Designer workspace must be pristine, please remove all these new disturbing shadows and the like

[Fiorenzo]

The workspace in the designer tool must be pristine and pure white to work properly, as in any graphic and image editing software. Please remove all these newly added shadows and whatever semitransparent overlays that distort the design's colors; these have no place in a professional working area, which is NOT a product preview where you want to simulate depth and structure. As a side note, the new minimalist bleed, print, and safe delimiter lines are of no help, either. And, please, don't let your designers suffer with the intermediate solution seen in the new forms, with vital tools hidden under tons of buttons, especially on desktops with large screens. The designer is (was?) a pretty professional working tool, don't ruin it for the sake of fanciness. Thank you.

[tamirazdesigns]

Agree with everything you've said!  I can barely see the Guidelines anymore, why are they so faint now?  And it's harder to scroll through the new font layout to easily choose a font, etc., and still do not like this new font layout.  I much prefer the old design tool as an artist, before all these changes last few month's.  So hard to design and see things now via design tool. 

[Fiorenzo]

The guidelines are, indeed, almost indistinguishable now on any design content that isn't white or pastel. Agree on the fonts list. While I like the new layout per se, most of the time, the popup window covers the text you want to format, which is highly annoying. They should make the popup movable, problem solved. And yes, make things smaller and fill the space well with content on desktops with large screens. This stupid habit nowadays of taking phones as a reference and then simply enlarging all the content on large screens makes me angry. On desktops, I want as much content as possible visible at once, not a claustrophobic mobile phone environment in XXL size with texts in a font size your granny can decipher across the Mississippi without glasses.

[Jadendreamer13]

I was able to turn off a lot those unhelpful new features yesterday using the Settings option. I agree that the bleed lines are difficult to see now.

[Fiorenzo]

I tried all settings. My biggest concern isn't the guidelines, even if they are really hard to work with as a designer. My concern is the shadows they have added around the product shape; you see them well in my screenshot (I used a light gray shape to make them more visible). Such fancy things have no business in a graphic workspace, where you want a clean canvas to work properly. 

[Fiorenzo]

Note: I just discovered that the shadows go away while you move an object within the designer. The problem is, you don't check your design while moving something around; you check it when things are in place, and then the shadows return. PLUS, this unnecessary functionality causes lags. Just saying.

[SheaPrints]

I agree about the shadow effect in the workspace, and I've also noticed it in the new customer design tool. I realize it's there to make the design stand out, but it also overlaps the edges of the design. Sometimes it looks like an 'aged' effect on the design itself! Clean white/light backgrounds in particular look a bit dirty. It doesn't feature on all products, but I've noticed it on many items like invitations, business cards, and programs. I prefer it when it's shown as a blurred drop shadow behind the product.