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.

[tamirazdesigns]

ETA:  Not only are the Green dotted safe lines now Very faint - but lately can no longer see the Blue line for the finished area, or the Red line for bleed area, as they're both gone while in old design tool (and from new design layout customers see now).  But they still show in help menu information via old design tool layout.

Regarding the New Font Layout via old Design Tool, I wouldn't mind it so much as it seems light and airy but it takes up too much space (so have to exit out each time to get it out of the way after trying different fonts for a design to see how each font selection looks).  But worse than that for me is the font options menu scrolling across horizontally along the top that is such a nuisance!   And do not want Popular Fonts showing at all on there!  What is the need for that there?  They're not my popular fonts.  I have my longtime favorite fonts listed.  But the Recently Used fonts is nice to have.

I just now looked at a few other designers items to see the new layout of what customers will see also.  I mostly still prefer the old design tool, vs. the few they had in testings past few months, and over the new layout that they settled on.  I only had liked the one test where you could still click on the "design tool link" via the pages to edit and personalize further.  Will have to look at this finalized new layout more now.

And what about all of our items with so many Template Layers and Information we had typed in for the Labels to help direct customers, per the template fields, are they all gone too now?  I have a lot of items where I gave instructions via the template layer fields.  I know a lot of other designers also brought this concern up past few months during the new layout testings.  

Also, since there's been so many changes happening here lately I've been getting alot of lagging only happening via the Zazzle site.  Hopefully that clears up soon too.  It's not a problem on my end.

[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. 

[kashmier]

I have turned everything off and on trying to find the original safe area and it only works with a blank page.  All these years I thought that I had to have relevant stuff inside the green dotted area and now who knows it does not seem so important. At least until things keep getting returned.

[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.

[Fiorenzo]

Fully agree. Has to go away there, too; the shadow greys out and distorts the colors at the edges, and this may confuse customers and less skilled designers who don't know about this addon and think it will be printed that way. The workspace MUST be clean AND pure white, or light designs will look dirty.

@Heather Please forward this issue, thanks.

[Anne]

Agree. Plus the design tool is so slow, it is almost completely frozen. (Entire site sluggish by the way). What I also find a problem is that the design tool shows something different than the product preview as the customer gets to see it. Apparently the bleeding area in the design tool deviates too much from what will actually be printed. It is absolutely necessary to have an exact match to what the design tool says and what the end result for the customer will be. WYSIWYG.

[Fiorenzo]

Yes, the tool has become laggy; you notice it even on faster pcs. Way too much unnecessary fancy stuff added that makes things get slower and less responsive. A big problem is moving images, often the tool picks up a different one that you have already marked, and it's not the overlapping layer problem that causes it but some functionality that had been added.

The bleed areas may vary from product to product, this is usually a technical matter. I agree, though, that the area is sometimes a tad too large. The bleed area itself is not the issue, this worked well before with the red, blue, and green lines. Now, with the new finer markings in grey except the green safe space delimiters, make it more difficult to decipher. The design workspace must not be wysiwyg, it must be functional, but yes, you need to have a clear delimiter of what gets printed, and that was more than clear before.

[James · Accepted solution]

You will be glad to hear that the shadows discussed here have since been removed. 

[Fiorenzo]

Thank you, James! Checked both, new customer form/designer and regular tool, and it looks perfect on both ends. The guidelines are now also easier to identify and look nice. I personally would keep that look, clean and functional. Have a beautiful weekend!

[kashmier]

I can no longer see the green lines marking a safe area. It used to show through images because it is pertinent to adding text on a design. I have found that I am adding up to the bleed area which is cutting off a lot of the text which is important to be printed.