Making a custom digital planner to fit all your needs has been an obsession of mine since I found out it was something I could easily make on my iPad.
I’ve made digital planners in both Procreate and Affinity Designer, but what is the best app for designing digital planners? In short, I think it comes down to your creative process and how you like to work, as well as how you want the final product to look.
file types
Affinity Designer is a vector and raster based program on the iPad. Vectors are great for designing planners because they can be resized and reused without resolution loss, so you can duplicate an element endlessly without making it blurry.
Procreate uses raster images, which can get blurry if you do a lot of moving around the canvas, so for this reason it can be difficult to design a blur free planner in Procreate.
precise movements
In Affinity Designer for iPads it’s easy to move a shape or text block an exact amount of pixels using the transform tool. When creating a digital planner, this can be essential to creating a cohesive overall design and flow. For example, if you want to space out your calendar months by 100 pixels and have all 12 months perfectly spaced, this is easy to achieve in Affinity Designer.
Procreate has also added a few features such as snapping and magnetics to help align elements on a canvas. It’s not as precise as Affinity Designer, but still very helpful.
brushes and textures
Procreate has the life-like brushes we all know and love, and is raster based. Because of that, many creatives feel as though it offers more freedom for customization when it comes to textures, shadows, and life-like elements.
Want a leather-like texture on your planner cover? That is easy to create in Procreate, but in Affinity, it would take some extra image overlays and blend modes to achieve that look.
professionalism
Affinity designer has a lot of features that allow you to create a cohesive planner that is professional quality (i.e. precise movements, vectors not getting blurry, etc.), so I think overall it’s easier to create a professional planner in Affinity. However that isn’t to say you couldn’t create a professional planner in Procreate, it would just take a bit more work to make everything uniform and make sure there is no blurriness.
which app is best for you?
If you prefer clean lines and precision, Affinity Designer is the best choice for you. If you prefer to work with your favorite Procreate brushes and create detailed textures, shadows, and realistic effects, then Procreate is your best friend. In the end, there is no wrong app for designing a planner. It all depends on how you like to work, and what overall look you prefer!
keep learning
I have classes on designing planners in both Affinity and Procreate, so you can see both processes and figure out which one works best for you. Check out the classes below to see for yourself which app is best (for you!).
Learn how to design a digital planner using vector shapes in Affinity Designer.
Learn how to create texture effects in your planner in Procreate.
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