Though not free, the Affinity apps are a good set of creative applications — Designer, Photo, and Publisher. Each one is only $50 USD. Sketch is $99 for a year. And Figma has a free option.

I use the Logitech K380. It's compact and has no numeric keypad. Since WFH, I switched to using this keyboard.

On my desk I have my work laptop connected to my work display. Next to it I have my home iMac. And I also have on my desk my iPhone 8. I can use this one keyboard on all three devices. I also use the Logitech MX Anywhere 2S as my mouse. It works with both my work computer and my personal iMac.

So, three devices but only one keyboard — and one mouse [for the two computers].

Now, I haven't really done a lot of this. And this process may seem archaic. But it works for getting the edits and keeping a history of them in an edits folder with the project. We make a versioned PDF [V1, V2, etc.] and have the writer/content specialist create comments/edits in the PDF. Then the "designer" or whomever makes the necessary changes in the native file.

I haven't done this but I understand you can build and prototype in Webflow. Then you can export to HTML5, CSS, JS.

Without even looking, this sounds like a Basecamp sort of idea. Scale a team to keep improving and supporting the product. Build the business, but not too big. So, I think the question is, can this product be sustained by a team of X number of people for five, ten, twenty plus years?

I'm no longer using Google for searches. I use DuckDuckGo.

Affinity is doing some great work. At work I will be stuck with Adobe.

I know everyone probably has a wish list for Affinity. Mine would be to not make Designer more like Sketch/XD, but make a separate Sketch/XD like app. I would also like a Dreamweaver replacement as well as a chart app that could replace the clunky old chart function in Adobe Illustrator.

I do plan to purchase Publisher soon and get a personal start at unsubscribing to my design life.

It seems that this is a natural progression for you. You're growing and maturing and see that you want something different to do. Good for you.

Personally, I have been working professionally as a graphic designer since 1990. I'm just now being pushed to do more and more digital. That's fine. And I'm sure the pendulum will continue to swing on all these things.

I love being a designer. I love helping solve the problems of visually communicating a message — especially if that's a good message. I don't want to stop designing. I don't want to run a business. I want to design to help businesses and mostly people communicate their messages. There are many ways to do that. Print is still very, very viable if used in effective ways. Digital is dominating now, but won't forever. People are getting sick of being tied to their devices.

Let's all work for good. Shall we?

Oh, okay. What I have read so far only mentions sharing via the cloud. If I can do local sharing — especially to myself for new documents — than I am good. Thanks.

Cloud, cloud, cloud. Disappointed that the only way to share / load assets is from a cloud document. Why can't I simply load assets / colors / styles / etc. from a base document on my desktop or server? Just like as I do in InDesign. Believe it or not, the world doesn't live in the cloud.