A substantial Affinity update was released on 15 September 2026, adding more than 60 features and improvements across vector design, photo editing and page layout.
There is a great deal in the Affinity update for professional designers and photographers, but five additions particularly stand out for anyone creating SVGs, printable projects, papercraft templates or digital cutting files.
Here is what they do—and why they matter to crafters.
1. Affinity update biggest news: The new Blend Tool
The Affinity update introduces several new tools (if you can’t find them try customising your Tools panel). The Blend Tool creates a series of intermediate objects between two shapes. Instead of manually duplicating, resizing and positioning every element, Affinity builds the transition for you.
The result remains live and editable, so you can change the original shapes, spacing or path without needing to reconstruct the entire design.
For crafters, this could be particularly useful for creating:
- Elements that gradually change shape, size or colour
- Repeated motifs following a curved path
- Wreaths and decorative borders
- Repeating flowers, leaves or stars
- Graduated patterns
- Decorative frames
Affinity says objects can be distributed using true distance along a curve, helping them remain evenly spaced around bends. Bias and easing controls let you decide where the objects gather or spread out.
There is also two-path control, allowing a blend to expand and reshape between separate paths.
What does this mean for crafters:
Natalie Ballard
This means we can create complex designs with just a few shapes, allowing Affinity to fill the gaps for you. For example, you can quickly create foliage by having two different leaf shapes and Affinity will bridge the gap between the two. You can then expand and move the shapes to suit your design to keep a natural look.
The cutter-friendly caution
An attractive blend can quickly create a very large number of shapes and cutting points. Before exporting an SVG, check whether every generated object genuinely needs to be cut. Overlapping shapes, for instance, could be duplicated and welded to create a solid cut line, while allowing the original detail to be printed prior to the material being cut.
Keep an editable Affinity master file, then create a simplified export copy for the cutting machine. Test that copy in CanvasWorkspace, Cricut Design Space or Silhouette Studio before committing expensive material.
2. G2 curves and the Curvature Comb
A path can technically be smooth and still look slightly lumpy once cut.
This often happens where two curve segments meet with matching directions but different amounts of curvature. Those small irregularities become much more noticeable when a cutting machine follows the path.
Affinity’s new G2 curve tools provide a more precise way to join and refine curves. The Curvature Comb introduced in this Affinity update displays how the curve changes along a path, making unexpected bumps and flat areas easier to identify.
With this Affinity update, Curvature-aware snapping, which is a new option, can also help two separate sections flow together more naturally.
This could be valuable when creating:
- Smooth flower petals and leaves
- Script-style lettering
- Decorative flourishes
- Rounded tabs and closures
- Continuous outlines
- Designs intended for engraving or drawing
- Materials that need clean, predictable cutting paths such as fabric or tissue.
The goal is not to add more nodes. In fact, the best solution will often be a cleaner curve made from fewer, better-positioned nodes.
Why this matters for crafters:
Natalie Ballard
For cutter users, this may become one of the most useful additions in the entire Affinity update. Smooth cutting lines not only give a better finished result, but can also help you when removing material from the mat; especially if you are working with woven or delicate media.
3. Live Boolean operations
For those more familiar with cutter software, Boolean operations are more often known as Calculations, Geometry, Process Overlap or Pathfinder. Boolean operations are the commands used to add, subtract, intersect or divide shapes.
Traditionally, combining shapes would permanently replace the originals. That is fine when a design is finished, but inconvenient when you later want to alter a circle, reposition a cut-out or change the dimensions of a construction. Affinity Designer originally introduced live Boolean groups as a way of keeping the calculation live and editable.
Now, with this Affinity update, Boolean operations can remain live and editable. This allows the original component shapes to be adjusted while Affinity continually rebuilds the combined result.
For example, you could create:
- A tag with an adjustable hanging hole
- A card panel with repositionable apertures
- A box template with editable tabs and dimensions
- A decorative frame with changeable cut-outs
- A layered design that can be resized without rebuilding every component
This supports a much more flexible way of designing. Instead of making one finished file, you can build a reusable construction system.
Why this matters for crafters:
Natalie Ballard
This Affinity update now means you aren’t limited to having fixed proportions and active prototyping of gift boxes and other 3D projects becomes so much easier. No more editing nodes just to change dimensions. Each change you would make gets carried out in the live Affinity document, while your exported cut file fixes the current settings to keep your cutter happy.
Before exporting
Cutting software needs clear final geometry. Preserve the live version in your Affinity working file, but test whether the exported SVG is interpreted correctly by your chosen cutter software. By setting the Convert Transforms to Curves option in the SVG Export window, these should be done at the time of export.
If necessary, make a duplicate and convert the live construction into final curves before export. Never sacrifice your editable master merely to create the cutting copy.
4. In-app scripting
Affinity now includes an editor and Scripts Panel for writing and running reusable scripts across vector, pixel and layout work.
Scripts can also contain their own dialogs, potentially turning a repeated process into a small custom tool inside Affinity.
Affinity demonstrates scripting being used for jobs such as generating dimensioned drawings, building specification tables, processing images and preparing documents for print.
For crafting workflows, scripting could eventually help with repetitive tasks such as:
- Creating consistently named export files
- Producing several file formats from one master design – useful for print & cut and professional print projects
- Applying standard page or document settings
- Generating dimensioned template diagrams
- Preparing groups of illustrations for books
- Checking and organising layers before export
- Building repeatable printable-download workflows
For beginners, Affinity also offers an AI connector that can help turn a natural-language description into a script. That does not remove the need for testing: a script can repeat a mistake just as efficiently as it repeats a correct process. However, it makes the scripting process much more user friendly, and you can tailor a custom script to your needs with little scripting experience.
Scripts used for critical files should always be tested on duplicate files first.
Why does this matter to crafters:
Natalie Ballard
For most everyday crafters, scripting is a feature to watch rather than something they need to learn immediately. For designers, teachers and small creative businesses, however, it could become a considerable time-saver – completing repetitive tasks automatically and even enabling new products such as calendars and diaries.
5. Custom Preflight rules
Preflight checks a document for potential problems before it is published or exported.
Affinity now allows custom Preflight rules, helping users check documents against their own production or house-style requirements.
This is especially relevant to anyone creating:
- Printable downloads
- Project instructions
- Craft books
- Workshop handouts
- Multi-page planners
- Commercial design collections
A consistent preflight system could help identify problems such as missing resources, incorrect document settings or elements that do not meet an established production standard.
The precise checks available will need testing before we can determine how far this can be adapted for cutter-ready files. However, it has real potential for making tutorials and downloads more consistent—and reducing the chance of discovering an error after publication.
A useful bonus: improved masking
The new Mask Tool brings several masking tasks into one place, including gradients, textured edges and assisted subject or sky selection.
This is more relevant to Print Then Cut, sublimation and printable projects than to conventional cut-only SVGs. It may make it quicker to isolate a photographed object, remove an unwanted background or combine imagery before creating a printable design.
AI & Affinity
Some AI-assisted features (such as assisted subject) require access to Canva’s premium AI tools, while Affinity says its core vector, layout and photo tools remain free. It is worth remembering, while Affinity has AI built-in it doesn’t mean you have to use it if you don’t want to. You can turn off the Canva AI persona in the top bar and create your own Persona that suits how you use Affinity.
What this means for Affinity for Crafters
These additions do not make the existing design principles obsolete. Nodes, curves, layers, shapes, geometry and careful export preparation still matter.
What they change is how efficiently we can apply those principles.
The forthcoming Affinity for Crafters book will account for the September update, with particular attention paid to:
- Using Blend without producing unnecessarily complicated cut files
- Improving cutter paths with G2 curve tools
- Keeping Boolean constructions editable
- Preparing a safe final copy for SVG export
- Using automation without losing control of the design
The most important lesson remains the same: a tool is useful only when it helps produce a reliable finished project.
Should you use these features immediately?
Experiment with Blend, G2 curves and live Booleans now—but use duplicate documents while learning.
Scripting and custom Preflight rules are useful for Improvers and above. If you’ve never touched Affinity before, ignore them entirely for now.
The update gives Affinity users considerably more power. For digital crafters, the real opportunity is not simply to create more complicated artwork. It is to produce cleaner, more adaptable designs with less repetitive work.
That is where these new tools could make the greatest difference.
Affinity announced the September 2026 update on 15 September. You can read the official update overview, its vector-feature explanation and the scripting announcement on the Affinity website.
Natalie has written several titles on digital crafting, paper craft and crafting machines. She is an expert user of Affinity and has been part of the Affinity design development since the first Affinity Designer Beta release. She is not employed by Serif or Canva, and loves to give her independent views on Affinity and other design software.