What's New in Grid Maker Pro

New Features

• A tool page for every job — 100 of them, from grid overlay and cross-stitch to mural scaling, isometric projection and mandala construction. Each opens the same engine on the overlay that fits the work, so you no longer have to know which of the 82 overlays you need before you start
• 16 purpose-built utilities that are not overlays at all: an image splitter, printable graph paper, an art projector, coloring-page, paint-by-number and mandala generators, plus four calculators for proportion, aspect ratio, canvas size and mural scaling
• Every tool page now opens by answering what the grid is before explaining how to use it, followed by a three-step walkthrough and a gallery of worked plates drawn from that tool's own geometry
• A grouped question ledger on each tool page — around sixteen questions apiece, filed under geometry, using it, output, choosing and practical, so questions about paper sizes, exports, controls and licensing are answered alongside the ones about the geometry
• A contents list on every article, which follows you down the page in the margin on wide screens

Improvements

• The empty canvas is ruled like squared paper, so the tool reads as a drawing surface before you load anything. It is a background, not an overlay — nothing is selected, nothing is drawn into your export
• The default line is now black at 60% opacity. Grey read faintly on a white plate, and the empty state was washing it out further
• The dashed drop target is visible at rest instead of only on hover, at 4.9:1 contrast — it was previously the faintest edge on the page
• The canvas sits on a mat, so the grid no longer runs flush into the edge of the plate
• All 13 articles rewritten and photographed — 39 photographs, four to five an article, where most posts previously carried one drawn figure or none
• Hand-drawn hairlines and eyebrow dots removed site-wide, for a quieter page that puts the emphasis back on the figures
• Every route measured at thirteen screen widths from 320px to 2560px, and the twenty that ran off the side of a phone were fixed, along with six components that were cutting off their own text
• Accessibility: the full axe ruleset now reports zero violations across all 503 routes

Bug Fixes

• The public overlay API published page slugs in place of real overlay identifiers on 80 of its 82 entries, so the deep link each entry advertised did not open the overlay it named
• 68 overlay pages listed four generic claims where that overlay's actual controls should have been
• Articles showed a featured image crediting a writer who no longer contributes here, over a reading time that predated the rewrite
• The six article cards on the homepage had drifted from the posts they link to on every field — title, summary, date, category, byline and reading time
• The isometric grid tool page was missing its related-tools section entirely
• Breadcrumbs cut off the current page's own name on 80 routes, at every screen width including the widest
• The graph paper and worksheet pages ran wider than the screen on every phone size

New Features

• JPG export, alongside the existing PNG, PDF, SVG and transparent grid-only PNG
• Print-accurate export sizing: PNG, JPG, the grid-only PNG, copy-to-clipboard and the PDF's embedded image are all sized from the printed page implied by your paper format at the DPI you choose
• 50 classroom-ready lesson plans with objectives, session timings and materials lists

Improvements

• One self-hosted typeface across the whole site and the tool — font payload per page fell from 251–386KB spread over as many as 20 files to 84KB
• Newsletter signup consolidated onto a single component with one working backend, replacing four divergent implementations
• Glossary expanded to 88 entries
• Accessibility: an automated axe sweep now reports zero violations across all 411 routes

Bug Fixes

• The export DPI selector had no effect on PNG output, which was sized from the on-screen canvas instead of the chosen page and resolution
• Before/after comparison tabs on the 82 overlay pages painted the first photo whatever tab you picked
• Two signup forms reported success without sending anything; one posted to a URL that returned 404
• Button labels across 24 routes rendered in a muted grey that failed contrast, and CTAs on 22 routes painted as plain text with no button styling
• Buttons sat flush against neighbouring text and panels on the overlay and lesson-plan pages

New Features

• A 286-page editorial library, including 11 category hubs, 82 overlay leaves, 6 Tier-S tool landings, 12 educational pillars, 19 glossary entries, 4 audience hubs, 14 sub-segments and 8 competitor comparisons
• Flagship pillar at /learn/82-composition-overlays
• Founder + methodology E-E-A-T anchor pages
• Public overlay data API at /api/overlays.json (CC BY 4.0)
• Named workspace presets saved locally in the browser
• Hero tool deep-links: ?overlay= to pre-load overlays, plus a shareable #share state URL
• CSS-only mega-menu in the site header
• Master glossary index page

Improvements

• 5-script audit infrastructure (internal links, schema, similarity, deep links, image alt)
• 85 per-page OG images for social previews
• Analytics + PostHog scaffolding
• Newsletter signup scaffolding (consolidated onto one working backend in v5.1.0)
• Editorial calendar + 6 new blog posts
• 10-video YouTube content kit

Bug Fixes

• Schema validation pass across all 1,153+ JSON-LD blocks (0 errors)
• 21 legacy Gridmaker [Name].html URLs now 301-redirect to clean paths
• Fixed sibling-similarity drift on the sacred-geometry leaves

New Features

• Sacred geometry hub launched with all 20 traditions — Flower of Life, Seed of Life, Metatron's Cube, Vesica Piscis, Sri Yantra, Tree of Life, Merkaba, hexagram, pentagram, Egg of Life, Fruit of Life, Yin-Yang, Enneagram, Islamic 8-point, Islamic 12-point, Borromean Rings, Torus Field, Ain Soph, Celtic Triquetra, Platonic Solids
• Typography hub with 6 overlays incl. 12-column web grid, baseline grid, 8pt spacing
• Design templates hub with comic panel, storyboard, logo construction, icon grid, mobile app layout, poster/editorial, social media safe zones
• Architecture grids with Le Corbusier Modulor calculator + structural grid + tartan grid
• Per-overlay color, opacity, and line-width controls

Improvements

• Overlay stacking — keep multiple overlays active at once, each with its own transform
• Refined transform handles: rotation, scale, skew now snap to common angles
• Improved high-DPI rendering for export

New Features

• Overlay search box on the right-hand panel — type to filter 80+ overlays by name or category
• Front, three-quarter and profile view selector on the Loomis head overlay, with optional side-plane ovals
• Isometric grid with adjustable density for technical illustration and game art
• Dimetric and trimetric projection overlays for industrial drawing

Improvements

• Improved touch gesture support on iPad — pinch to scale, two-finger rotate
• Sharper line antialiasing at high zoom
• Faster first paint on the catalogue pages

New Features

• Share button: copy the current overlay + transform state as a shareable URL
• Recents panel: last 5 uploaded images stored locally for quick recall
• Crop tool for trimming reference images before applying overlays
• Per-overlay opacity slider in the right-hand panel

Bug Fixes

• Fixed transform handles disappearing after rapid overlay switches
• Resolved colour-picker reset when toggling overlays

New Features

• All 8 composition overlays complete — rule of thirds, golden ratio, golden spiral, golden triangle, diagonal method, center cross, rule of fifths, quadrant
• Per-overlay transform finalized: move + rotate + scale + skew with snap-to-axis
• Diagonal method, center cross, and rule of fifths added to the composition hub

Improvements

• Right-hand panel reorganized by category for faster discovery
• Image upload accepts any format your browser can decode — PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF

New Features

• Complete platform rewrite on Next.js with static export for instant loads
• ~40 overlays across 7 categories — composition, artist guides, dynamic symmetry, perspective, specialty, sacred geometry, advanced composition
• Client-side processing remains — images never leave your device
• Real-time preview as you adjust settings
• High-quality PNG export with retina-aware rendering

Improvements

• Noticeably faster load than the WordPress-era build it replaced
• Better browser compatibility (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge — last two majors)
• Fully responsive mobile design with refined touch targets

Breaking Changes

• Removed any remaining server-side processing — now 100% client-side
• Dropped support for IE11 and pre-2022 browser builds

Grid Maker Pro launched in late 2024 with 6 overlays — square, rectangular, custom grid, rule of thirds, golden ratio, and the basic diagonal method. Through 2025 the catalogue grew to ~40 overlays based on user requests, with the dynamic symmetry root rectangles, golden spiral, the first head-construction guides (Loomis), and the early perspective grids landing across the year. Founder narrative is at /about/sujith-puthran/; the long-form methodology is at /methodology/.