My daisies keep forgetting what color they are.....

[Antony parks]

Mac OS Big Sur,

iMac Retina 5K, 27" 2017, 16 gb memory

Affinity Designer 1.10.1

 

Hi Guys and Gals, it's me again,

This is what I am trying to do:

The art board top left is a tile for a repeat pattern demoed on the artboard on the right.

The daisies are very simple, two raggedy vector shapes, white(ish) or pink(ish), each daisy is then a group. The colours are global colours so that I can generate differnt colours ways quickly.

Daisies that overlap the edge of the tile are copied and move to opposite sides ( precisely 2000 pixels). The pairs are grouped and then converted to symbols.  The pink daisy in the corner is the corner is obviously copied to the four corners.

My problem is that when when I return to do my colour edit to produce a new colour way the daisies forget that they are a global colour and revert to being an ordinary colour.......so I have to edit all the daisies on the tile back to being a global but of course this does not effect the colours in the repeat pattern.....so I have to get one tile right and then remake the repeat artboard.

Here's the a slighty altered version of the tile in affinity file format:

 

daisies_to_affinity.afdesign

 

Can someone please have a look and tell me if I am doing something stupid or if there is a real hiccup in the software.

Still loving it and getting there slowly!

Yours ever

Antony Parks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Old Bruce]

Once you make a symbol you have to reassign the Global colour to those parts of the symbol you want to have a global colour. (May be a bug, I can't remember)

If you go through and select one of the objects (choose a flower's centre) then go to Select > Select same > Fill colour you will see that you have a basic colour not a global colour. I think what has happened is you have overridden or replaced the Global Colour with a colour. So Select Same fill colour and reassign the global colours.

Not sure why you have symbols made (which are grouped) for the corner and side bits instead of symbols for the individual flowers. Once you make a symbol you have to reassign the Global colour. You should be able to make a Daisy and turn it into a Symbol (again, name them) then when you make the edge and corners you can just group them if you want to, no need to make them (00a pair of flowers) into a symbol

Tip: Name the flower parts (Centre and Petals) Name the Global Colours as well, Centre/Petals 1 , 2, 3 etc.

[Antony parks]

Good evening Old Bruce,

Thanks a lot for looking at that. I understand a little bit better now. Yes, I have just spent a long concentrated session checking all the edits and have now got a file that works.

Making symbols for the corners and the side means that I can move one corner object (or one side object) and the other corners (other sides) follow exactly. (But I suspect you are probably right, I have too many levels of of symbols, will try working on this, and refine my use of symbols.)  I am using the symbols so that I can work on moving things around in the second artboard (that shows how the repeat works) and reduce the impression that it is a pattern.....a little anyway.

Now I can work on the colour ways and the reapeat problems.....

 

 

Thanks again for your time and patience,

Yours ever

Antony Parks

 

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Antony parks said:

Making symbols for the corners and the side means that I can move one corner object (or one side object) and the other corners (other sides) follow exactly. 

I am still not convinced that you need them to be symbols, simple groups should do the job.

[LionelD]

Hi, this video

 may be a little old, but I found it very informative, and it addresses the topic of global colors thoroughly.

 

Hope that helps.
 

Regards

[LionelD]

By the way, using both Symbols and Global colors together is redundant - you need one or the other, because  the key feature of Symbols is that all instances of a particular Symbol will have common properties; it’s a little more complicated than that.

If you use Symbols, 

1. Make the curves/shapes you need for a daisy, and use them to define a Symbol.  Make the required copies of your Symbol, and position them as required.  By default, all of the instances of this Symbol will have the same colors which you can control from the Color and Swatch panels.  You don’t need global colors to get this behaviour, it’s a default property of a Symbol.

2. If you need daisies in multiple, different colors, you will need to define a Symbol for each set of colors.

3. As far as I know, there is no way for Symbols to share selected properties across Symbol definitions, so if you want all your daisies to have exactly the same shape, you need to create a master copy of the curves, and use a copy of that master shape for each set of colors you need.  In this case you would have a) your master curves/shapes, and b) for each combination of daisy colors, you need to copy your master shape, and define a distinct Symbol for that set of colors.

4. Just be aware that Instances of the same Symbol may be Synchronised, or Detached (terminology according to Mac version).  I can’t advise how to use these features, but it looks complicated.  If you define a Symbol, and then make copies of it, they will/should be Synchronised by default.  In my use of Symbols, by default each instance of a Symbol can have it’s own dimensions and position, and that’s all I need.  I find that you can freely copy, reposition and re-size different instances of a Symbol; all instances of the same Symbol will have the same shape and colors.

Regards

Lionel

[Antony parks]

Good Morning,

Thanks for the replies. I will do some more trial runs, and reading and viewing, and see if I can get my head round all the possible combinations......

I'll post again when I feel I have clear idea about what I am doing and what works.

Thanks for the help; it is so good to have quick and well articulated responses when you make a post.

Yours

Antony

 

[SPaceBar]

Hi @Antony parks I can see that a lot of good advice has been given already so I won't repeat it. I've created a number of floral repeat patterns and did so by creating 3 or 4 different coloured flowers and adding them to Assets. I create them on a tiny little work artboard at the side of my main one, and add them as Assets as I go. Then when I need to break up the uniformity I add a different one and change the size / flip it / rotate it etc. 

I'm not sure that Symbols are really what you need here. It feels like it is complicating things more than it needs to.

I found Liz Kohler-Brown really simplified repeat patterns for me and she has quite a few Affinity Designer tutorials on the subject.

https://lizkohlerbrown.com/ipad-surface-design-in-affinity-designer-vectors-textures-artboards-and-repeat-patterns/ - Can also be used on desktop.

[Antony parks]

Good evening SPaceBar,

Thanks very much for the heads up. Learnt so much from L K B.

Interesting that her first art board is all a symbol from the very begining.

Here's a new version of the daisies:

 

 

Here's a screen shot of my layers a panel with artboards partially open:

 

Finally I seem to have stumbled on the very nearly the same file structure, my first artboard is virtually one large symbol

I also enclose the Affinity file.

I am using symbols and global colours, and at the moment think it is the right way to go (I am going to try some more simple patterns and see where I get to....) as I would have to edit every single daisy symbol to make a new colour way.

Every thing is working correctly in this file except for the items at corners and the edges.....I can't move them. LKB is to be able to move the paired symbols that overlap the edges of her artboard one. There is probably a mistake in the way I made up my groups ( as I said above, I need to do more work to get things clear in my head).

I have also not copied the background rectangle from artboard one to art board two (eight times) since it is a plain colour but also because this eliminates the possible join lines showing up when the finnished work is rasterized. This is probably redundant as I am now working in pixels and not cm or mm and so should not have the problems with pixel decimal places.

First aside:

Interesting book for those interested in patterns:    How to make Repeat Patterns, a guide for designers, architects and artists.  by Paul Jackson.

Second aside:

Haven't managed to watch the video recommended by Lionel D.

On 9/2/2021 at 10:53 PM, LionelD said:

Hi, this video

 may be a little old, but I found it very informative, and it addresses the topic of global colors thoroughly.

 

 

Unfortunately this video seems to be completely out of sync

Thanks again to you all for your interest and help.

Yours

Antony

 

 

daisies_3d.afdesign

[LionelD]

@Antony parks  Good to see you’re making progress.  I encourage you to persevere with that video because it’s very informative.  Elaine Giles has her own YouTube channel, so you should be able to track the video down that way.  I verified I was able to view it just before I recommended it to you, so it should be in good order.

I know I indicated that using Global Colors with Symbols is redundant, but I will acknowledge there is one advantage doing that:

• Firstly, changes to a Global Color are applied across a design very fast - at least, in my limited experience.  These changes will be applied to every element you tagged with the Global Color, including elements that are not part of a Symbol.
• Second, changing the color of an element in a Symbol will affect only instances of that Symbol.  If a colour is used in another context in a design, those instances of the colour will not be affected by the change to a Symbol.

My point is that the decision to use Global Colours should be much more nuanced that my original reply suggests.

Regards

[Antony parks]

Good evening Lionel,

I'll try again now....it might something to do with being in france....tried you tube channel as well.

Antony

 

[SPaceBar]

Hi @Antony parks I'm glad the LKB link was useful. I haven't used her blog much as I took part in her tutorials on Skillshare but as it's a paid subscription it's not one I can really share. I didn't realise that the first one on the blog was all about symbols as I've only covered her lessons using Assets so far. I'm glad it was useful.

Thanks for the document, I'll give it a poke.

[Antony parks]

Hi everyone, and SPaceBar !

I watched LKB on Skillshare on my free month's trial. And I am not going to be a subscriber.......

Was very glad to hear about the adobe colour wheel:

https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel

Interesting to look at Vector Q available in the Ap store. Making vector from photos. Again used by LKB

Also found:

Interesting You Tube content on making patterns and outputting for sale on Print on Demand sites; this guy has got a very elegant work flow. Like it.

ArtistWright

 

 

Next problem: cracking hexagaonal repeats......anyone on it?

Have a good evening,

Antony

 

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by Antony parks
forgot to say something