JonathanBall

I'm curious to know why the Command Key is the modifier used for center scaling in place of the Option (Alt) Key.  :huh:
 
This functionality is one of the biggest hurdles for me in using Affinity programs. Having to constantly think about which keys I'm pressing when I switch to Affinity programs in my workflow is a huge hinderance.
 
It seems especially strange considering Affinity is an app that's designed for Mac. This behavior goes not just against every other program I've used (not just design) for years, but against the operating system itself.
 
Two questions:
Why is this well established/familiar UX convention changed? Any hope that this modifier is customizable in this or future versions of Affinity?   I still love Affinity, but I'd marry it if I could use my Option Key as I do everywhere else in my workflow. 
 
Thanks for your help!  :)
 
PS: Totally unrelated, but also quite backward... Why is the default appearance set to a black fill w/white stroke? I feel like you guys are just messing with me at this point. Every time I set a default appearance I also have to swap it. Seems strange.

Hello!
 
I'm new around these parts (first post) so I apologize if this question has already been asked and answered. I did some searching, but I couldn't find anything regarding this. My question is:
 
How does one merge or combine a self intersecting path/curve (to make a compound path) in Affinity Designer?
 
I design type and it's desirable—crucial really—to overlap a shape/path within itself for maximum flexibility and ease of manipulation while working. Unfortunately, when it comes time to combine the final artwork I'm left with compound holes where the paths intersect themselves.  :(

I've attached an example of what I'm referring to.  
I've tried all of the options that can think of (Geometry, Create Compound, etc.), but none seem to work. I'm assuming that this is just the way paths combine in AD, but I'm desperately hoping that there's another technique that I'm missing.
 
Also, I love AD thus far. Great work!
 
Thanks for your help!  :D

Hello!
 
I'm new around these parts (first post) so I apologize if this question has already been asked and answered. I did some searching, but I couldn't find anything regarding this. My question is:
 
How does one merge or combine a self intersecting path/curve (to make a compound path) in Affinity Designer?
 
I design type and it's desirable—crucial really—to overlap a shape/path within itself for maximum flexibility and ease of manipulation while working. Unfortunately, when it comes time to combine the final artwork I'm left with compound holes where the paths intersect themselves.  :(

I've attached an example of what I'm referring to.  
I've tried all of the options that can think of (Geometry, Create Compound, etc.), but none seem to work. I'm assuming that this is just the way paths combine in AD, but I'm desperately hoping that there's another technique that I'm missing.
 
Also, I love AD thus far. Great work!
 
Thanks for your help!  :D

About
The Box Set is hundreds of vector and raster brushes made for Affinity Photo & Designer. Each brush was handmade
using real materials scanned at high resolutions and crafted to simulate real media. I wanted the origin of the brushes to
have a heritage of the materials they are simulating. Scanning pools of watercolor, swatches of paint, and stipples of charcoal
contributed to creating brushes with the same idiosyncratic material magic. My only request is that you take these brushes,
with their clever names, as suggestions. They work superbly out of the box, but I strongly encourage you to adjust the sliders,
rearrange or remove the textures, and discover how they can suit your hand(s).
 
Make. Discover. Repeat.
 
Cheers and happy art making,
-Jef (WREN)
 
RASTER BRUSHES
For use in Affinity Photo and Designer. The blending brush in the Oil Set is the only one exclusive to Affinity Photo.
 
DRAFTING

 
INK

 
OIL

 
Oil Brush Dynamics

Most oil brushes have blending built into pen pressure. With a single brush and hue you can adjust the luminosity of the stroke-
giving it an oily blend. The Brush's color in the example above is the color of the background. A normal pressure gives you the
hue without any lightening or darkening.
 
 
WATERCOLOR

 
 
ACRYLIC

 
VECTOR BRUSHES
For use with Affinity Designer Only. 
 
Pen & Ink
Charcoal & Graphite
Sumi-E
Painterly
Drips
Handlettering
 
LINKS
The Box Set
 
 

Hey there!
 
I'm an Adobe refugee seeking asylum. I'm a freelance graphic designer who specializes in lettering and typographic design.
 
I've been using Adobe products for a number of years, but recently became disenchanted with the subscription model so I decided to cut the cord. Don't get me wrong, Adobe products are amazing, but I don't want to pay for 37 apps when I only need 3. Plus, that price is only ever going to go in one direction—up—and I don't like being contractually obligated to it.
 
After looking for Illustrator alternatives I discovered Affinity Designer and I'm incredibly impressed with its capabilities. It's still missing a few fundamental things for me as a professional, but overall I'm amazed with so many aspects of the software that I don't mind hacking/muddling through things while it's being improved.
 
I'm excited to see where Affinity products go from here and happy to be a part of the growing community of those that have seen the light.  :D

Hi JonathanBall,
 
This is already logged with our developers to look into, as you say, it's not keeping the same X coordinates. 

Hi guys !
 
I had the pleasure to create a poster about a medieval sword that a captain found in the Seine near Rouen, a town in Normandy France. It was totally done with AD excepted the typo added by someone else.
 
 

Final concept art for client's top-down JRPG game, Luminare Saga. Created using Affinity Photo. You can see more of these concepts and some of my process on my Artstation profile. Enjoy!

Railyard Complete...now I better go do some real work ;)

Sat up a little late last night working on a Steam Engine.

Sorry couldn't resist a last little tinker.

First full day free to myself for a while and Ive been using this style in a lot of client work over that last couple of years, so thought Id see what happens if I'm not watching the clock and pack it with shading and detail, really quite please with the outcome. I'm going to add some characters to this next week if I get another free day.

I've been working away most of the summer and haven't had time to create anything for myself, finally broke the drought today with this space chimp, a piece I've had sketched for quite a while.

I fear I can only support the view of Stephan and Mike. The technical intricacies of font design are generally underestimated by people who have no or little experience in the field, and I don’t believe it would make sense to add font creation capabilities to a drawing program like Affinity Designer. There are numerous, even free, applications that will allow you achieve great results in font creation, provided you have command over the required knowledge and experience …  :)

Next to clicking objects would it be nice to have the following drag selection options, also for the node tool:
 
- If you drag from the left towards the right, you will get a area selection box which will select only objects that are completely captured inside the box.
- If you drag starting from the right and then move towards the left direction, you will select any object that intersects the box even partially.
 
I have experienced this in another wonderfull program; Moi 3D and works very intuitieve. You can see this at work in video 
"Vectors in MoI3D instead of Illustrator/Sketch" (.youtube.com/watch?v=vOfKQugba00) at 8:00 min.

+1
 
very important. it is almost impossible to edit parts of complex curves otherwise.

Wish I could copy and paste nodes, would be a very useful feature to have.

This should be the main character.
The plot is about an astronaut lost in a distant planet, but it is not finished yet... 
So I really don't know what he is supposed to do there... I guess he isn't too.  :)
 
Done in AD with the Pigmento set and sharpened a bit in AP to bump textures.

I did the second icon as well.
I don't think I will be doing the third one!

This was done by following a tutorial.
 
I'm not sure why that tutorial is not being advertised on this forum?
(Apologies if the link to that tutorial is somewhere and I've just not seen it!)
 
The image shown is three times bigger than the original.
 
It's a good tutorial if you're not used to using the AD tools, like me!

Your sample text doesn't include any character sequences where ligatures could be applied. The 'Use Default' option will give you standard ligatures such as 'fl', and the 'Use All' option will additionally give you discretionary ligatures such as 'ct' (if they exist in your chosen font).
 
The attached file is an animated GIF. Click on the thumbnail to view the animation.

I've tried a lot of fonts in the Windows beta and discretionary ligatures always work fine for me. I do think it would be more useful if the second button in the character panel would be 'discretionary ligatures' instead of 'contextual alternates'. The former are well-known and widely implemented in serif fonts, the latter rare and unclear. Even for fonts with a lot of stylistic alternates or contextual swashes the button 'contextual alternates' usually doesn't work. That way the button can even be misleading. So you have to open the typography panel any way and that's fine for advanced opentype-settings. A 'discretionary ligatures' button is more straight-forward and would improve workflow because you wouldn't have to open the extra panel.

The Typography section in the Character panel only has buttons for common things like standard ligatures and small caps, and it took a while before it dawned on me where to look for extra options such as 'dlig'. You need to go to the menu icon next to the closing 'x' at the top of the panel to get access to the 'Show Typography' option, and then it all works as expected.
 
I think access to the advanced options would be easier and more obvious if there were a 'More' button at the end of the standard row of buttons.

Hi, folks.
 
Included, 2 small screen shots, not terribly impressive, from the pseudo-3D Perpetua font set I have been making in AD for the past month. Also, the main set of vector objects w. an additional long tail, as Gill, the designer, sometimes used. And a sample of the shading effect I've managed to come up w. so far. Along with this is a set of the letter center lines, intended to add a touch of sanguine color to the incision, as Gill sometimes did, and a set of the same lines smoothed out some for use on there own.
 
There are some problems here and there, not quite smooth curves mostly. But I hope they will be of some use.
 

 

 
 
Perpetua.zip

Hello I am a huge fan of both affinity designer and photos, and own both of them! I just wanted to share some of the work that I have done using the new symbols tool in the Affinity Designer beta. When I got into sacred geometry mandala illustrations, I used smart layers inside photoshop. In the last month, I've recreated some of my past works and created new designs using the new betas.
 
I'd love to thank all their development teams for creating such incredible and intuitive vector applications. You allow me to effortlessly create designs in Designer and quickly export them to Photos to add nice image/gradient masks and effects before submitting the final render.
 
Here's some of the works I've created. I have them all on my Instagram as well (@garetmckinley).