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@deedsNails it.
In an effort to refresh both design and software skills (dormant since art school over a decade ago), I purchased the suite. I've been fiddling, running through tutorials on Skillshare, seeing what still works in my artistic brain. Sadly, AD is technologically incapable of allowing users to complete a frustrating majority of elementary design projects. I think this is generally where @deedsfinds the pillar of his argument that AD is much more for illustration than design. There's too much that it cannot do that anyone who expects to work seriously will need it to do.
AD is a 20th century solution to 21st century design problems. Until it grows up, the only aspect of all-things Adobe where an argument can be made for it is through the pricing model, which seems wonderful, until tripping over the inability to execute a specific, relatively fundamental design technique leads to the asphyxiation and stymieing of the creative mind.
The "roadmap" that a prospective buyer might peruse before deciding to make a purchase is a well-manicured cul-de-sac.
 

I'm afraid these are all indicative of the exact opposite of your desires. 
The "rush" on arrowheads was over multiple years. Yet it feels tacky, wacky and hacky. And is just that. So are dashes. And these are the most simplistic of line endings and line features. To me, these are yet another indication that the product design constraints and compromises favoured illustration, not design. As a result, it's years between requests for primitive design features and their implementation, for things (like blends) that are integral to iterative, creative and exploratory digital design, but of almost no use to illustrators.
The features you're talking about in Adobe Blends, that are useful for iterative and explorative design, came about as a byproduct of the desire to provide complex gradient creation and editing - via blends - something blend shapes are only tangentially suitable for. It was Adobe's way of saving time by repurposing focus on heavy blends gradients rather than creating a good set of gradient tools. I remember when this was first brokered to the world of designers. Adobe already owned the design media, so got them to parrot their beliefs, despite how clunky it was/is.
 
So I completely agree, looking at Adobe blends for inspiration should only be done from the perspective of their integration... for blend mechanics of operation, other means and methods are far superior. And there are big issues to solve, like unwinding direction and origin, interpolation when vertex counts are different, rate of change curves, etc. But to do that kind of discernment requires a designers eye and experience, just as knowing integration well requires utilising it, and learning to lean on that integration for creative empowerment, deadline targeting, deliverables and differentiation. I don't think anyone at Affinity does this kind of product feature testing and consideration, let alone being capable of separation wheat from chaff.
When Adobe Illustrator is viewed through the prism of vector based illustrative endeavour, an improved version looks like Affinity Designer. 
When Adobe Illustrator is viewed through the tunnel of programmer art creation requirements and thinking, you get Sketch, from Bohemian Coding.
When viewing Adobe Illustrator through the prism of creative design requirements, it looks abhorrent. Because it is. Freehand, Xara and CorelDraw were better for general design, Fireworks was in a class of its own for UI design, and Flash was an innovative set of odd ideas that sort of worked.
We are now at an odd spot. 3D design programs have superior 2D design features than those apps pretending to appeal to 2D designers, yet those 3D design apps have the 2D features as a byproduct of providing ways to prep for 3D.
 
Affinity Designer has somewhat gotten the effects right, but the rendering is bad, particularly in things like gradients and glows, shadows and blendings between them. And the lack of ability to reorder and add extras is beginning to look as it is: antiquated. Then there's the two different ways of interacting with them, neither of which is good. A fair indication that the features were checkpoints rather than considered and internally desired.
 
Affinity Designer vector node editing remains its strongest point (please excuse the pun), as a byproduct of the fascination with illustration, not as an end and goal in and of itself. This is borne out by the fact that the points aren't anything like capable of the elastic adjustment possible in CorelDraw or soft selection in 3D apps both of which date back to the early days of digital creation wherein vertices are considered parts of meshes that make up shapes.
I'm using less than 10% of Affinity Designer because I don't have a Wacom device, is how I view this. For anything complex in design, I turn to a PC and Corel and 3ds Max.

Good morning everybody,
I am finding another thing that seems to be missing from Designer which I use an awful lot in CorelDRAW and which is kind worrying to me unless maybe I'm missing something. In Corel I have a blend tool. I believe Illustrator has the same thing though I don't use Illustrator. It allows me to create two objects and blend them together. This is particularly useful for creating interesting drop shadows and so on. Is there really no way to do this in Designer? I'm attaching a screenshot to show you what I mean. Corel allows me to choose which aspects of each object interact with one another.
Hopefully there is some way of doing this or it will be added as it seems like a very important tool to me.
Thanks very much and let me know!
Phil

True, but it misses a Center! That cripples it, because how do you rotate/scale about an arbitrary center now?
Illustrator can do this!
Posted this here already. Sorry, bit OT.
 
+1 for Free Transform!!

Don't get me wrong. I understand that Affinity has done some amazing work in just a few years. Adobe has been at it for nearly 30 years. The point I guess I'm making is, if Affinity were to ask my opinion (as a user of Adobe software since 1991 and working artist since 1987), is that they should take the input of professionals seriously.
  A survey of pros would be great. That way, they could prioritize new features and maybe put a nail in Adobe's coffin sooner, rather than later. Not only that. The sooner they add the most coveted features, the sooner pros like me will switch over 100%. AND, I would not mind paying for updates occasionally for a good product. I just HATE paying a subscription to Adobe, or anybody.
 Then again, their goal may be to pick up the casual user with the iPad app version, and not to win over professional desktop users. I don't know, since I'm not in the meetings.

To be fair, I bought both applications as soon as they dropped and have used them extensively and look forward to publisher too. The improvement over two years is startling considering they have not required a paid update yet!
If you absolutely needed those features, you could have been a CC user, but then you will have spent £1408 to have said features... Not the £100 two years ago...

 
But it would be nice to see it added

I guess, this is the way Serif set their business priorities. We can cry and pray, but things are not going to change unless Serif change plans. They try to make money and if a version for iPad will earn them more money in less time, iPad app wins in the priorities list. We can't really do anything about it. This the way modern business models work.

i really dont understand one thing. there are few things, that are making this software a jewel on the market. On the other hand, long-term long-asked features and bugs, that are making professionals move away from it. Why? Such stupid thing like free transform. or broken expand stroke. years here.  Rotating, scaling group of nodes, its finally here! Hurray.  after years asking.

Still, you better develop in meantime version for ipad.
 
 

I too have loved Designer. I bought it and have begun creating the illustrations for what I hope will be my first book ever. I have been a Photoshop and Illustrator user since the early 1990's. I had so much hope for Designer, but then ran into the same issue of no "Free Transform" option. You can only scale, stretch, skew, and rotate. With no option to make a selection change "perspective", a massive requirement for me is missing!
 Affinity, please get this implemented as soon as possible, since I am willing to go 100% Affinity products of you can get a few much needed features like this added. Thanks.

+1
 

You're absolutely right. This software promises a lot but then has its legs cut off because there are several things missing to make it really a great softawre to the point that many of us have to go back to using Adobe Illustrator if we need to work with the free transform tool.
I think it's really absurd not to listen to what users have been asking for for a long time as they support you and encourage you to improve more and more.
Honestly, I'm not interested in iPad versions (which I bought) or versions for publication (like InDesign).
I have the impression that they waste of effort and creates a lot of software that is not 100% complete. I think they should first complete one and then switch to the other.
So I add myself to the appeal: when will you insert this blessed function?
Or is the alternative back to Illustrator?
Sorry for my bad english

Hi,
I was trying the isometric studio in the latest beta, in an effort to use it as e replacement for a real "Free transform" tool and ... well ... it does not cut it ! It is hard to use and with a result very far from precise enough to replace a real free transform and distort of an object.
So, I'm trying to rise this question again - when do we get a real "Free transform" tool in Designer (both vector and pixel) ? Since basically every other tool on the market including Illustrator and even the now dead Fireworks has it, I guess it is not that hard to implement, for vectors at least.

Hey, Affinity!   Are there any news on this? I'm feature hungry, give me something to be excited for the next version.   It would be great if this could make it to the next version after all those years...   Cheers!

Would LOVE to have the envelope warp and mesh features soon, especially when dealing with text. However, I'm also willing to wait for Affinity to do it well, as I know they will. Everything else they do is done with excellence, and I trust these features will be no different.
Thanks, Affinity! Keep up the great work!

I am new to affinity and have switched over from Inkscape and this is a big problem I thought this would be implemented in the 1.7 version considering it has been 5 years now I mean I thought this was a top priority at this point. 

A nice sentiment, but that isn't how the world works, in any respect, in any field, in any competitive situation, in any arena. If I was less excited about finding a competitor to Adobe, I would have been better about reading the fine print. Somewhere, it would have surely said that this is a pay-to-beta.
At least Avis tried harder. Affinity Designer can only seem to promise to get there eventually, maybe, one day, who knows, but without that pesky subscription fee. 
Great.
I'm using this platform why? I chose to dip my running shows in a bucket of mud right before the big race to save a few bucks? Really? This is the value proposition that I fell for?
Oh, but when you say you're an illustrator killer — or at the very least a legitimate competitor — most prospective customers think you're talking about Illustrator in 2019. If your competing against Illustrator 2002, well nevermind, because Affinity Designer is still too late — Distortion and Warping (among a coterie of tolls Designer can't sniff) have existed there since 2001. 
The only saving grace is now you can not use the various features on an iPad, too.. 
To demonstrate how < moderated > the development of this program is, please refer to the images below. They show what cell phones looked liked in in 2001.
In computer time, Designer was born a dinosaur that had just enough time to look up and see the asteroid. If there was a refund button, I would have already mashed it into the ground.
If anyone wants to dive deeper into this sad exercise of masochism, here's a link to Serif's plans for Affinity Designer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Illustrator
They are assuredly on the roadmap to 2030.

A nice sentiment, but that isn't how the world works, in any respect, in any field, in any competitive situation, in any arena. If I was less excited about finding a competitor to Adobe, I would have been better about reading the fine print. Somewhere, it would have surely said that this is a pay-to-beta.
At least Avis tried harder. Affinity Designer can only seem to promise to get there eventually, maybe, one day, who knows, but without that pesky subscription fee. 
Great.
I'm using this platform why? I chose to dip my running shows in a bucket of mud right before the big race to save a few bucks? Really? This is the value proposition that I fell for?
Oh, but when you say you're an illustrator killer — or at the very least a legitimate competitor — most prospective customers think you're talking about Illustrator in 2019. If your competing against Illustrator 2002, well nevermind, because Affinity Designer is still too late — Distortion and Warping (among a coterie of tolls Designer can't sniff) have existed there since 2001. 
The only saving grace is now you can not use the various features on an iPad, too.. 
To demonstrate how < moderated > the development of this program is, please refer to the images below. They show what cell phones looked liked in in 2001.
In computer time, Designer was born a dinosaur that had just enough time to look up and see the asteroid. If there was a refund button, I would have already mashed it into the ground.
If anyone wants to dive deeper into this sad exercise of masochism, here's a link to Serif's plans for Affinity Designer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Illustrator
They are assuredly on the roadmap to 2030.

@Patrick ConnorMy apologies for the ambiguous word choice. No ad hominem slur was intended. 

The ability to create multiple lines quickly, like Illustrator's Blend Tool would make my life a lot easier.

There you go.
Sorry, maybe it's just me but I don't get all the people "demanding" tools in a first edition that other developers took years to implement.
Yes, it's nice to have but understand that implementing tools well costs a lot time and effort.
You get a lot for the price the software costs and a lot of features are added for free. Some other developers will only "fix" things in a payed update/upgrade.
 
There's so many people "demanding" new features that the problem is what to implement first. Everybody thinks their requested tool has priority...
 
Just be reasonable...
 

Hello !
I am using a lot Affinity softwares since more than a month when i discover it really properly, and i have to admit, both softwares and definitly insane and so ... great and amazing to work with, i dont want to come back on the Adobe package anymore.
But at some point, i was wondering, if some new tools and utilities were about to arrive some day on Affinity Designer (more specificly maybe), like :
A Blend Tool, just like the AI one, maybe more intelligent, accepting width transition etc...
And a Width Modulation Tool, by hand, just like the one for Vectors Lines on CLIP STUDIO PAINT, changing a lot the way you work your designs by hand and give a better natural result etc...
 
Thanks !
 
Juzo

Hello Affinity,   I was wondering if you guys are going to include a Prototyping Software for UX. I have purchased Affinity Designer and I loved it.    I just wanted to know whether you guys are planning to add Prototyping Persona or maybe lunching a Prototyping software for UX since the User Experience industry is booming. Like add transition effects, design overlays, clickable buttons to go from one artwork to another and record the whole process and render it as a video for user testing. I have also did a mini project and attached it in this form so it could give you guys an idea.   Thank you 1521_Boroojinejadshirazi_Hossein_A3.mp4

CorelDraw has THE BEST warp text function around in a vector programs.
AD needs this desperately.... it is awesome!
After all you have it in AP. Even though it converts to a pixel layer.
You could do the same in A.D. by converting it to curves first then allow mesh warping.
Currently the easiest way I get around this is to use coreldraw
Then copy/paste it into AD.
It is pasted as a CorelDraw object, but you can still use it as a vector object.
SCREENSHOT

Is it a bug or intentional? Every time to select a different brush, your storke with gets reset, making it a pain to check the look of individual brushes, as they mess up the object you're trying to apply the brush to.
This just in...
Helmar