retrograde

Use Symbols.
Create your sticker as a Symbol. Duplicate underneath. Ensure Sync is OFF, and add a white stroke to outline everything. Duplicate the sticker again. Sync still OFF, and fill black, set opacity, add Gaussian Blur FX if desired to get shadow. Addition of a black stroke allows control of Shadow size. Turn Sync ON so that alterations to the sticker propagate to the Outline and Shadow versions.  
 
Sticker with Outline and Shadow.afdesign

Thanks @retrograde that works really well and does save me time. I do find with more complex groups the contour struggles a bit, creating gaps where there shouldn't be, etc but that having a combined group contour (with shadow FX) along with being able to select the individual elements in the layers panel is a great (if not yet another) workaround.

Not sure if this helps but... I tried using some copied combined shapes as a compound shape by marquee selecting all of the copied shapes and control clicking (mac) on the 'add' boolean icon to create a non destructive compound shape of all of the selected shapes, then you can apply an outline and drop shadow to the compound shape. It's not perfect but it keeps all of the original shapes intact incase you need to reposition or transform or remove anything later as opposed to creating a destructive 'add' boolean.
To edit the individual shapes you'll need to select them in the layers panel if you want to transform them as once made into a compound shapes you won't be able to see the individual shapes outline even in outline view mode. Then you can make a style of the outline and drop shadow of the compound shape for a quick one click application to any new shapes. Like I say it's not perfect but it's a little less destructive than combining all of the shapes into one vector shape. It might add up to a lot of shapes though if you have a ton of objects in your file.

A fundamental question that has engaged people since the invention of the car, and has divided opinions up to today
Graphic created from scratch with Affinity Designer 2.0

It's all about the "retro" vibe. I grew up in the 80's, I was raised by 80's style items and by the designers of those items. So I'm just filled with that vibe and sometimes I need to express it. 
I have always admired the keyboards of the first personal computers - their texture, their shape, the way characters were applied to them. Also the tube displays and their magical glow, which no LCD screen can render, bring back good memories of distant times. Here I tried to reflect the style of those machines.
The inspiration for this drawing came from a modern calculator with round buttons, whose designer apparently took advantage of the sentiment with which people sometimes refer to objects from the past. 
#affinitydesigner #calculator #nixietube #80s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectDraw_Surface
As I understand it, It is a raster based file format which holds textures, usually used in gaming development etc.

From a quick Google search:
Georgia Department of Driver Services Doctor of Dental Surgery The stock symbol for Dillard's, Inc. Defense Digital Service Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services more...

What is DDS?

Apps: Publisher and Designer
Platforms: All
In the layers panel if you alt-click add new layer when you have a selection, all items in that selection are moved to the new layer created. In other words this behaves similar to grouping, but rather than creating a group it puts your selection into a new layer.
Additionally for desktop versions you will find a new option in the right click menu for "Move Selection to New Layer" which achieves the same thing.
 


This makes it far easier to organise your work into layers, without having to create an empty layer first and drag the items you want into it.

fwiw Inkscape can generate vector QR codes and barcodes and it's free. Bar and QR code bits starts at around 9:50.
There are some other cool features Inkscape has in this video but that would be another discussion...
 

After using Affinity Designer for almost 9 years now and wasting what is probably months of my life cleaning up extra nodes and geometry, I JUST learned that it is indeed possible to remove nodes AND retain the original curve geometry. Apparently, this little nugget of wisdom is buried on the 'Edit curves and shapes' page in the documentation, under a disclosure triangle labelled 'to delete nodes' and placed in a little box with the following note:
It's interesting that the note is larger than the actual text entry for the label 'to delete nodes'.
I have many questions, but the main one is why isn't (attempting to) retain the curve's original geometry the default behaviour? I'm guessing most people who delete nodes simply hit 'delete' without thinking about it, and then have to spend a not insignificant amount of time redrawing what they just lost by deleting the extra nodes.
Also, if this were the default behaviour it would be much more useful on the iPad as deleting nodes via the trashcan icon and then cleaning them up and redrawing them is a rather tedious process. I know this option isn't currently available on the iPad, but if and when you get around to adding it, please consider making it the default behaviour.
If anybody has any arguments as to why the current, destructive behaviour is preferred please leave a comment. I'm really scratching my head trying to come up with use cases where deleting nodes and having your geometry distort is preferable to deleting nodes and having the software attempt to retain the existing curve(s) as much as possible (with fewer nodes).
Addendum: If you select a number of extraneous nodes in a shape/curve (not all of the nodes) and use the ⌥ + Backspace (Delete on macOS) shortcut Designer does a pretty good job of cleaning up the nodes and matching the existing geometry. It's almost as if the 'simplify geometry' feature is almost there, but the user actually needs to go in and select all of the extraneous nodes they wish to delete first. Hopefully one day this might be automated in a future update.

This has been super-helpful. I'm new to Affinity and, like others above, am migrating from Illustrator, so I'm used to that. I have been spinning my wheels for two days trying to get a clear understanding of Affinity layers. Every time I made some small modification (for example, changing the font or spelling of a text element), it would drop that to the bottom of the Layers panel and I'd have to drag it up the Layers to where I wanted it. I could NOT figure out why that was happening. Very frustrating I did see the layers choice for "insertion" (default or top), but that didn't seem to make a difference. I'm betting this is my problem. . . I was thinking of the ELEMENT (text, a photo, etc.) as being a  layer (because it SHOWS in the layers panel) while in reality Affinity doesn't consider it a layer of its own. Still don't understand why it drops to the bottom after any change, though. But sticking it in a layer will probably help. Maybe if nothing else the Affinity folks can post a short video for Illustrator converts explaining the different strategy needed. Thanks so much for this thread. 

Hi @Ron P.Thanks for your questions. Let me explain how I use Illustrator, and how I find Designer confusing.
In Illustrator, I create 3 layers.
Top layer: I do all of my drawing, labelling, etc in outline with no fill.
Middle layer: I add a 'Colour' layer. Add blocks of colour, copy shapes from above and add fill colour
Lowest layer: I paste a sketch (of a house floor plan) Trace it in the layers above.
So when I use Designer, I find that I have tens or hundreds of layers and I find it difficult to have control over what object is on top. I am constantly moving an object up the layers palette.
In Illustrator, I lock other layers and draw my lines all on the same (top) layer. I know I can click to open the layer and see every object on a sub layer. But that seems to be the default in Designer, that is what I find difficult to work with. For example, how can I quickly copy a shape to the level below and change it's colour. I want all my coloured objects to be on a layer of their own. 
I should say that I have worked with Designer for about 3 months but I have had to return to Illustrator for now because I can be productive without the confusion in the layer palette. I find nearly everything else in Designer superior for my purposes. 

Hi @NathanC Export Persona is great and I do use it when it makes the most sense (lot's of exports or batches or different file formats or sizes etc...), but I think the expected behaviour should be when you "export as" with a single particular artboard that the export filename take on the artboards name. Similarly and sort of related is the expected behaviour that when you add an artboard it should add a 002 or some sort of "copy or new" indication to the end of the name otherwise you end up with a bunch of Artboard 1's in your layer stack which is basically, well... what's the point frankly.
Admittedly, I'm no software engineer or programmer so please tell me if this type of request would be extremely difficult to implement. But I think these expected behaviours aren't too out there. Seems by version 2 now some of this basic artboard housekeeping should get some love. I use Designer everyday for professional work and would love to see this little update make it in sometime soon. Pretty please. 🙂  Big fan of AD but somewhat mystified by these 2 artboard related oversights.

Hey guys!
Here's a little suggestion for an improvement of the artboard navigation in your suite. Maybe you could color the uppermost layer/the artboard according to the assigned color or a darker tone as default. Here's a mock-up of what I mean:

 
Keep up the good work!

Nice one @retrogradeI will definitely look into Keyshape!

OMG yes. The world needs a smart new competitor for AE even just a nice capable little 2d animator. Until that time comes 😏 I'm been using Blender and Keyshape for my 2d animation work, which are not bad actually.

Hey guys!
This is my little love letter to your software suite. I absolutely adore it. Its usability and look and feel are absolutely spot on. And this is coming from a man who is using vector programs since 2002 (Freehand, anyone?). I even go so far as to advertise your suite on a regular basis in my lessons.
Here in Germany I teach at two private design schools, the HTK academy and SAE School, and I am ((un-)fortunately) responsible for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Since they're still industry standard. But I have stopped using them ever since I came across Affinity in my professional life and only use them because I teach them. I even went so far as to introduce a slide in my presentations where I talk about the respective alternative to each program because there're just too many benefits compared to Adobe. Who's only advantage is its market share, which they bought, not earned. I mostly teach fresh first and second semester students and I am happy to suggest to them a viable alternative very early on.
In summary, please keep doing what you're doing and keep making a stand for ownership over continuous rental models like Adobe.
Much love and support going out to the Affinity team!
Greetings,
 
 
Volker
PS: Please make an After Effects contester, so I can can Adobe fully... 

[Repost because of wrong account....]

Hi @NathanC Export Persona is great and I do use it when it makes the most sense (lot's of exports or batches or different file formats or sizes etc...), but I think the expected behaviour should be when you "export as" with a single particular artboard that the export filename take on the artboards name. Similarly and sort of related is the expected behaviour that when you add an artboard it should add a 002 or some sort of "copy or new" indication to the end of the name otherwise you end up with a bunch of Artboard 1's in your layer stack which is basically, well... what's the point frankly.
Admittedly, I'm no software engineer or programmer so please tell me if this type of request would be extremely difficult to implement. But I think these expected behaviours aren't too out there. Seems by version 2 now some of this basic artboard housekeeping should get some love. I use Designer everyday for professional work and would love to see this little update make it in sometime soon. Pretty please. 🙂  Big fan of AD but somewhat mystified by these 2 artboard related oversights.

Here's what I use it for.
 
Imagine you have a multi layered complex project and you want isolate one layer only to work on. Selecting that layer and de-selecting the "edit all layers" button will only allow selection and/or editing to that one layer. You no longer need to worry about selecting unwanted elements underneath or above that layer.
 
Now if we can get the ability to enact a shortcut or a right click menu operator for this it would be much better and faster. :-)

I have a file with many artboards in Affinity Designer. I am gradually creating the content of each artboard. After changing the artboard, I export one artboard. The filename of the exported artboard is set to the file name. I need the file name to match the artboard name.
For example, I have the filename 'icons.afdesign'. I have the artboard 'mn-hobby' in it. When I select File > Export..., I select the PNG tab so the file name is set to 'icons.png'. I need the name to be 'mn-hobby.png'.

Export persona is too complex for the way I described.
Ideally it would be possible to take the name of the artboard when exporting from the Design persona.

Hello and thank you for your feedback. Yes indeed it is in the order you mentioned...the concern is that for no reason the cursor randomly remains in the pan mode (hand) instead of switching to the zooming function.

Totally agree. The pixel persona and the use of blurs and the transparency tool. The gradient mesh tool was great when it first came out like 20 years ago but today there are far better and quicker ways to achieve even better results. The gradient mesh tool was also unforgiving and destructive. Aka the Gradient "Mess" tool.

Hello, this design is the concept for a client about coffee from Indonesia.
It's uploaded on my Behance web page. Thank you
The hardest part is inability to make vector patterns. In theory I could just duplicate each line, but that would make thousands and AD as powerful as it is, can't handle it, so I had to convert everything into a bitmap image which is not what I wanted. Also, I needed to make vector based patterns on a stroke, but that's not possible (yet at least).