Vector file optimizer for designers on modest hardware

A designer opens a client file in Illustrator or Affinity Designer and their machine immediately starts lagging — fans spin up, the app stutters on every click, and eventually crashes. They don't need all 47 embedded high-res images and 12 live effects rendered simultaneously, but there's no way to tell the software that without flattening things permanently and losing editability. That's the moment they start looking for anything that helps.

The gap persists because the vendors making heavy vector software are optimized for creative professionals on high-end workstations — that's their loudest, highest-paying customer. A freelancer on a 4-year-old laptop complaining about RAM usage has no leverage. The vendors' incentive is to add features that justify subscription prices, which almost always means more rendering complexity, not less. Lite modes have been requested for years (one complaint literally says 'a lite version would be helpful for startup designers') and none have shipped.

What's missing is a preprocessing step: before a designer opens a complex .ai or .afdesign file for a working session, something outside the main application strips out what doesn't need to be active — replaces embedded raster images above a certain resolution with proxies, rasterizes effects that aren't being actively edited, flags redundant anchor points in paths that bloat rendering cost. The working file stays fully editable; it just loads and runs lean. On export, the original linked assets are restored. Existing export optimizers flatten and finalize — they're for delivery, not for working. This is different: it's a session-prep tool, not a file delivery tool.

The business case is straightforward: a freelance designer who loses billable hours to crashes and slowdowns, or who has to tell a client they need to buy a new machine to keep working, would pay monthly to avoid that. The need recurs every time they receive a complex client file, every time they start a new complex project, and every time the software updates and gets heavier. The cost of not having it is concrete: lost hours, lost client work, or a hardware purchase they can't afford.

What to build

Build a desktop utility that opens .ai, .afdesign, and .svg files, replaces embedded rasters above a user-set resolution threshold with linked low-res proxies, rasterizes non-active live effects into locked layers, and saves a working-session version — then restores originals on export.

Where to start

Start exclusively with Affinity Designer files (.afdesign), which use a documented open format, to prove the proxy-and-restore workflow before tackling Illustrator's proprietary format — target the vocal Affinity community that already complains about this on Reddit and the Affinity forums.

The hard part

Reverse-engineering the internal structure of .ai files (which are not fully documented) accurately enough that restoring embedded assets on export never corrupts the original artwork — one bad restore that destroys a client file kills the product by word of mouth immediately.

How it makes money

Monthly subscription at $9–14/month per seat; free tier limited to files under 50MB to let designers experience the workflow before paying.