Rhys Stenhouse

That is true, but making adjustment layers to emulate colourblindness would probably not be possible, and making adjustment layers to target specific print profiles or RGB profiles would be very difficult to do as well.
 
Adobe’s method of doing this is having a “Proof Setup” option in the View menu along with a “Proof Colours” toggle to quickly switch between your working colours and your proofing colours. This is a much more convenient way of doing things, although I’d always be interested to see if the Affinity team could think up an even better implementation.

You nailed my same idea about tools/ shape modifiers in AD, i think it's a better way compared to the current corner tool or non destructive booleans.
Maybe will be less immediate to learn/ use them but in a future with more tools everything should be more organized, powerful and non destructive.
 
Now you'll have to start other threads with the other Blender equivalent modifiers as: array( instead of ctrl+j), bevel, boolean, smooth, decimate, lattice, displace, curve, etc... , almost every modifier can have an "eqivalent" in 2d, also particles and fluids ;)

Actually, Fireworks has a command for this kind of thing. It's called Twist and Fade and works great. Could be a nice addition to AD.
 
 

I have created a new measurement that answers the age-old question: How many angels can dance on the end of a pin? BUT, I don't know whether to call the units of measurement "APP" (angels per pinhead) or "APEOSPT" (angels per end of sharp pointy thing)? This forum thread seems like the perfect place to ask for guidance!

Just posting to add my support for picas, I’d mentioned it on Twitter a while back but never actually got around to posting a request here.
 
More than anything else, it’ll be an especially useful feature to have ready for when Affinity Publisher is released – picas are at their most useful when designing full-page layouts and multi-page documents, I use them all the time in InDesign.

I am already smitten by Designer and Photo! I have worked with digital design apps since the late 1980s, starting with the 1.0 versions of Freehand, and PageMaker, and with Photoshop since the early 1990s. I see these as viable "next steps" for my current CS6 suite, which is now pretty much frozen in time.
 
Since I'm mainly a "type" guy, one missing feature that stands out for me as soon as I open the apps is an option to show measurements in picas and points. It may not be as important with painting and drawing programs on their own, but I still work with print publications where it really is easier (and for me, native) to think of measurements as 12 to the pica, and roughly 6 picas to the inch.
 
I'd love to see another unit option that allows for this (go with digital picas if you prefer to keep it a straight 72 points / inch).
 
This would add an important underpinning for your upcoming Publisher product, where I guarantee many of us who work with type will demand it.
 
Thanks, and I'm going to go back and play with these new toys now…
 
-- 
Matt

This worked perfectly! Many thanks.  :)

The best way to do this would be using the built-in Font Book app:
 
Open the Font Book app.
 
Font Book separates out fonts pre-installed on the system and fonts installed by the user – the User tab will contain all of the fonts that you’ll want to move over.
 
Select the fonts in the list that you want to export, then go to File > Export Fonts... (or if you want to export all user fonts, select the User tab and then go to File > Export Collection...
 
Save the fonts in the place you want them to go, and Font Book will create a folder with the font files for the fonts you exported. Move this folder onto your new Mac.
 
To install the new fonts in bulk, open Font Book on the new Mac and go to File > Add Fonts... then browse to the folder you created. Select it, and click Open.
 
Font Book will then read the folder contents and install all of the fonts it finds!

“I have only tried "FontForge" and the videos I have watched covered; "FontForge", "FontLab Studio", "Type 3.2", "FontCreator" and "Fontographer".”

Have a look at Glyphs. I’s one of the best designed applications I’ve ever used, and a model for software development across the board (functionality, usability, interface, API etc.) You can download a free one month trial, without any features disabled.

My initial thoughts were that I preferred the old logos but after comparing the two sets for a while the new ones grew on me and now I think I prefer them. Certainly their introduction will not upset me.
As many others have written it is the quality of the software that is paramount but there is also a need for logos that indicate the high quality of the product.

I prefer the old icons.
 
However, my style is based very much around minimalism and its strengths, but I see a lot of poorly designed minimal icons as people try to keep up with the latest design trends etc. just for the sake of it but don't fully understand or follow through with the concept.
 
Affinity's new icons are not poor I just think they need tweaking. I would drop the gradients or reduce them so they are only barely noticeable. They are far too prominent and make the icons look very 'cheap'. Its like saying 'heres a symbol, its very simple, it works great in black and white and is memorable and relevant but lets whack a drop shadow and rainbow colours in it just so its looks like we've actually done something' which simply destroys the initial aim of having a more simplistic logo.
 
I get clients ask 'is that it?' when I present them with logos sometimes purely because they don't understand the concept. When you explain it and follow through with it they end up happier as they understand what they are looking at and can see it working.
 
A great logo is achieved when it conveys everything it needs to without any extraneous pieces. Its like a sculpture. Start with a block of marble and chip away everything thats not needed to unveil the masterpiece.
 
The gradients are not needed and on top of that are too strong and make the logos look a bit tacky.

Overall I quite like the refresh, although I do have a couple of minor critiques:
The colour gradients are a touch too extreme, and a subtler graduation might be more effective. I wouldn’t get rid of them entirely because a well-done gradient does a great job of adding volume to a shape. In fact, most “flat” design actually uses subtle gradients and very slight borders and shadows to imply depth! Compared to the old icons the highlight colours are a bit washed-out. More vivid colours would in my opinion would be more attractive. The purple for Photo is closer to lavender now, but the colour that stood out to me in the old icon was the magenta in the top corner of the triangle.  
I have a few thoughts on some of the other criticisms posted in the thread.
 
Firstly, I don’t think the argument that an icon should demonstrate the app function holds water. I have in my dock right now a mix of OS X defaults, design apps, web dev apps, and communication/chat apps. A few have obvious descriptive icons (iTunes = musical note, Transmit = truck, Mail = postage stamp), some have more abstract descriptive icons (Safari = compass, which you can sort of extrapolate to be users “navigating” the web), but the rest are a mix of logos (Tweetdeck, Blender, Slack) and totally random graphic elements (Coda is a leaf, MAMP is an elephant and Finder is, well, a face).
 
Most of these apps are recognisable to me and to the others who use them. We figure out what apps do and how we use them not by the icon, but by actually using them, or by hearing or seeing others use them. People discover apps through word of mouth or by searching online, not by dissecting icons.
 
So what purpose does the app icon serve? Recognition. When I’m looking for my app in my dock (or Finder, Launchpad, cmd+tab app switcher), I look for the icon. It’s a visual anchor, so I can quickly spot it and launch or bring into focus the right app. This means that the main feature of a good icon has to be its distinctive visual qualities – and what qualities do people usually notice first? Colour and silhouette. We don’t tend to focus on fine details because we aren’t stopping to look, we’re just finding the icon so we can get to the app and get to work.
 
Now when I look at the old Affinity app icons, something else I notice is how the small details don’t show through very well at normal size. While they may look great on a website promo, in the dock/Finder/Spotlight the details are obscured. Designer’s pentips and Photo’s camera lens are just sort of blobs of colour in the middle of a coloured triangle.
 
--
 
It’s easy to see the old and new icons isolated on a page and then get caught up in examining the details – the old icons have more depth, they’ve got better descriptive elements, the new icons are flatter and more abstract. But it’s really important to consider how the icons will be used before making snap judgements on which is better.
  This is why I think the new icons are more successful. By stripping out the details and focusing on simple shapes and bright colours, Affinity’s icons will stand out from all the other icons they’re surrounded by and catch my eye much quicker than before.

Overall I quite like the refresh, although I do have a couple of minor critiques:
The colour gradients are a touch too extreme, and a subtler graduation might be more effective. I wouldn’t get rid of them entirely because a well-done gradient does a great job of adding volume to a shape. In fact, most “flat” design actually uses subtle gradients and very slight borders and shadows to imply depth! Compared to the old icons the highlight colours are a bit washed-out. More vivid colours would in my opinion would be more attractive. The purple for Photo is closer to lavender now, but the colour that stood out to me in the old icon was the magenta in the top corner of the triangle.  
I have a few thoughts on some of the other criticisms posted in the thread.
 
Firstly, I don’t think the argument that an icon should demonstrate the app function holds water. I have in my dock right now a mix of OS X defaults, design apps, web dev apps, and communication/chat apps. A few have obvious descriptive icons (iTunes = musical note, Transmit = truck, Mail = postage stamp), some have more abstract descriptive icons (Safari = compass, which you can sort of extrapolate to be users “navigating” the web), but the rest are a mix of logos (Tweetdeck, Blender, Slack) and totally random graphic elements (Coda is a leaf, MAMP is an elephant and Finder is, well, a face).
 
Most of these apps are recognisable to me and to the others who use them. We figure out what apps do and how we use them not by the icon, but by actually using them, or by hearing or seeing others use them. People discover apps through word of mouth or by searching online, not by dissecting icons.
 
So what purpose does the app icon serve? Recognition. When I’m looking for my app in my dock (or Finder, Launchpad, cmd+tab app switcher), I look for the icon. It’s a visual anchor, so I can quickly spot it and launch or bring into focus the right app. This means that the main feature of a good icon has to be its distinctive visual qualities – and what qualities do people usually notice first? Colour and silhouette. We don’t tend to focus on fine details because we aren’t stopping to look, we’re just finding the icon so we can get to the app and get to work.
 
Now when I look at the old Affinity app icons, something else I notice is how the small details don’t show through very well at normal size. While they may look great on a website promo, in the dock/Finder/Spotlight the details are obscured. Designer’s pentips and Photo’s camera lens are just sort of blobs of colour in the middle of a coloured triangle.
 
--
 
It’s easy to see the old and new icons isolated on a page and then get caught up in examining the details – the old icons have more depth, they’ve got better descriptive elements, the new icons are flatter and more abstract. But it’s really important to consider how the icons will be used before making snap judgements on which is better.
  This is why I think the new icons are more successful. By stripping out the details and focusing on simple shapes and bright colours, Affinity’s icons will stand out from all the other icons they’re surrounded by and catch my eye much quicker than before.

Overall I quite like the refresh, although I do have a couple of minor critiques:
The colour gradients are a touch too extreme, and a subtler graduation might be more effective. I wouldn’t get rid of them entirely because a well-done gradient does a great job of adding volume to a shape. In fact, most “flat” design actually uses subtle gradients and very slight borders and shadows to imply depth! Compared to the old icons the highlight colours are a bit washed-out. More vivid colours would in my opinion would be more attractive. The purple for Photo is closer to lavender now, but the colour that stood out to me in the old icon was the magenta in the top corner of the triangle.  
I have a few thoughts on some of the other criticisms posted in the thread.
 
Firstly, I don’t think the argument that an icon should demonstrate the app function holds water. I have in my dock right now a mix of OS X defaults, design apps, web dev apps, and communication/chat apps. A few have obvious descriptive icons (iTunes = musical note, Transmit = truck, Mail = postage stamp), some have more abstract descriptive icons (Safari = compass, which you can sort of extrapolate to be users “navigating” the web), but the rest are a mix of logos (Tweetdeck, Blender, Slack) and totally random graphic elements (Coda is a leaf, MAMP is an elephant and Finder is, well, a face).
 
Most of these apps are recognisable to me and to the others who use them. We figure out what apps do and how we use them not by the icon, but by actually using them, or by hearing or seeing others use them. People discover apps through word of mouth or by searching online, not by dissecting icons.
 
So what purpose does the app icon serve? Recognition. When I’m looking for my app in my dock (or Finder, Launchpad, cmd+tab app switcher), I look for the icon. It’s a visual anchor, so I can quickly spot it and launch or bring into focus the right app. This means that the main feature of a good icon has to be its distinctive visual qualities – and what qualities do people usually notice first? Colour and silhouette. We don’t tend to focus on fine details because we aren’t stopping to look, we’re just finding the icon so we can get to the app and get to work.
 
Now when I look at the old Affinity app icons, something else I notice is how the small details don’t show through very well at normal size. While they may look great on a website promo, in the dock/Finder/Spotlight the details are obscured. Designer’s pentips and Photo’s camera lens are just sort of blobs of colour in the middle of a coloured triangle.
 
--
 
It’s easy to see the old and new icons isolated on a page and then get caught up in examining the details – the old icons have more depth, they’ve got better descriptive elements, the new icons are flatter and more abstract. But it’s really important to consider how the icons will be used before making snap judgements on which is better.
  This is why I think the new icons are more successful. By stripping out the details and focusing on simple shapes and bright colours, Affinity’s icons will stand out from all the other icons they’re surrounded by and catch my eye much quicker than before.

Hi @Rhys Stenhouse, 
Thanks for your report. 
I've been able to replicate both the font size bug and the font selection/weight issues.
Both Issues logged to be looked at.

Hi Rhys Stenhouse,
Thanks for your suggestion.
We are aware of this limitation. Both the text objects and the overall snapping system will be improved soon with new options/features.

Hello All
 
This is a great thread and I'm adding my opinion here to keep the debate going and help keep it above the fold.
 
I've yet to switch over to AD, for purely practical reasons - no Pantone, no artboards. Still, both of those are hopefully not many motorway junctions away on the roadmap, so all good there. However, just below these in my wishlist is the UI.
 
I struggle hugely with the dark theme – I find the contrast levels between backgrounds and type/icons problematic – I'm unable to reach that wonderful point where the interface disappears and I'm simply focused on my work.
 
And, I have some far less defensible aesthetic problems as well - the darkness makes the application feel "closed in" to me, whilst the candy-coloured tool icons just don't say "Pro" to me.
 
What I do know is that I really wish I hadn't seen Andreas Larsen's great work in Posts #25 and #30 in this thread - those mockups are exactly the UI option I'm looking for.
 
So, I'm disappointed to hear TonyB downplay this issue in post #47, but a little heartened that MEB isn't quite as negative in post #48. And, of course, I'm just pleased that Affinity staff engage so well on this forum.
 
My concern is that, as the Photo beta picks up pace, issues like this one are going to sink further down the list. I hope Serif recognise the opportunity they have here to make a huge step-up in market share, and can find the resources to develop 2 apps at the same time (with a third coming).
 
I'm old enough to remember the giddy excitement of the moment when InDesign 2.0 released me from Quark. It's clear that Adobe, and the design market as a whole NEEDS the competitive push Serif/Affinity is bringing.
 
Thus, I've bought my AD licence, will buy my Affinity Photo licence the day it comes out, and the Affinity Publisher one after that. But if it's a matter of cash, then get a Kickstarter launched - I'm up for an extra £50 if I can get a light, flat UI.
 
Perhaps you could call it the OAP Persona?
 
Cheers, Christian

Snapshots aren’t something I’ve come across before but I’ll be looking out for them as a feature from now on, seems very useful! I can see myself using it to mark major revisions to a document, a little bit like code project version numbering.
 
I’d definitely like this to be implemented across all the Affinity apps, not just Photo.

Snapshots aren’t something I’ve come across before but I’ll be looking out for them as a feature from now on, seems very useful! I can see myself using it to mark major revisions to a document, a little bit like code project version numbering.
 
I’d definitely like this to be implemented across all the Affinity apps, not just Photo.

You use it in the same way you use history. It's a way to save the state and work on multiple threads so to speak. 
 
As it is now, I still have to save multiple versions of my work, and have them open in multiple tabs. It's not very efficient, and takes away extra RAM. I can very easily use up 32GB of RAM working on a single work, even 64GB, and when I'm on a laptop I can't afford any RAM for multiple versions being open so the creative process becomes much longer. Snapshots take away RAM, but much less than multiple files.

The feature is in Affinity Photo, so there is no reason it shouldn't be in Designer. If you are working only in vector shapes there is less of an expense on time without it, but it is still very useful. It would make up for a lack of global color swatches. I would rather have snapshots than global swatches.

I know adobe illustrator doesn't have snapshots or history, but that's why it is an annoying program to use and I always start work in raster before vectorizing. Affinity Designer allows to blend the workflows, so it is much more important. I just love the history function, and I also LOOOOOOVE the fact the history states are auto saved and your file opens back up like nothing happened after a crash. In Photoshop you can run out of RAM and lose all the "threads" you had saved and it really wastes a lot of time. 
 
 

Hello Rhys Stenhouse,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Thanks for your comments and suggestions.
 
Currently it is not possible to snap to intersections or paths themselves as you discovered. This wasn't implemented yet.
Grids, guides and snapping all are being worked/improved while we speak. Some may take a little to appear in the program but they are all planned. Check out our roadmap for a better idea of what's coming.