Making a map with Affinity Designer
Having spent many years using FreeHand as my tool of choice, when it came to all things design/vector/cartographic, I have fought the move to Adobe Illustrator as I personally do not find it intuitive. I have tried many other paid for or open source solutions until I came across Affinity Designer.
Thank you Affinity, your product range of Designer, Photo, and Publisher are first-class and inexpensive.
I had run many small map tests when Affinity first came out but decided to try and create a complex map using free data available on the web.
Whilst the Designer app does not import GIS (Geographical Information System) data (used to capture and analyze spatial and geographic data for map production) directly, there are tools to allow you to convert the data online into a format that can be imported e.g. SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics).
In this example, I will use freely available data (GIS) from the Ordnance Survey (in the UK) and convert it to SVG which will allow me to edit it in Affinity Designer.
As I am not using a full-blown GIS package such as ArcGIS or QGIS, I will not be dropping in the place names automatically, these will have to be added at a later date.
Links used for the data and convertor:
Enjoy!
IMPORTANT: Using data from the Ordnance Survey requires you to comply with their licensing agreements and typically requires you to place a copyright message on the map with regards to the data.