Hi everyone,
Is there a way to change/edit the order of categories in the brushes panel? I loaded some brushes by double-clicking on them after unzipping them and they loaded out of order. See image please. I'm finding it makes it difficult to remember which brushes are where and I like things in order. Many thanks!
This is a feature I would really like to see added, but not as much as a way to export & import multiple selected categories in a single step. As it is now, for those of us that own all 3 apps, it is a real PITA to set up each of them so that they all have the same categories in the same order.
Including StudioLink's personas in Affinity Publisher, that is 5 separate sets of brush categories -- 2 sets of vector brushes & 3 sets of pixel brushes, each of which could have different categories with a different number of brushes in each of their categories in different orders.
What would be really great is a separate companion app that could manage all this in one place, with features like finding identical brushes regardless of category, bulk renaming of identical categories or brushes, syncing categories across all the apps, etc. Even just a way to create a list of brush names in a hierarchic layout would be a good start, sortable by app, vector or raster brush type, category, etc., & exportable as tab or comma separated text for importing into a spreadsheet app.
OH MY!!! Looking at these images I just now realize that this triangular shape in the middle is supposed to be a pencil drawing a line! I’ve never recognized it as that, the AD logo always just looked like an abstract triangular thing to me.
mind → blown.
@TonyB, @Andy Somerfield, @Dave Harris, @Ben, @Ash, and the rest of the Serif team, this is a big one...
Why let 3rd-party software run the show?
It’s astounding that Adobe Illustrator, Indesign, and other such software have never taken font management and font composition seriously. They relegate the tasks to poorly integrated 3rd-party software, essentially turning their back on letter forms and typeface, one of the pillars of great design.
The Affinity Suite could change all that.
Affinity Type
Integrated Font management – Point Affinity Type to your local or online fonts, Affinity Type takes care of the rest. Whether you have 100s of local fonts, or fonts in the cloud (like Google Fonts (Free) and Adobe Typekit) Affinity Type will manage them all, allowing you to see them aggregated in one place.
Keep your system fonts lean – All fonts are temporary “activated” and not installed. When you load an affinity file that includes fonts, Affinity Type will automatically activate those fonts, and not install them as system fonts. The automatic activation means you never have to chase down those “missing font” errors.
What the use of having 100s of fonts if you cannot find the right ones? – Affinity Type’s Database keeps track of all your font locations: locally, installed in the system folder, on the network, or in the cloud. Create custom font albums. These virtual folders give you the freedom to collect and organize fonts by job, by license, by client, by task, free, or any way you wish to slice and dice your library when you use filters to efficiently refine your decision. The database will be fast and lean – speedy previews, and fast activation.
Categorization algorithms – Using cues from each font’s glyph anatomy – Affinity Type can identify typeface and automatically classify them, so you don’t have to. e.g. Modern Serif, Old style Serif, Slab serif, Humanist Sans, Geometric sans, Display faces, Handwritten, Calligraphic, etc. This feature can also help suggest a well-contrasted font palette for you from inside the Affinity tools.
How you use it
Affinity Type – The Font Curation App – Affinity Type allows you administrative access to your font library database. Here is where you can organize your fonts into albums, select favourites, slice and dice your font library with powerful filters (including installed system fonts) and organize them into filesystem folders of your choice. Tools to identify duplicate typefaces and corrupted fonts. See total number of fonts sorted by different filters, as well as total sizes in MB. Flag and tag your fonts here as well.
Affinity Font Persona (Font Selection Interface) – Embedded in all three Affinity programs is the selection interface. Perhaps it is a new persona (Font Persona?). The most powerful feature of the Font Persona is the Type Palette Composer. A clean and nimble interface to compare or contrast your font choices. The Type Palette composer allows you flexible brainstorming when it comes to font composition. Here you can gain access to your whole database. Refine your choices with your powerful filters. See the total number of fonts for each filter, as well as which ones are currently installed or temporarily activated.
These ideas and the interface mockup are rough concepts to help generate more brainstorming. I know that the Serif team will greatly expand upon the concept of Affinity Type and greatly improve it.
Affinity Type would unify the powerful triad of Affinity tools when it comes to typefaces. It’s time someone in the industry took font management and selection to a more professional place. I hope it will be Serif.
Hi folks,
I've been using Affinity Designer & Photo on PC for two years and both became main apps of my choice for graphic design, drawing illustrations and photo editing. I abandoned Adobe CC and didin't regret my decision! Thanks a lot for all your efforts – at Serif and on the forum – and keep my fingers crossed for a new version to come.
There are really great tools in Designer but I found something that I'd love to find improved someday. When working with vector brushes in Draw Persona it's impossible to identify what brush is selected for a particular vector object. It's not highlighted in the Brushes Panel so finding the right one is a real problem, especially when working with 100+ of very similar looking brushes (eg. Grave Etcher by RetroSupply). I know it's easy to copy attributes from one object to another but I still can't figure out what brush name is selected. It would be great if one of the following is implemented:
- show active brush highlighted in the Brushes Panel when particular vector object is selected or
- show the active brush name in the Brush Properties window (it is actually present when you select particular brush in the Brushes Panel and start drawing – see attached picture A – but if you change object that has another vector brush and open the Brush Properties window (see picture B) the name is gone.
Is anybody experiencig the same and perhaps you'd love to share how you deal with it?
