Skewed Vertical Text on a Curved Path

[The Beeg]

Text on a curved path is one thing... being able to do skewed vertical text on a curved path is another, as illustrated by the name Hunter on the label of this Coca Cola bottle. Is this a feature your developers could add to the already great features in your stellar app?

[JET_Affinity]

I don't know if everyone is catching your meaning by the photo, since if one looks "straight at" the side of the bottle label, the text baseline would be horizontal.

But yes, being able to skew pathtype so that the vertical axis of the characters remains vertical as the path bends is every bit as important as simply rotating the characters with the path (the ubiquitous text bent around a circle).

I distinctly remember when FreeHand provided this and other drawing programs didn't, and the difficulty in explaining its importance to users of other programs.

Nowadays, many would no doubt argue that the vertical skewing option for pathtype is inferior to and rendered obsolete by envelope-based distortion features with the customary "arch" option (and the corresponding complaint that the vertical skew option for pathtype still keeps horizontal edges of the glyphs straight). But the typical "arch" envelope (as commonly implemented) is not the same thing, and the vertically skewed pathtype is a better starting point for things like the type treatments commonly seen in "retro" sign-painting.

JET

[George-Gele]

There is a need to be able to manipulate the text in photo as you can in designer, this is quite a basic feature (I don't mean easy to do.) In this area Affinity Photo lags way behind Photoshop, so please add it.

[rowettd]

I learned to illustrate and design pages on a Mac more than 20 years ago at a major publisher when I had no choice but to put away the ink, colored markers and drawing board. The tools I was given were Freehand, Photoshop and QuarkXpress. A few colleagues preferred Illustrator; I tried it, but despised having to run back to the toolbox every time I wanted to perform one minor operation. I loved Freehand because it was a tool that was straightforward, powerful, and never got in the way of creativity. I was always in control of Freehand and never the other way around. The same cannot be said of its competition.

I was angry when Adobe bought Freehand for the sole purpose of killing it, lying about bringing all the loved features of Freehand to Illustrator. They never did. Then, insult was added to injury when Adobe switched to their ransomware business model. For many years, I ran two hard drives in my Mac Pros at home and the office, just so I could continue to use Freehand. Shutting down the current OS so I could log into the old OS was cumbersome, but worth it to continue using my unsupported copy of Freehand. When even my trusty Mac Pro became too old to update, I bit the bullet and bought a new MacBook Pro, knowing that I could no longer use my beloved Freehand nor Photoshop CS6. I redoubled my search for graphics software that was user-friendly, but powerful. Happily, I discovered Affinity and have bought Designer and Photo (I know Xpress too well to change now). With the help of the video tutorials and Affinity's excellent intuitiveness, I'm almost as comfortable with this modern software as with my old friends.

However ...

As powerful and feature-rich as Designer is, I am surprised and disappointed that there is not a simple method to distort text-on-a-path. This is a common technique for commercial graphic designers. It's a shortfall that needs to be addressed pronto!

[JET_Affinity]

20 hours ago, rowettd said:

However ...

As powerful and feature-rich as Designer is, I am surprised and disappointed that there is not a simple method to distort text-on-a-path. This is a common technique for commercial graphic designers. It's a shortfall that needs to be addressed pronto!

There are other very vocal threads about warping, enveloping, etc., etc. I'm sure it will be added. But as with many things, the devil is in the details of how it's actually implemented. Conventional-wisdom envelope warping is still not the same thing as the old 'standard' ways of orienting live text on a curve (especially the all-important vertical skew). It's way past time for some well-thought-out innovation in that area, so it's my hope that Affinity intends to pursue that.

I share your pain, though. It's a tedious thing to try to explain many of the elegant things about FreeHand to users who have never used it, let alone having ever been proficient enough with it to truly understand its many understated but powerful advantages. I fear much of the elegance of FreeHand is lost forever. FreeHand's Inspector interface, for example, is far superior to the now ubiquitous "me, too" treatments of tool/option bars that keep shifting around. Those who have never lived with FreeHand's Inspector palette really don't know what they're missing.

JET