Squares of single colour

[roseposy44]

I'd like to do something that feels very simple but I am struggling. I want to draw squares that are a single colour, I am getting halos around them and it all looks very pixelated. I want multiple  squares that is 1.7mm square and precise colours. I have selected no stroke and fill to be solid, the smaller the square the more problems I am having.

[h_d]

Hi @roseposy44 and welcome!

It look as though you're using a brush or pencil tool to fill the squares on the grid. These will tend to have a soft edge and give the shading effect that you're seeing.

Instead, if you enable snapping and turn on Snap to Grid, you can then use the Rectangle tool to draw precise shapes and then fill them with colour. You can also resize the rectangles by dragging the handles, and duplicate them if required. 

This is from Photo, but it should work the same in Designer and Publisher too:

Hope this helps.

[GarryP]

In addition to the advice above, since you are drawing very small shapes of a size which is not a factor of any usual DPI you may be getting the effect because the software is trying to create ‘partial pixels’ to compensate for that.
You don’t say which Affinity application you are using but drawing such shapes in Designer won’t be much of a problem (unless you have one of the Pixel View Modes enabled) until you come to export your work. In Photo you will probably notice this more often as Photo displays the work at the DPI set for the document.
If you want more detailed information you could upload an example document which we could look at to see what you can try to do differently.

[Pšenda]

On 10/7/2020 at 2:19 PM, roseposy44 said:

that is 1.7mm square

If you need square without "halos", you must work exactly with pixels. Whole pixels for position, whole pixel for size. Otherwise, you will always receive a color gradient at the edges.