Affinity designer V2 new feature high-lights

The recent released Affinity designer V2 provides professionals a new chapter in graphic handling. Among other updated features, here are the five high-lights I am exciting about:

shape builder tool

If you enjoy logo building, this tool would be your new best friend. It makes logo building more direct, instead of doing lots of calculation in boolean operations.

Three actions are offered within this tool, you can create new shape by selecting areas, delete selected areas from the shape, or you can combine shapes to create a new one.

deform tool

The deform tool is available in designer persona, and is located at the button of the layer panel. It is a superior tool for logo building.

It does not just adjust the shape of the selected object in general, it also provides controls for object manipulating. This tool provides options for mash, quad, False perspective, Vertical arc, Horizontal arc, Vertical bend, Horizontal bend, Fish eye and Twist. However, I feel you can do much more with each option provided.

object type on layer panel /(Layer panel)

With the ability to oversee the object type on every layer, this update will helps getting the layer a more important role in your project. It also help the relationship between object type and effects more clear if you are like me who always wonder what's going between them.

guides /(View/guides)

It is different from quick grid, which you can immediately create grid box next to each other. Guides provides a more elegant way to define guides on pages.

On the new guides panel, you are not just allowed to add defined horizontal and vertical guides individually. More excitingly, you have a better view on the column setting with the new column guides. It comes with the styles of filled or outline, which makes the guides more integrated on to the page and it provides a more first hand visual guide for screen or print layout.

style picker tool

The style picker tool provides a convenient way to apply styles onto other object.

You just need to click on the object which has the sample styles you want, then click on the new objects to paste the sample styles onto them. If you want to pick a new sample, click on the upload button first to unload your current sample.

The style picker tool does not just work on graphic style, it also works on type styles. Styles for you to pick up include stroke, fill, layer opacity, layer effects, character setting, paragraph setting and object setting.