Resizing objects leads to buggy behavior? Can anyone explain this?

[Gemini80]

I created the letters with the pen tool. When I did so I made sure to make them all the same size, locked to the grid. The last letter which looks like an 'N' was created by making a wave-like shape (sine wave) and then adjusting it.

All of the letters get their body size from the stroke option and all are set to 90 pixels.

 

My issue is when I resize them (they are all in one group) the 'N' gets weird and does not scale evenly with the others...

 

I have been working with Affinity Design since November so I am no pro 😅 - and I am most likely overlooking something or not taking a setting into account...

 

I would be grateful for any assistance - I need to resize the letters for a project and am kind of stuck until I can scale them evenly and move on to the next steps.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this! 

[laurent32]

Are your strokes build the same way ?

[laurent32]

You could make the 4 letters one form, and then duplicate to have dark and brown ones, and group it all.

Then I think it wouldn't act bad ?

[NotMyFault]

The answer can be found in the last second of the video.

The curve nodes are not on the same horizontal line. The letter n uses a stroke centered and lies higher than the other letters.

[Gemini80]

I appreciate the reply but I am still no further in my attempts - I did make sure all stroke parameters were the same for each letter but no change. In the attached video you can see when I pull the 'N' nodes to meet those of the shape to the left the entire 'N' drops down even further...this behavior is really frustrating and not intuitive. I am happy for all suggestions. Thank you!

[loukash]

5 hours ago, Gemini80 said:

when I resize them (they are all in one group) the 'N' gets weird and does not scale evenly with the others...

Neither do the "oo", for that matter.
For "oon" you should enable Strokes > "Scale with object"

Also, I would have worked with a grid, to make aligning easier. The ideal grid for this kind of work is a hexadecimal one, e.g. 8 px with 8 divisions, so you can always divide by 2. Same for stroke and shape sizes. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 etc. are the ideal basic sizes/values to work with here.

For the shadows, you could then apply partially synced Symbols.

Group everything together and it will scale proportionally.

Something like this:

[Gemini80]

Many thanks for your great efforts! That is really generous, I'm grateful!

I was able to change the grid spacing to 8x8 as suggested and that did makes things easier to understand - but moving things around and resizing is still wonky, perhaps the nodes were not placed properly. I will redo the 'M' and see if it thee top of it locks to the triangle shapes top most point. I have attached another video sowing what I mean - I do not yet understand why the M does not lock to the triangle shapes? 😅 🤦‍♂️

Regarding grid type - I do not see hexadecimal as an option in  my grid type drop down menu.

P.S. in case you know the answer, when selecting 3 layers (which are all the same, copies of one another) I notice that while I can move them as a group, I cannot group edit, for example - the moment I select two layers the stroke panel is no longer accessible - I imagine there is a simple solution to this? 

THANKS AGAIN!

[loukash]

7 hours ago, Gemini80 said:

I do not see hexadecimal as an option

"Hexadecimal" as in: you set up your grid in 2/4/8/16/32 etc. divisions, not decimal

8 hours ago, Gemini80 said:

when selecting 3 layers (which are all the same, copies of one another) I notice that while I can move them as a group, I cannot group edit, for example - the moment I select two layers the stroke panel is no longer accessible - I imagine there is a simple solution to this? 

Node tool

[Old Bruce]

I would do it like this. Using the Square Cap and all the curves having the stroke centred.

 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, loukash said:

"Hexadecimal" as in: you set up your grid in 2/4/8/16/32 etc. divisions, not decimal

I understand what you mean but that isn't hexadecimal notation. It's still using decimal notation.

[loukash]

11 hours ago, R C-R said:

It's still using decimal notation.

Yep, of course. There's no point in using "0123456789ABCDEF", is there?
It's the divisibility by 2 that matters.

[prophet]

15 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Using the Square Cap and all the curves having the stroke centred.

@R C-R's seems to be the simplest solution.

[Gemini80]

On 1/9/2023 at 2:30 AM, loukash said:

Neither do the "oo", for that matter.
For "oon" you should enable Strokes > "Scale with object"

Also, I would have worked with a grid, to make aligning easier. The ideal grid for this kind of work is a hexadecimal one, e.g. 8 px with 8 divisions, so you can always divide by 2. Same for stroke and shape sizes. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 etc. are the ideal basic sizes/values to work with here.

For the shadows, you could then apply partially synced Symbols.

Group everything together and it will scale proportionally.

Something like this:

The first thing I notice when looking at your design is that your nodes all line up *and the top most points of each shape are equal. I attached another video here showing how I make the first two shapes and you can clearly see that the top most point of the triangle (not the node but the body of the shape) is higher. I can height align the shapes, but then the nodes are no longer lined up and if I resize the group of course things get wonky again. I have also attached an image of the stroke settings for all shapes. Either I am just missing some very simple setting or this process is really not intuitive...I am doing my best tho. 😅

[Gemini80]

3 minutes ago, prophet said:

@R C-R's seems to be the simplest solution.

Thanks for your reply - yes, that does work, however, why are the triangle shapes (height wise) higher than the other shapes? That is weird to see - because if I manually height align them then the nodes will no longer be lined up uniformly to all shapes and any resizing done will be off again...super frustrating. Any solution for that? Thanks!

[loukash]

1 minute ago, Gemini80 said:

when looking at your design is that your nodes all line up *and the top most points of each shape are equal.

That was just a quick example. It always depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to align the sharp triangle corners optically, the sharp edges should slightly overlap the rest. As such, @Old Bruce's example is typographically more correct. Proper optical alignment is of course more than just "divisibility by 2"…  

[prophet]

7 minutes ago, Gemini80 said:

why are the triangle shapes (height wise) higher than the other shapes?

That's just the geometry of triangles as it relates to stroke miter, but I wouldn't over think it. As @loukash said…

5 minutes ago, loukash said:

If you want to align the sharp triangle corners optically, the sharp edges should slightly overlap the rest.

 

[Gemini80]

Hmm - typographically more correct - well, I guess perhaps, but from a design perspective these shapes should match height wise and I am getting the feeling that doing this in a simple way, i.e., one that keeps all nodes equally placed on the grid, will not work?

[Gemini80]

2 minutes ago, prophet said:

That's just the geometry of triangles as it relates to stroke miter, but I wouldn't over think it. As @loukash said…

 

Taste is relative, sure, but from a design perspective (and this is a design program) one should, without so much trouble, be able to align shapes heights easily...as said already, I can do this manually, but should I resize the shapes again the relative sizes change and when designing something one is constantly adjusting the sizes of elements until it all looks good. So in this way this is quite a silly and time wasting way to work.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, prophet said:

@R C-R's seems to be the simplest solution.

??? I provided no solution for this, just a clarification about hexadecimal vs. decimal notation. I think you mean the solution provided by @Old Bruce, right?

[loukash]

46 minutes ago, Gemini80 said:

a silly and time wasting way to work

At the risk that it sounds arrogant, but there's a reason why designers have usually attended design schools: At the design school we have primarily learned what to look for to make our designs look good. It's not all just "math" and "click a button", although it also helps.

I mean, I also have all the tools to repair the majority of my electr(on)ic devices myself, including a soldering iron, dozens of special screwdrivers, pliers and stuff. But that doesn't make me an electronics technician yet.  
(Disclosure: My uncle who lived in the same house was an electrotechnician extraordinaire who had built a b/w TV set from the scratch for my grandparents when he was only 20 and still studying around 1970. So I learned a few things from him when I was a kid. Definitely not enough to ever call myself an electronics technician though. Even though I may have managed to fix my MacBook, my DAT recorder or my guitar amp all by myself every now and than. That was luck though, I assume…)

Anyway.  

The tools you need are in there in Affinity. But there is no "Telepathy" tool, so the app usually (bugs notwithstanding) just does what you tell it to do.
The path to master all these tools can be long and steep. It took me literally a couple of years to comprehend the Affinity concept and some of its advanced tools, and there's still new stuff coming up that I didn't know about yet (in spite of being a "fully educated designer", haha…)

[prophet]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think you mean the solution provided by @Old Bruce, right?

Apologies, yes. Old Bruce.

[NotMyFault]

3 hours ago, loukash said:

[...]

The tools you need are in there in Affinity. But there is no "Telepathy" tool, so the app usually (bugs notwithstanding) just does what you tell it to do.
The path to master all these tools can be long and steep. It took me literally a couple of years to comprehend the Affinity concept and some of its advanced tools, and there's still new stuff coming up that I didn't know about yet (in spite of being a "fully educated designer", haha…)

I must immediately file a feature request for telepathy tool 😎

 

[Gemini80]

21 hours ago, loukash said:

At the risk that it sounds arrogant, but there's a reason why designers have usually attended design schools: At the design school we have primarily learned what to look for to make our designs look good. It's not all just "math" and "click a button", although it also helps.

I mean, I also have all the tools to repair the majority of my electr(on)ic devices myself, including a soldering iron, dozens of special screwdrivers, pliers and stuff. But that doesn't make me an electronics technician yet.  
(Disclosure: My uncle who lived in the same house was an electrotechnician extraordinaire who had built a b/w TV set from the scratch for my grandparents when he was only 20 and still studying around 1970. So I learned a few things from him when I was a kid. Definitely not enough to ever call myself an electronics technician though. Even though I may have managed to fix my MacBook, my DAT recorder or my guitar amp all by myself every now and than. That was luck though, I assume…)

Anyway.  

The tools you need are in there in Affinity. But there is no "Telepathy" tool, so the app usually (bugs notwithstanding) just does what you tell it to do.
The path to master all these tools can be long and steep. It took me literally a couple of years to comprehend the Affinity concept and some of its advanced tools, and there's still new stuff coming up that I didn't know about yet (in spite of being a "fully educated designer", haha…)

Thanks for your reply and help - I absolutely understand that the field of Design is a deep and nuanced one and studying the fundamentals is very important. As a musician and audio engineer, however, I do see many parallels between the creative process and the technical process going into the creation of a piece of music - understanding the science behind sound will make your song sound better but it won't make it a better song 😅 - I think design is similar - a good eye and a willingness to take risks is important - most designers I know ALL talk about reduction - so in that way, while I want to know how Affinity Designer works, I would also be happy if some of the technical things were reduced as well, namely, if I place the upper most node of 2 different shapes on the exact same point of a grid, then please don't make one shape higher...Ok...I may take some heat for this...haha

[loukash]

Just now, Gemini80 said:

As a musician and audio engineer, however, I do see many parallels between the creative process and the technical process going into the creation of a piece of music - understanding the science behind sound will make your song sound better but it won't make it a better song 😅

Well, I'm an active musician and audio engineer as well – recently likely even more than being a designer  
So of course, there are many parallels.

The obvious analogy to Affinity here being Logic Pro: Even though I've been using it since it still was Emagic Logic v4 some 20 years ago, I'm still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of possibilities what you can do in Logic. Currently using mostly v10.3.3 on MacOS El Capitan, for compatibility with my "obsolete" but still reliable Firewire audio interfaces. Even after all those years, I still have to look up the Logic PDF manual regularly to make sure that I'm doing the "right thing". And I'm using Logic very often; not necessarily daily, but surely working on some projects at least a few times a month, be it mutitrack recording, editing and mastering of live recordings etc.

16 minutes ago, Gemini80 said:

most designers I know ALL talk about reduction - so in that way, while I want to know how Affinity Designer works, I would also be happy if some of the technical things were reduced as well

And so, on the other hand, if I need just a "quick'n'dirty musical thing", I launch GarageBand which is technically "Logic Light". It's reduced, but this limitation lets me focus on what I need to do, like setting up a temporary rhythm pattern when I need to practice specific bass guitar lines at varying tempi. That's much easier than in Logic. Thus I understand what you may be looking for.

But we don't have an "Affinity Light" app, so at this time there is no way around learning and understanding the principles of building vector shapes in Affinity.

You can of course use a vector design app that is more "basic" than Affinity. E.g. in the Mac App Store, there seems to be a plenty of those, even free ones.

[Old Bruce]

7 hours ago, Gemini80 said:

most designers I know ALL talk about reduction

most chefs I know ALL talk about reduction

All Sillyness aside. One thing you got bit by was the fact that the four "letters" in your design are made from Open or Closed curves. The strokes will behave differently, that is why I suggested using the Square end on the open curves, so the bottom of the first Letter the upside down U would line up with the stroke's width on the Closed Curves Shen the various nodes were aligned. There is a lot of playing about needed. Both in and out of Design Schools.