Affinity Designer is a vector or raster app. It’s a competitor to Adobe’s Illustrator and allows you to design various elements for print or digital publication.

The Corner Tool. The first tool on our little list has to do with corner adjusting, and believe it or not. Affinity Designer for desktop tutorials Watch tutorial and quick tip videos for the fastest, smoothest and most precise creative software. Magnifying glass icon to highlight a search field. All Videos Basic Operations Advanced Operations Design Aids Vector Tools.

It’s part of the Affinity package of design tools made by Serif. Use it to do anything from making a business card to mock up an app. Affinity Designer is made for Mac iOS, Windows, and the iPad.

Here, we’ve collected some of the best for everyone from beginners to more seasoned pros, a mix of video and written tutorials. It’s a great place to start for upskilling with your first steps in Affinity Designer!

Affinity Designer UI Overview

If you are new to Affinity Designer or just want an overview of the tool and what it looks like before making a purchase, this UI overview is the place to start. The video lasts less than 5 minutes and walks through the user interface, highlighting a few key elements of the software.

Affinity Designer: The File Menu

Another beginner tutorial, this video takes you through the file menu and looks at each option and how to use it. Rory Townsend, who made the video, also has similar video tutorials with each of the other menu options to help you really get a good hold on all the things you can do with Affinity Designer and where each individual tool or option is located in the menu.

Affinity Designer: 10 Basics

This is the ultimate getting started video guide for Affinity Designer, with all the basics in one video. You’ll learn how to get started with a new document, use premade and custom shapes, work with colors, see how layers work, combine shapes, work with vectors and the vector brush and pen tools, add text to a file, and save and export. It’s all in an easy to follow video and you can get all this information in less than 20 minutes. Plus, the video host Jesse Showalter, has plenty of energy so this tutorial anything but boring.

Affinity Designer Basic Logo Design

Affinity Designer is a tool that allows you to work with vector or raster images. That means you can create logos that can be scaled for any use with the software. In this tutorial, you walk through all the steps to create a simple vector logo using tools in Affinity Designer.

How to Create a Flat Vector Illustration in Affinity Designer

Because of vector functionality, Affinity Designer can also be used to create illustrations. This tutorial takes you through the steps to create a flat illustration, such as the example above, that you can apply to full-scale illustrations, logo, or icon design. The tutorial includes step-by-step instructions and plenty of screenshots that you can use to follow along on your own.

Using the Layers Panel

Using layers and groups is a powerful function that can help keep files organized and a lot easier to manage. Using them in Affinity Designer is fairly easy. Learn everything you need to know about layers and groups in this short video from the makers of the software.

How to Create an Icon in Affinity Designer

Icon design is something almost everyone comes across at some point. Affinity Designer is the perfect tool for creating all manner of icons. This tutorial takes you through the process step-by-step, and even includes some bonus information such as how to choose the right size when designing an icon and how to use various tools. Every step includes screenshots to make understanding easy.

Symbols in Affinity Designer

Using symbols as linked objects allow you to edit one element and it impacts everything in the design. (This is an awesome feature.) This tutorial shows you how to use symbols as intelligent linked objects for great global editing capability. (Learn this pro trick in less than 5 minutes!)

Using Text Effects

Text manipulations can be somewhat controversial. Purists say you should never mess with a typeface, but sometimes you have to use certain effects to make it work for your project. This Affinity Design tutorial shows you how to do just that. You’ll get an introduction to text effect manipulations in this easy to follow video.

How to Create Patterns in Affinity Designer

Patterns have a lot of practical use from website backgrounds to the main artwork for a poster or brochure. From subtle repeating shapes to something a little bolder, there are a few different ways to create a pattern in Affinity Designer. This tutorial explores three options. Note there are a lot of steps here, but the instructions and screenshots are easy to follow. Don’t let the depth of the lesson intimidate you.

Affinity Designer for iPad

The recording of a live session provides an overview of everything you need to use Affinity Designer effectively on an iPad. You’ll get an overview of tools and the software as well as creating specific things (a playing card, book cover, and poster) using tablet-based tools. The tutorial lasts over an hour and is comprehensive.

Pen Tool Masking in Affinity Designer

Use the Pen tool in Affinity Designer to create a dynamic mask of a selection of an image and apply modifications. This is a cool feature that can take some time to learn and this tutorial gives you a jumpstart.

Shapes Around a Curved Line in Affinity Designer

In less than 5 minutes, you can apply shapes to a curved line. You’ll learn how to create a brush from a shape and use that to apply to any shape or size of curved line. The tutorial explains this function clearly and shows how to apply this highly functional feature.

Advanced Color Features in Affinity Designer

You can create, save, and store colors and fills in Affinity Designer. This is great for palettes that will be reused so you don’t have to manually renter color mixes every time. Using these advanced color features is easy to learn if you know the tricks offered in this video tutorial.

Everything You Need to Know About Affinity Designer Brushes

Brushes can help speed workflows and allow you to create custom stroke styles. This tutorial shows you how to use the tool including basics of the brushes panel, how to set up vector or raster brushes, how to create your own brushes, how to install brush packs, and how to use brushes from Photoshop or Illustrator.

Affinity Designer Point Transform Tool

Use the point transform tool to change the look of a geometric shape in Affinity Designer. This tool lets you change shapes and alters the look of objects.

Advanced Axonometric Grid Setup

An axonometric grid shows a three-dimensional object at a skewed angle so you can see multiple sides in the illustration. Affinity Designer allows you to set up an axonometric grid for projects. This tutorial takes you through creating the custom setup.

Affinity Designer Templates

We're covering the basics of Affinity Designer, helpful tutorials, comparisons with other apps, and the best templates and assets to use.

Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor developed by Serif for macOS, iPadOS, and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the 'Affinity trinity' alongside Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Designer is available for purchase directly from the company website and in the Mac App Store, iOS App Store, and the Microsoft Store.

Functionality[edit]

Affinity Designer serves as a successor to Serif's own DrawPlus software, which the company discontinued in August 2017 in order to focus on the Affinity product range.^[2] It has been described as an Adobe Illustrator alternative,^[3][4][5] and is compatible with common graphics file formats, including Adobe Illustrator (AI), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Adobe Photoshop (PSD), Portable Document Format (PDF), and Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) formats.^[6] The application can also import data from some Adobe FreeHand files (specifically versions 10 & MX).^[7]

Affinity Designer's core functions include vector pen and shape-drawing tools, support for custom vector and raster brushes (including the ability to import Adobe Photoshop (ABR) brushes), dynamic symbols, stroke stabilization, text style management, and vector/pixel export options.^[5][8][9]

Affinity Designer provides non-destructive editing features across unlimited layers, with pan and zoom at 60fps, and real-time views for effects and transformations.^[10] It supports the RGB, RGB Hex, LAB, CMYK and Grayscale color models, along with PANTONE color swatches and an end-to-end CMYK workflow with ICC color management, and 16-bit per channel editing.^[11][9]

Development[edit]

Web Authoring Affinity Designers

Affinity Designer began as a vector graphics editor solely for macOS. It was developed entirely from scratch for this operating system, allowing it to leverage core native technologies such as OpenGL, Grand Central Dispatch, and Core Graphics.^[12]

The first version was released in October 2014, making it the first of the Affinity apps to be released by Serif (and their first macOS release).^[13] At that time, Serif's vector graphics application for Windows was DrawPlus; however, following the release of Affinity Designer for Windows, this product has now been discontinued.^[14]

Version 1.2, released in April 2015, introduced new tools and features, such as a corner tool and a pixel-alignment mode for GUI design tasks.^[15] In December 2015, version 1.4 then introduced new features for managing artboards and printing.^[16] With version 1.5 in October 2016, the application received multiple new features, including symbols, constraints, asset management and text styles.^[17]

The application began branching out to other platforms in November 2016, when it first launched for Microsoft Windows.^[18]

Version 1.6 was released in November 2017, introducing performance improvements and alternative GUI display mode.^[19]

The first release of a separate iPad version of Affinity Designer took place in July 2018.^[20]

Version 1.7 was released in June 2019 adding some key features such as HDR support, unlimited strokes and fills to a single shape, new point transform tool, new transform mode in Node tool, Lasso selection of nodes, new sculpt mode added to pencil, and also some big performance improvements.^[21] Version 1.8, released in February 2020, added the ability for users to define their own document templates and keyboard shortcuts, and a built-in panel for adding stock images.^[22]

Reception[edit]

Affinity Designer was selected as a runner-up in Apple's 'Best of 2014' list of Mac App Store and iTunes Store content in the macOS app category.^[23][24][25] It also was one of the winners of the 2015 Apple Design Award.^[26]

In 2018, the Windows version of Affinity Designer won 'Application Creator of the Year' at the Windows Developer Awards (part of Microsoft Build 2018).^[27]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Affinity Designer for Windows - 1.9.0'. Affinity Forum. Retrieved 2021-02-04.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
2. ^Ogunjobi, Anino (2017-08-10). 'Digital Craft: Serif discontinues its Pageplus, Drawplus and Photoplus designing software to focus on its(Serif) new Affinity range of Professional graphic design software'. ANINO. Retrieved 2019-08-17.
3. ^'Why I Use Affinity Designer Instead of Illustrator for Motion Design'. School of Motion. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
4. ^'Affinity Designer vs Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 Comparison | FinancesOnline'. Financesonline.com. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
5. ^ ^ab'Affinity Designer vs. Adobe Illustrator: can Designer replace Illustrator? - 99designs'. 99designs. 2016-08-17. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
6. ^Martin, Keith (November 27, 2014). 'Serif Affinity Designer'. Expert Reviews. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
7. ^'Import and export file formats - Affinity Designer Help'. affinity.help. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
8. ^'Affinity - One Year Review'. Cargo Creative. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
9. ^ ^ab'Affinity Designer - Complete Feature List'. affinity.serif.com. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
10. ^'Illustrator rival launches on Windows'. Creative Bloq. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
11. ^'Graphic Design App 'Affinity Designer' Launches for iPad With Apple Pencil Support'. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
12. ^'Serif releases free alternative to Adobe Illustrator'. Creative Bloq. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
13. ^'Affinity Designer is a new graphics design suite available for Mac'. iMore. 2014-10-02. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
14. ^'Digital Craft: Serif discontinues its Pageplus, Drawplus and Photoplus designing software to focus on its(Serif) new Affinity range of Professional graphic design software - ANINO'. ANINO. 2017-08-10. Retrieved 2018-09-04.
15. ^'Affinity Designer gets first big update'. Creative Bloq. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
16. ^'Top new features in Affinity Designer 1.4'. Creative Bloq. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
17. ^'Affinity Designer 1.5 released | Webdesigner Depot'. Webdesigner Depot. 2016-10-12. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
18. ^'Affinity Spotlight - Photography, Design & Illustration'. Affinity Spotlight.
19. ^'Affinity Photo 1.6 released: faster processing, new features, and free stuff'. DPReview. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
20. ^'9to5'. Twitter. Retrieved 2018-07-11.
21. ^'Affinity Designer and Photo for Mac updated to version 1.7 with multi-GPU and HDR display support'. 9 to 5 Mac.
22. ^Benjamin, Jeff (2020-02-26). 'Affinity Photo, Publisher, and Designer updated to version 1.8'. 9to5Mac. Retrieved 2020-03-07.
23. ^Spencer, Graham (December 8, 2014). 'Apple Posts 'Best of 2014' App Store and iTunes Store Lists'. MacStories. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
24. ^May, Tom (December 10, 2014). 'Affinity Designer is number 2 Mac app of 2014'. Creative Bloq. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
25. ^Calimlim, Aldrin (December 8, 2014). 'Apple announces the App Store's Best of 2014 for iPhone, iPad and Mac'. AppAdvice. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
26. ^Panzarino, Matthew (June 8, 2015). 'Fantastical 2, Workflow, Robinhood Among Winners At Apple Design Awards'. TechCrunch. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
27. ^'Windows Developer Awards - Build 2018 - Windows app development'. developer.microsoft.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2018-08-14.

Further reading[edit]

Affinity Designer Workbook. Nottingham: Serif Europe Ltd. 2016. ISBN9781909581036.

Web Authoring Definition

External links[edit]

Web Authoring Applications