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo, delivering professional-grade creative software that is both accessible and affordable.

None of that changes today.

In Canva, we’ve found a kindred spirit who can help us take Affinity to new levels. Their extra resources will mean we can deliver much more, much faster. Beyond that, we can forge new horizons for Affinity products, opening up a world of possibilities which previously would never have been achievable.

Canva’s revolutionary approach to design democratization and commitment to empowering everyone to create aligns perfectly with our core values and vision. This union is a testament to what can be achieved when two companies that share a common goal of making design accessible and enjoyable for everyone come together.

I want to express my deepest gratitude to our incredible Affinity team. Your passion, dedication, and relentless pursuit of excellence have been the driving force behind our success so far, and I can’t wait to continue this journey with you all.

To our loyal users and the creative community, your support and feedback have been invaluable. You’ve inspired us to push boundaries and continuously improve, and we’re excited to embark on this new chapter together.

The future is bright, and I am incredibly excited to continue our story together and create a world where design is within everyone's reach.

You helped us start a movement. Today, that movement becomes a revolution.

With heartfelt thanks,

Ashley Hewson
CEO


FAQ

What’s happening?

As of today (26 March 2024) Affinity is part of the Canva family. Canva has acquired Serif, the company behind the Affinity suite of professional creative software.

Why has Serif decided to sell to Canva?

From the very early days of developing Affinity, our aim has always been to empower the world to design with incredibly powerful professional creative tools which do not cost a fortune. We are really proud of everything we have achieved so far, with more than three million designers around the world using our apps.

We have to say that selling Serif was not on our minds at all, but when Canva contacted us (only a couple of months ago!) there was something about it which just felt right. Product-wise it is a great fit as Canva do not have professional design tools as part of their offering, and we do not have any cloud or collaboration as part of ours. But more than that, our overall philosophies align so well and Canva’s culture (despite being a much larger company than us) is very similar.

We do believe that together we can produce the world’s most comprehensive visual communications offering, while at the same continuing to serve our existing creative professional community with more rapid development of our apps.

Since our inception, both of our companies have shared the same mission and vision. We were both founded with the belief that design shouldn’t be limited to those who can afford complex software.

Our goal has been to make the highest quality design tools available to the largest number of people with fair, transparent and affordable pricing at our core. By joining forces, we’re looking forward to accelerating this shared vision. As part of that, we’ve made Four Pledges to the Affinity community.

Canva’s business model is subscription, are there any plans to change how Affinity is sold?

Affinity and Canva share a commitment to making design fairer and more accessible. For Canva, this has meant making its core product available for free to millions of people across the globe. And for Affinity, this has meant a fairly priced perpetual license model. We know this model has been a key part of the Affinity offering and we are committed to continue to offer perpetual licenses in the future as one of our Four Pledges to the Affinity community.

If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model, for those who prefer it. This fits with enabling Canva users to start adopting Affinity. It could also allow us to offer Affinity users a way to scale their workflows using Canva as a platform to share and collaborate on their Affinity assets, if they choose to.

What will happen to my Affinity apps?

We believe Affinity is the highest-quality professional-grade design suite on the market. It’s non-destructive, superfast, and easy to use. As such, we want to reassure you that Affinity is here to stay – and will only get better.

In fact, as one of our Four Pledges to the Affinity community, we’re committed to using our shared resources to continue expanding Affinity’s products through further investment in Affinity as a standalone product suite.

Will my Affinity apps still get updates?

Absolutely! We’re looking forward to accelerating the rollout of highly requested features such as variable font support, blend and width tools, auto object selection, multi-page spreads, ePub export and much more.

These additions will further cement Affinity as the best advanced design suite on the market and will be released over the coming year as free updates to V2.

We plan to start the beta of version 2.5 in the next month or so – if you would like to get involved in that you can sign up to our beta program.

Will you be building any integrations with Canva?

Yes, it’s likely there will be some integration between Affinity and Canva in the future, particularly in consideration of the workflows of enterprise customers. Creative and brand management teams need professional tools to create and edit assets, images, icons, logos and other elements - and Affinity apps are the perfect choice for that.

Being able to quickly sync those assets to Canva for the wider organization to easily use within their documents, presentations, whiteboards and other visual communication materials would make a lot of sense.

Any integrations we do will be done using additional resource from Canva and will not get in the way of us continuing to develop the features and improvements you want to the Affinity apps.

Will this partnership help with more easily sharing and collaborating on Affinity documents?

Many of you would like to see a way to easily sync your Affinity documents and assets to all your devices, and also to be able to share and collaborate on your Affinity files. For us to build the infrastructure required for this was always going to be challenging, but it’s now certainly achievable via Canva’s platform.

Very early days and we don’t have a specific plan, but the main thing to say is that this is now certainly a possibility in the future!

Will anything change in terms of my Affinity account?

No, your Affinity account remains the same and our website will continue to sell our apps and add-ons. You can continue to manage your purchases and downloads in the same way you always have.

We use Affinity or Canva in our business / education / nonprofit. What does this mean for us?

As for individual users, you can expect to benefit from continued updates to your apps including many new features and improvements. If your school, university or business also uses Canva you will additionally benefit from some of the future integrations mentioned above between our platforms.

In fact Canva, which has pledged 30% of its value as a company towards doing good in the world through its two-step plan, offers premium plans at no cost to schools and nonprofits all over the world. More than 60 million students and teachers, plus 600,000 charities and registered nonprofits, benefit from this each month.

As one of our Four Pledges to the Affinity community we’re excited to extend this programme to include free access for schools and nonprofits to Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher. These professional-grade tools will add enormous value to this free offering, helping millions of students to master the craft of design, and empowering mission driven organizations to amplify their voices and maximize their impact.

We’ll share more details on this in the coming months, including what it means for our education and NFP customers that already use Affinity.

How is the Affinity team affected, will there be any layoffs?

No, there are not going to be any layoffs. This was something that Canva were immediately clear on when initially discussing the acquisition – they are investing in the team we have here and it’s very important everyone is part of the future.

Will the ethos of Affinity change now it’s part of a large global company?

The team behind Affinity remains in place and our approach remains the same – and this is something that Canva is very focused for us to maintain too. Yes, we are now a division within a larger company, but we believe this will allow us to serve our community even better in the future and give us even greater freedom and ability to challenge the status quo.

Will new jobs become available at Affinity? Can I apply?

There’s every chance there will be some expansion of our team over time – vacancies will be posted on our website as appropriate.

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Press contact

John Atkin
Head of PR
john@serif.com

About Serif

Serif launched in 1987 and built up a reputation for quality and reliability based on an award-winning range of software for PC – low-cost alternatives to high-end publishing and graphics packages.

The focus of development then switched to a next-generation suite of lean, super-fast apps for creative professionals using Mac, Windows and iPad. Affinity Designer, the first Affinity app, was released in 2014. Affinity Photo followed in 2015 and the launch of Affinity Publisher in 2019 meant Serif boasted a full creative suite of applications covering photo editing, graphic design and desktop publishing.

Affinity Version 2, launched in November 2022, represents a complete reimagining of the Affinity suite with new features and enhancements, plus a redesigned UI, for a fluid and powerful working experience. The launch at the same time of Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad means the entire Affinity suite is integrated across Mac, PC and iPad.

Affinity products have won some of the biggest awards in the industry, gained plaudits from reviewers, and been adopted by millions of users worldwide.

Serif employs around 90 people at its HQ in Nottingham, UK.

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