Affinity designer workbook ebook free

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This is on iPad Pro. The Affinity workbooks are not reference manuals. But, one doesn’t need print resolution i. They don’t need to be that huge and highres at all for such purposes, you can give it a try with some ebooks. I have a bunch of Apple and PS theme related ebooks about graphics and photo themes, which all scale fine here. What has that to do with reference manuals or self contained projects only, so what is the lame excuse argument here?

The Affinity workbooks also contain a table of contents, index and chapter intros, further inside references and footnotes which do point to other book sections and things handled in other projects in their contents.

Did you never saw or had any ebook with hyperlinks which wasn’t a reference manual? I have a bunch of Apple, Photoshop, Photo and other software related workshop ebooks also divided into projects and specific task which all offer the same purpose here as the Affinity books. What purpose would that be? Why do you think that was included? As for the index, the Photo one is only 8 pages of double-spaced two column entries, maybe 60 entries per page. But more than half of that is devoted to entries for the tools, most of which appear in several different places.

If you turn to the pages they reference, you will probably notice that there is nothing about any tool that is not already covered in the built-in or online help, often in greater detail. It is the same for the references to panels, toolbars, etc. We are. Furthermore the thing stopping us make PDFs is A different publication could be designed as a PDF.

This one was designed as a physical book, so we choose to sell it as one. All other reasons are hypothesis and mainly bogus. Please stop arguing. Patrick Connor Serif Europe Ltd. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self. When I purchased both the Workbooks from India I had great expectations. The curiosity and expectations soon fizzled out since the courier company could not clear my consignments from India Customs. After a period of about seven months the books were delivered against cash payments of Custom Duty.

I have looked at the sample pages in both present workbooks. I see absolutely nothing about those preview pages that preclude using them in pdf or eBook format. Anyway, for those wondering if the workbooks are right for them please be aware that they are not, nor are they intended to be, comprehensive manuals that will teach you everything the apps can do, how to use every tool, or answer all your questions about basic functionalities.

If that is what you want, look elsewhere. You simply dismiss that dpi images sufficiently display for such a workbook. This flies in the face of nearly every eBook or pdf instructional book ever made. While I’m sure there are crappy ones out there, I have two instructional eBooks on my Android table right now that are excellent in both image detail, even when zoomed in, without being excessive in size. Both are equivalent in page quantity and image detail to the Affinity books.

Like for example much better general searching for contents topics, index, words, crossreferences etc. Further for every better IT and computer ebook all the related accompanied media is also available as download packages, either as a whole or chapter wise, dependent on the size of the whole material.

It also eliminates one common question, how do I find and downloads. Just click the link. However, one can easily loan or resale the book and resources. Additionally, it keeps the wife happy, as I have purchased and donated over two hundred, almost new books, over the years. I also like not having to remember to place a bookmark on my page.

BTW, why do you need to manually capitalize the start of a new sentence or paragraph lately or have I just not noticed. This is on iPad Pro. The Affinity workbooks are not reference manuals. But, one doesn’t need print resolution i. They don’t need to be that huge and highres at all for such purposes, you can give it a try with some ebooks. I have a bunch of Apple and PS theme related ebooks about graphics and photo themes, which all scale fine here. What has that to do with reference manuals or self contained projects only, so what is the lame excuse argument here?

The Affinity workbooks also contain a table of contents, index and chapter intros, further inside references and footnotes which do point to other book sections and things handled in other projects in their contents.

Did you never saw or had any ebook with hyperlinks which wasn’t a reference manual? I have a bunch of Apple, Photoshop, Photo and other software related workshop ebooks also divided into projects and specific task which all offer the same purpose here as the Affinity books.

What purpose would that be? It helps us relax and recharge. It is important that we feel free to spend our free time however we want, and feel no shame in kicking back and watching a movie or levelling up on our favorite game.

Discovery is rewarding, allowing us to hit new highs and fall in love with things we never thought we would. We believe in all experiences and all perspectives.

We want to cultivate curiosity, open-mindedness and a passion to explore. By bringing all entertainment together into one product, we are able to provide a huge variety of titles for cheaper – and a service that is truly worth paying for. We believe in one service that takes care of everything, provides for the whole family and removes the hassle of multiple passwords and payments.

It makes us feel joy, sadness, excitement and laughter. It helps us relax and recharge. It is important that we feel free to spend our free time however we want, and feel no shame in kicking back and watching a movie or levelling up on our favorite game. We could also duplicate the artboard in the Layers panel by pressing Command or Control J.

Then use the Artboard Tool to reposition the new artboard. You can also go up to the Context Toolbar to add an artboard. Right now, the Size is Document, but there are many other sizes to choose from. Selection means that the new artboard will be the same size as whichever artboard is selected.

We can rename our artboards in the Layers panel by doubleclicking on their name. We can also delete any artboard layer at any time by clicking and dragging it to the trash can in the Layers panel, but be warned that deleting the artboard will delete every layer that you had on that artboard.

The Artboard Tool allows you to create and customize artboards inside of your document. Press Command or Control Shift 0 zero. Select the artboard in the Layers panel that you would like to fill the screen with. Select one of the stars. You can change the color of an artboard very easily. When you are working with a document that doesn’t have an artboard, you need to click and drag a rectangle over the document to add a background color.

However, with artboards, all you need to do is select the artboard in the Layers panel, then change the color in the Color panel. Select the Fill Tool. Click and drag a gradient in Artboard 1, then adjust the colors as you’d like. The last tip is that document guides will only be applied to the artboard that you have selected. Right now, Artboard 1 is selected, so the guides will only be applied to that artboard.

Press Command or Control R to bring out the Ruler. With the Move Tool selected, click and drag from the ruler to the artboard to add a guide. To put a guide on Artboard 2, first select Artboard 2 in the Layers panel, then click and drag a guide to it. We can decide the Area to export. In this case, Artboard 1 is selected, but we can change this to any other artboard, or export the Whole Document, which means all of the artboards will be put into one image.

We can again change the area, and this time, select Whole Document. Then press Export. Once your PDF is saved, you can see that all of the artboards are saved together. If you would like to print all of your artboards, this is the best way to do it.

You can still do a lot of things in Affinity Designer without ever using this tool. But gaining a simple understanding of this tool can make your life a lot easier. Select the Pen Tool. Simply put, the Pen Tool allows us to draw lines, curves, and closed shapes. In the Context Toolbar, we can decide which Mode we are drawing in.

Select the Line mode. Increase the Stroke to better see your line. Making simple, twopoint lines is all that this mode does. If you want your line to be in perfectly straight, 45 degree angles, hold down Shift while making your line. Press Command or Control Z a few times to undo the lines. Select Polygon mode. This mode makes straight lines that are all connected to each other. Select Smart mode. In the Layers panel, drag the Curve layer to the trash can.

Smart mode allows you to put down points, and Designer will create a curve based on the points that you make. Just make points on the document to make a curve. Once you have closed a shape, you can begin making a new one. Pen mode is the final Mode in the Context Toolbar. This is the most difficult mode, but it’s also the most powerful. First, press Escape on your keyboard so you can start a new curve. Select Pen mode. Press once to create your first point.

To make your second point, click and drag. The more you drag, the more curved your line will be. You can use multiple modes while drawing the same shape. Delete all the layers in the Layers panel to clean up the document. Press on Smart mode. Click to make a few points. Click to make a few more points, then finish the shape by pressing on the point you started with.

By combining multiple modes, you have great flexibility when working with the Pen Tool. Now that we have a closed shape, give the shape a Fill by choosing a color in the Color panel. Our curve now works as a shape that can be filled with color because it is closed.

If we select the Node Tool, we can adjust the nodes on our shape. Node Tool chapter. Knowing how to use the Node Tool will be crucial in learning how the Pen Tool works. We will learn about Bezier curves in simple terms. Click once to make your first point, then click and drag to the right with each point you make in this line. Don’t worry too much about why the line looks the way it does. Make sure that you are in Pen mode in the Context Toolbar.

Set the Stroke to about 20 pt. Click on a node, then zoom in. The handles that affect the curve work like magnets. The more the handle is pulled out, the more it pulls the curve like a magnet. We can see the Bezier curve handles that are coming off of it.

The way that the line curves is determined by the handles. We can change the handles by clicking and dragging on the control points, which are the points on the ends of the handles. When a control point is pushed closer to the node, the curve becomes less intense.

You can also move the control point in various directions to move the curve wherever you want. As the control point is moved up, our curve moves up, too. The Bezier handles are working like magnets that pull our curve. Click and drag the Curve layer in the Layers panel to the trash can. Click once to lay down the first point. Click and drag ever so slightly to the right for your second point, then press once to lay down your third point.

The handle was barely pulled out, making the curve change direction very quickly to get to the third node. Because the handle is so short, it is barely pulling the curve at all.

And remember, you can also move the handles up or down to change the direction of the curve. You now know the basics of Bezier curves, however, don’t expect yourself to be a master of them yet. The Pen and Node Tools take quite a bit of practice to get right. However, the more you use these tools, the easier they will become. Press Escape on your keyboard to start a new curve. Click once to lay down a point.

Click and drag quite a bit to the right this time to make your second point, then press once to lay down your third point. I recommend that after you finish this chapter, you play around with the tools a bit more to see how they work. This time, we can see that the Bezier curve handle is very long.

Because it’s so long, it’s pulling the curve out quite a bit before it changes direction to get to the last node. Press once to make your first point. Hold down Shift, and your next point will be restricted to being laid in 45 degree increments in relation to your first point. Right now, the handles can be dragged in any direction. Hold down Shift, and the handles will be restricted to moving in 45 degree increments.

By default, clicking and dragging means that you can only move the handles. If you hold down the Space bar, you can move the node while clicking and dragging. Click and drag to lay down another point, then hold down Alt or Option to adjust only one of the Bezier curve handles, while leaving the other one alone.

This is perfect for making shapes with sharp corners, because once you hold down Alt or Option, the node becomes a Sharp node. We know it’s a Sharp node because it is a square instead of a circle. Press the Smooth node icon in the Context Toolbar. Press Command or Control 0 zero to see the whole document again. Press P for the Pen Tool. One of the greatest shortcuts for the Pen Tool is that you can hold down Command or Control to temporarily switch into the Node Tool.

By pressing Command or Control, you can see that the cursor has changed into a Node Tool cursor, but the Pen Tool is still selected in the Tools panel. The last shortcuts are all done while holding down Command or Control, which means they involve using the Node Tool. With this shortcut, you can quickly lay down points with the Pen Tool, then quickly edit them by holding down Command or Control to use the Node Tool.

With the temporary Node Tool out, you can click and drag to move the nodes around by holding down Command or Control, but if you also hold down Shift, you will only be able to move the node in 45 degree increments from its starting place. This way, the node stays as a Smooth node. If you were to hold down Command or Control and Alt or Option, this will turn the node into a Sharp node because the curve handle is no longer in line with the other handle.

You’ll need to release Command or Control, then press Delete if you want to delete a node. If you’re new to the Pen Tool, you might not realize how important these shortcuts are, but I can speak from experience that knowing these shortcuts can be very useful when using the Pen Tool.

It’s a lot of fun, and it’s great practice. The goal of the game is to trace each object with the fewest amount of nodes possible. The more nodes you use, the more likely it is that your object will be jagged. To do this, we are going to draw one half of the object, and then mirror the other half. We no longer need the Ruler, so press Command or Control R to remove it. Press Command or Control R to bring up the Ruler. With the Move Tool selected, click and drag from the side ruler to place a guide in the center of the document.

Click and drag to create more nodes for your object, with your last point being on the guide line again. Place your starting point in the guide line. Press Command or Control J to duplicate our curve in the Layers panel. Now that we have a duplicate layer, flip it vertically by pressing the icon in the Toolbar.

With the Move Tool, hold down Shift and drag it to the left. Holding down Shift will keep our duplicate curve in line with the first curve. Unfortunately, it is still two layers. We want to combine these curves to have one object. Select the Node Tool. To do this, select both layers by clicking on them in the Layers panel while holding down Shift. As you can see in the Layers panel, we now have one curve. With them selected, press the Join Curves option in the Context Toolbar.

The nodes at the bottom of our shape are not connected. Return the node to where it was by pressing Command or Control Z. Click and drag a selection marquee to highlight both nodes. Move one of the nodes to see that even though we have one curve, it still isn’t a completely closed curve. We now have a closed curve. You can see this by clicking and dragging on the top node. Press the Close Curve option in the Context Toolbar. We don’t need two nodes here though, so with the extra node selected, press Delete on your keyboard.

Give the closed curve a Fill using the Color panel. We can still use the Node Tool to adjust any of these point if we want. For example, we can make the top node into a Smooth node instead of a Sharp node. Just select the node, then press the Smooth node button in the Context Toolbar. We have now successful mirrored our curve, and have combined both curves into one symmetrical shape.

Select the picture of the bird, then press Open. At the top of the screen, go to File, then Open. This picture of a bird sketch was taken on a phone.

Because it’s a JPEG, you can see that when we zoom in, it quickly starts to pixelate. Because of this, we want to use the Pen Tool to make a vector image of the bird so that we can make it as big as we want.

Before we begin tracing, we need to brighten the photo so we can focus more on the lines. Press on the Adjustment icon. Increase the Brightness and Contrast sliders, then exit from the Dialog Box. This adjustment has helped us to clearly see the lines. In the Layers panel, close the child layer by pressing the triangle to the left of the Background layer.

Zoom into the beak to start tracing. The best place to start tracing is somewhere with a sharp corner, so the beak is a good place to start. This tracing will not be perfect the first time, and we will go back to make adjustments once we have a closed shape. For now, just make a rough trace, and we can improve it later. As we go around the bird, click and drag to make curved lines. A good way to know where to make a node is to see where the curve is changing.

If a curve is more steep, and then evens out, place your node where you see that change happening. Continue to click and drag all the way around the bird, excluding the feet, eye, and wing for now. Now that we have a closed object, we can make adjustments with the Node Tool. To fix the tail of the bird, hold down Shift to adjust the handles, because the curve handles are coming out too far. While holding down Shift, bring in the right side of the curve handle.

This way, the curve is only being changed on one side. Then move this node up slightly. Return to the other node, and adjust the handles to smooth out the curve. Select the tip of the tail, then press the Sharp node icon in the Context Toolbar. Now that we’re done with the body of the bird, it’s time to work on the other parts of it. Now that the outline of the bird is looking good, let’s give the bird a Fill in the Color panel.

Uncheck the body layer in the Layers panel, so that we can see the Background image while we trace the eye and wing. When you click to finish the eye, you can see that we need to bring in the right side of the curve handle.

Hold down Command or Control to bring up the temporary Node Tool, then hold down Shift to move in just the right curve handle. Press Escape to end the curve. Now trace the wing using the same process. Remember that you can bring in handles using Shift, or change nodes to Sharp nodes as needed. Press Escape to start a new curve.

Continue this around the foot. Make sure that you close your curve at the top of the foot. Because the body will go on top of the feet, don’t worry about where you start your curve. When you get to the curve of a toe, end it right before the curve, then start a new node directly across from where you stopped, and click and drag quite a bit to get the toe rounded. Give each foot color in the Color panel.

Now that we’re done tracing the bird, select the Background image, then drag it to the trash can. Select the body layer, then increase the Stroke width in the Context Toolbar. To give the bird a background, select the Rectangle Tool. Click and drag a rectangle across the document. To get rid of the Stroke, select the Stroke circle in the Color panel, then press the no Fill icon that is beneath our color circles. Change the colors of the color stops as desired.

Change the Type to Radial in the Context Toolbar. The steps we took in this video can be applied to your own drawings. Just make a sketch, take a picture of it, place it in Affinity Designer, then trace it with the Pen Tool.

Don’t worry about getting it perfect. You can always refine your curve to make your drawing even better. Right now, the Special Shapes has the Triangle out, but if you click and hold on the Triangle Tool, you’ll see many other shape tools that you can use. As you might remember, there are a couple of shortcuts you can use with the shape tools. When clicking and dragging, you can hold down Shift to keep the shape perfectly proportional.

If you want to move or resize the shapes, you can use the Move Tool, or with the shape tool still selected, you can hover over the edges of the shape or use the handles to make adjustments.

All of the shapes inside of Affinity Designer, other than the Rectangle and Ellipse Tools, have orange handles that come with the shape.

 
 

(PDF) Affinity Designer Workbook by (Hardcover | Nicholas Reser – – The complete written guide

 

Even so, it should then be ran through Acrobat to optimize it. I cannot imagine either workbook would be larger than 5 megs. And speaking of Acrobat, the same thing can be done to the very pfds used to print the workbook, including cropping the pages. Mike, have you seen a copy of the Photo workbook? What would be the point of making a PDF or e-Book version that did not include the same high resolution versions of the book’s example images that could be enlarged on screen or printed to show the same level of detail?

Low resolution pdfs are used for manuals all the time. They, the images, print OK. It’s more about having the instructions on-screen when following along. Want it to look pretty too? Buy the book or A version with dpi images, which would print well on consumer printers, wouldn’t weigh in above 10 megs or so.

Well those are first of all workbooks, so books for learning how to use the software and thus are not meant to be highres gallerie fine art photo prints in their own rights, which BTW then would have almost bigger dimensional paper sizes.

And of course you can show for such sort of books enough details in PDF and epub formats too. The Affinity workbooks are not product manuals. They do include a brief introductory section that covers the basics but their primary focus is on teaching users how to use the software to achieve specific end results via a series of 'learn by doing’ projects, with much of the projects’ content presented in high resolution printed images.

This is so users can compare the book’s images side-by-side to what they see on screen or to their own printed out versions, which among other things provides a standard for comparison that is constant regardless of their monitor or printer characteristics.

Manuals, workbook, teaching aide, whatever. What I called the workbooks isn’t important. But thanks for your attempt to obfuscate. Screen resolution is sufficient to compare on-screen. But I did mention they could as well be dpi, eh? I would also argue that for this purpose, the text instructions are paramount.

But you’ll likely argue with that, too. This is all moot anyway. Serif has stated they ain’t gonna release electronic versions No, I have not seen a physical book so have not dealt with any of the project files. It makes us feel joy, sadness, excitement and laughter. It helps us relax and recharge. It is important that we feel free to spend our free time however we want, and feel no shame in kicking back and watching a movie or levelling up on our favorite game. Discovery is rewarding, allowing us to hit new highs and fall in love with things we never thought we would.

We believe in all experiences and all perspectives. We believe in new technology and new devices which create a more intimate and seamless connection between people and their entertainment. Home affinity-designer-workbook-europe-limited. Your name. Close Submit.

Our partners will collect data and use cookies for ad personalization and measurement. Yes, pdf permissions passwords can be removed in less than 1 second. It takes strong pdf open passwords to secure a pdf. The passwords to open the pdf would need to be communicated to the end user and likely would be passed along as well. However, your second paragraph is a bogus issue. PagePlus, which did the first two workbooks I really hope Serif is attempting to use APub for its workbook can also as easily produce a screen version and it wouldn’t be a big pdf.

Even so, it should then be ran through Acrobat to optimize it. I cannot imagine either workbook would be larger than 5 megs. And speaking of Acrobat, the same thing can be done to the very pfds used to print the workbook, including cropping the pages.

Mike, have you seen a copy of the Photo workbook? What would be the point of making a PDF or e-Book version that did not include the same high resolution versions of the book’s example images that could be enlarged on screen or printed to show the same level of detail?

Low resolution pdfs are used for manuals all the time. They, the images, print OK. It’s more about having the instructions on-screen when following along. Want it to look pretty too? Buy the book or A version with dpi images, which would print well on consumer printers, wouldn’t weigh in above 10 megs or so. Well those are first of all workbooks, so books for learning how to use the software and thus are not meant to be highres gallerie fine art photo prints in their own rights, which BTW then would have almost bigger dimensional paper sizes.

And of course you can show for such sort of books enough details in PDF and epub formats too. The Affinity workbooks are not product manuals. They do include a brief introductory section that covers the basics but their primary focus is on teaching users how to use the software to achieve specific end results via a series of 'learn by doing’ projects, with much of the projects’ content presented in high resolution printed images.

This is so users can compare the book’s images side-by-side to what they see on screen or to their own printed out versions, which among other things provides a standard for comparison that is constant regardless of their monitor or printer characteristics. Manuals, workbook, teaching aide, whatever. What I called the workbooks isn’t important. But thanks for your attempt to obfuscate.

Screen resolution is sufficient to compare on-screen. But I did mention they could as well be dpi, eh? Press OK to make a new document. Press Insert Artboard in the Context Toolbar to create an artboard and pasteboard in your document. You can change the size of the artboard by using the Transform panel, too. First, we can duplicate our artboard by holding down Alt or Option, then clicking and dragging on our artboard with the Artboard Tool.

We could also duplicate the artboard in the Layers panel by pressing Command or Control J. Then use the Artboard Tool to reposition the new artboard. You can also go up to the Context Toolbar to add an artboard. Right now, the Size is Document, but there are many other sizes to choose from. Selection means that the new artboard will be the same size as whichever artboard is selected. We can rename our artboards in the Layers panel by doubleclicking on their name.

We can also delete any artboard layer at any time by clicking and dragging it to the trash can in the Layers panel, but be warned that deleting the artboard will delete every layer that you had on that artboard. The Artboard Tool allows you to create and customize artboards inside of your document. Press Command or Control Shift 0 zero. Select the artboard in the Layers panel that you would like to fill the screen with. Select one of the stars. You can change the color of an artboard very easily.

When you are working with a document that doesn’t have an artboard, you need to click and drag a rectangle over the document to add a background color. However, with artboards, all you need to do is select the artboard in the Layers panel, then change the color in the Color panel. Select the Fill Tool.

Click and drag a gradient in Artboard 1, then adjust the colors as you’d like. The last tip is that document guides will only be applied to the artboard that you have selected. Right now, Artboard 1 is selected, so the guides will only be applied to that artboard. Press Command or Control R to bring out the Ruler. With the Move Tool selected, click and drag from the ruler to the artboard to add a guide.

To put a guide on Artboard 2, first select Artboard 2 in the Layers panel, then click and drag a guide to it. We can decide the Area to export. In this case, Artboard 1 is selected, but we can change this to any other artboard, or export the Whole Document, which means all of the artboards will be put into one image.

We can again change the area, and this time, select Whole Document. Then press Export. Once your PDF is saved, you can see that all of the artboards are saved together. If you would like to print all of your artboards, this is the best way to do it. You can still do a lot of things in Affinity Designer without ever using this tool. But gaining a simple understanding of this tool can make your life a lot easier. Select the Pen Tool. Simply put, the Pen Tool allows us to draw lines, curves, and closed shapes.

In the Context Toolbar, we can decide which Mode we are drawing in. Select the Line mode. Increase the Stroke to better see your line. Making simple, twopoint lines is all that this mode does. If you want your line to be in perfectly straight, 45 degree angles, hold down Shift while making your line.

Press Command or Control Z a few times to undo the lines. Select Polygon mode. This mode makes straight lines that are all connected to each other. Select Smart mode. In the Layers panel, drag the Curve layer to the trash can. Smart mode allows you to put down points, and Designer will create a curve based on the points that you make. Just make points on the document to make a curve. Once you have closed a shape, you can begin making a new one.

Pen mode is the final Mode in the Context Toolbar. This is the most difficult mode, but it’s also the most powerful. First, press Escape on your keyboard so you can start a new curve.

Select Pen mode. Press once to create your first point. To make your second point, click and drag. The more you drag, the more curved your line will be. You can use multiple modes while drawing the same shape. Delete all the layers in the Layers panel to clean up the document.

Press on Smart mode. Click to make a few points. Click to make a few more points, then finish the shape by pressing on the point you started with. By combining multiple modes, you have great flexibility when working with the Pen Tool. Now that we have a closed shape, give the shape a Fill by choosing a color in the Color panel. Our curve now works as a shape that can be filled with color because it is closed.

If we select the Node Tool, we can adjust the nodes on our shape. Node Tool chapter. Knowing how to use the Node Tool will be crucial in learning how the Pen Tool works. We will learn about Bezier curves in simple terms. Click once to make your first point, then click and drag to the right with each point you make in this line.

Don’t worry too much about why the line looks the way it does. Make sure that you are in Pen mode in the Context Toolbar. Set the Stroke to about 20 pt. Click on a node, then zoom in. The handles that affect the curve work like magnets. The more the handle is pulled out, the more it pulls the curve like a magnet. We can see the Bezier curve handles that are coming off of it.

The way that the line curves is determined by the handles. We can change the handles by clicking and dragging on the control points, which are the points on the ends of the handles.

When a control point is pushed closer to the node, the curve becomes less intense. You can also move the control point in various directions to move the curve wherever you want. As the control point is moved up, our curve moves up, too. The Bezier handles are working like magnets that pull our curve. Click and drag the Curve layer in the Layers panel to the trash can.

Click once to lay down the first point. Click and drag ever so slightly to the right for your second point, then press once to lay down your third point. The handle was barely pulled out, making the curve change direction very quickly to get to the third node. Because the handle is so short, it is barely pulling the curve at all.

And remember, you can also move the handles up or down to change the direction of the curve. You now know the basics of Bezier curves, however, don’t expect yourself to be a master of them yet. The Pen and Node Tools take quite a bit of practice to get right. However, the more you use these tools, the easier they will become. Press Escape on your keyboard to start a new curve.

Click once to lay down a point. Click and drag quite a bit to the right this time to make your second point, then press once to lay down your third point. I recommend that after you finish this chapter, you play around with the tools a bit more to see how they work. This time, we can see that the Bezier curve handle is very long. Because it’s so long, it’s pulling the curve out quite a bit before it changes direction to get to the last node.

Press once to make your first point. Hold down Shift, and your next point will be restricted to being laid in 45 degree increments in relation to your first point. Right now, the handles can be dragged in any direction. Hold down Shift, and the handles will be restricted to moving in 45 degree increments. By default, clicking and dragging means that you can only move the handles. If you hold down the Space bar, you can move the node while clicking and dragging. Click and drag to lay down another point, then hold down Alt or Option to adjust only one of the Bezier curve handles, while leaving the other one alone.

This is perfect for making shapes with sharp corners, because once you hold down Alt or Option, the node becomes a Sharp node. We know it’s a Sharp node because it is a square instead of a circle. Press the Smooth node icon in the Context Toolbar. Press Command or Control 0 zero to see the whole document again. Press P for the Pen Tool. One of the greatest shortcuts for the Pen Tool is that you can hold down Command or Control to temporarily switch into the Node Tool. By pressing Command or Control, you can see that the cursor has changed into a Node Tool cursor, but the Pen Tool is still selected in the Tools panel.

The last shortcuts are all done while holding down Command or Control, which means they involve using the Node Tool. With this shortcut, you can quickly lay down points with the Pen Tool, then quickly edit them by holding down Command or Control to use the Node Tool. With the temporary Node Tool out, you can click and drag to move the nodes around by holding down Command or Control, but if you also hold down Shift, you will only be able to move the node in 45 degree increments from its starting place.

This way, the node stays as a Smooth node. If you were to hold down Command or Control and Alt or Option, this will turn the node into a Sharp node because the curve handle is no longer in line with the other handle. You’ll need to release Command or Control, then press Delete if you want to delete a node. If you’re new to the Pen Tool, you might not realize how important these shortcuts are, but I can speak from experience that knowing these shortcuts can be very useful when using the Pen Tool.

It’s a lot of fun, and it’s great practice. The goal of the game is to trace each object with the fewest amount of nodes possible. The more nodes you use, the more likely it is that your object will be jagged. To do this, we are going to draw one half of the object, and then mirror the other half. We no longer need the Ruler, so press Command or Control R to remove it. Press Command or Control R to bring up the Ruler.

With the Move Tool selected, click and drag from the side ruler to place a guide in the center of the document. Click and drag to create more nodes for your object, with your last point being on the guide line again. Place your starting point in the guide line. Press Command or Control J to duplicate our curve in the Layers panel. Now that we have a duplicate layer, flip it vertically by pressing the icon in the Toolbar.

With the Move Tool, hold down Shift and drag it to the left. Holding down Shift will keep our duplicate curve in line with the first curve. Unfortunately, it is still two layers. We want to combine these curves to have one object. Select the Node Tool. To do this, select both layers by clicking on them in the Layers panel while holding down Shift.

As you can see in the Layers panel, we now have one curve. With them selected, press the Join Curves option in the Context Toolbar. The nodes at the bottom of our shape are not connected. Return the node to where it was by pressing Command or Control Z. Click and drag a selection marquee to highlight both nodes.

Move one of the nodes to see that even though we have one curve, it still isn’t a completely closed curve. We now have a closed curve. You can see this by clicking and dragging on the top node. Press the Close Curve option in the Context Toolbar. We don’t need two nodes here though, so with the extra node selected, press Delete on your keyboard. Give the closed curve a Fill using the Color panel.

We can still use the Node Tool to adjust any of these point if we want. For example, we can make the top node into a Smooth node instead of a Sharp node. Just select the node, then press the Smooth node button in the Context Toolbar.

We have now successful mirrored our curve, and have combined both curves into one symmetrical shape. Select the picture of the bird, then press Open. At the top of the screen, go to File, then Open.

This picture of a bird sketch was taken on a phone. Because it’s a JPEG, you can see that when we zoom in, it quickly starts to pixelate. Because of this, we want to use the Pen Tool to make a vector image of the bird so that we can make it as big as we want. Before we begin tracing, we need to brighten the photo so we can focus more on the lines. Press on the Adjustment icon.

Increase the Brightness and Contrast sliders, then exit from the Dialog Box. This adjustment has helped us to clearly see the lines. In the Layers panel, close the child layer by pressing the triangle to the left of the Background layer.

Zoom into the beak to start tracing. The best place to start tracing is somewhere with a sharp corner, so the beak is a good place to start.

This tracing will not be perfect the first time, and we will go back to make adjustments once we have a closed shape. For now, just make a rough trace, and we can improve it later. As we go around the bird, click and drag to make curved lines. A good way to know where to make a node is to see where the curve is changing.

If a curve is more steep, and then evens out, place your node where you see that change happening. Continue to click and drag all the way around the bird, excluding the feet, eye, and wing for now. Now that we have a closed object, we can make adjustments with the Node Tool. To fix the tail of the bird, hold down Shift to adjust the handles, because the curve handles are coming out too far. While holding down Shift, bring in the right side of the curve handle.

This way, the curve is only being changed on one side. Then move this node up slightly. Return to the other node, and adjust the handles to smooth out the curve. Select the tip of the tail, then press the Sharp node icon in the Context Toolbar. Now that we’re done with the body of the bird, it’s time to work on the other parts of it. Now that the outline of the bird is looking good, let’s give the bird a Fill in the Color panel. Uncheck the body layer in the Layers panel, so that we can see the Background image while we trace the eye and wing.

When you click to finish the eye, you can see that we need to bring in the right side of the curve handle. Hold down Command or Control to bring up the temporary Node Tool, then hold down Shift to move in just the right curve handle. Press Escape to end the curve. Now trace the wing using the same process. Remember that you can bring in handles using Shift, or change nodes to Sharp nodes as needed. Press Escape to start a new curve. Continue this around the foot.

Make sure that you close your curve at the top of the foot. Because the body will go on top of the feet, don’t worry about where you start your curve. When you get to the curve of a toe, end it right before the curve, then start a new node directly across from where you stopped, and click and drag quite a bit to get the toe rounded. Give each foot color in the Color panel. Now that we’re done tracing the bird, select the Background image, then drag it to the trash can.

Select the body layer, then increase the Stroke width in the Context Toolbar. To give the bird a background, select the Rectangle Tool. Click and drag a rectangle across the document.

To get rid of the Stroke, select the Stroke circle in the Color panel, then press the no Fill icon that is beneath our color circles. Change the colors of the color stops as desired. Change the Type to Radial in the Context Toolbar. The steps we took in this video can be applied to your own drawings. Just make a sketch, take a picture of it, place it in Affinity Designer, then trace it with the Pen Tool. Don’t worry about getting it perfect.

You can always refine your curve to make your drawing even better. Right now, the Special Shapes has the Triangle out, but if you click and hold on the Triangle Tool, you’ll see many other shape tools that you can use.

 

affinity-designer-workbook-europe-limited –

 
A version with dpi images, which would print well on consumer printers, wouldn’t weigh in above 10 megs or so.

 
 

Affinity Designer Workbook ( Kindle Unlimited )

 
 

It’s a better idea to split the Book into Chapterwise booklets with the same quality printing and adopting a little larger print size. May be one of these days I would open those books, considering the fact that the same have costed me more than the Software for which they are written.

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When you’re ready to export, just press Export. Keyboard shortcuts can really speed up your workflow. Command and Control are interchangeable, as are Alt and Option. I encourage you to learn the keyboard shortcuts for the tools you use most frequently.

To learn the shortcut for any tool, hover over that tool. Inside the Preferences, there are many options that you can adjust to make the program work better for you, but the two that I will highlight are User Interface and Keyboard Shortcuts. Press on User Interface.

I’m going to change back to Dark mode, then press the Menu icon at the top of the Dialog Box. Most notably, we can change from the Dark to a Light mode. You can also adjust the sliders to adjust how dark or light other colors in the program become.

Here we can see what all of the shortcuts are, as well as add our own. Go to the Layer category. Here Ungroup All has no shortcut. Just for demonstration purposes, I’ll click in the box, then give it the keyboard shortcut Command or Control Shift X. Adding Keyboard Shortcuts and changing the User Interface are the most popular ways to change the program. Feel free to look at the other options to make the program work better for you. Here you can type in any tool that you are looking for in Affinity Designer.

This is especially helpful if you remember the name of a tool, but aren’t sure where it is. This will bring up a Dialog Box, where you can type anything into the search bar. Type in the search bar, then press Enter on your keyboard, and Affinity will give you helpful articles to read.

You can also click on Affinity Designer Help. Tutorial will take you to helpful tutorials that were made for Affinity Designer, and Support will take you to the Affinity forums, where you can ask and answer questions for others in the community. By combining your resources, you have all the support you need to work successfully in Affinity Designer. When nothing is selected, but we have the Move Tool out, the Context Toolbar only has the option to change the Document Setup and the Preferences.

When nothing is selected, but we have the Node Tool out, the Context Toolbar changes quite a bit. The Node Tool has the same settings to change. When we change to the Node Tool, now the line has individual points, or nodes, as well as more options in the Context Toolbar. We can see this by looking at the Layers panel. Affinity Designer treats shapes and curves differently. When you are working with shapes, the tools work identical to each other.

When you are working with a curve, the Node Tool has many more options to adjust the curve. Just click and drag on objects to move them around. When you have an object selected, you can also use the arrows on your keyboard to move the object. If you hold down Shift while using the arrows on your keyboard, the object will move in larger increments. You can use the top and bottom handles to make the object shorter or taller.

To resize the object’s width and height at the same time, you can use the handles on the corners. If you hold down Shift while adjusting the corner handles, the object will stay in its original dimensions as you resize it.

To rotate the object, click and drag on the handle that sticks out on top of the shape. To see your object’s rotation point, press on the crosshair icon in the Context Toolbar. If you hold down Shift and then rotate your object, it will be rotated in 15 degree increments. You can click and drag on this rotation point to put it anywhere in your document, even off of your shape. Move the rotation point back to the center. If you no longer want to see the rotation point, you can press the crosshair icon again in the Context Toolbar.

Now you can click and drag to shear the object. We have been adjusting our object manually, but we can be more exact by using the Transform panel. Here, we can change our rotation back to 0 degrees by clicking in the box, typing 0, then pressing Enter on your keyboard.

The Width and Height can also be adjusted. Because of all of our adjustments, our square has turned into a rectangle. To make our object a square again, change the Width and Height both to To make sure that our object stays a square, you can lock the Width and Height in place by pressing the chain icon to the right of the Width and Height. You can also change the position of the object. Rather than typing in a specific amount, you can always change it in certain increments, and Affinity will do the math for you.

For example, if you wanted to move the object pixels to the left, you would click in the box, and after the original value, you would type , then press Enter on your keyboard.

Select the object, then hold down Alt or Option, and click and drag the object to duplicate it. If you hold down Alt or Option and Shift, you can duplicate an object, and move it in line with the original object. We can click on objects to select them at any time. If we hold down Shift, we can click on multiple objects to select them. At any time, you can also click and drag out a selection marquee to select an object. You can always change this preference.

If you want to have your marquee select everything that it touches, even if it isn’t completely covered by the marquee, click off of your objects so nothing is selected. You can check on Select object when intersects with selection marquee.

I won’t check that on right now, but you can if you’d like. The Move Tool isn’t too difficult to use, and it’s very powerful. There is no way to effectively use Affinity Designer without using the Move Tool.

This is in contrast to the Move Tool, which has us affect the entire object at the same time. After clicking on a node, you’ll notice we have Bezier curve handles coming off of the nodes. We’ll learn more about Bezier curve handles in the Pen Tool chapter, but for now, just know that the Node Tool is how we will affect these handles. We can click anywhere on the line to add a node.

We can click on any node, then press Delete on the keyboard to remove a node. Zoom into a node, then click on it. In the Context Toolbar, we can convert this node to a Sharp node by clicking on the Sharp node icon. We can see that the node is now a square, signifying a Sharp node.

If we click on the last icon, we will turn our node into a Smart node. While it looks the same as the Smooth node, we can tell it’s a Smart node because the node is now a circle with another circle inside of it.

Smart nodes have perfectly equal Bezier handles. There are different actions that can be performed on a curve. The first option is Break Curve. If we have a node selected, and then press on the Break Curve icon, the curve will be split into two. Turn the node back into a Smart node. If we want to combine the curves, select both of the nodes by clicking and dragging a selection marquee.

While the curves are joined now, we still have both nodes, and can select one and press Delete on the keyboard to get rid of it.

If we zoom out, we can see that the curve is just a line, not a closed object. Affinity has now taken the ends of our curve, and joined them together. Press Command or Control Z to undo. Another action is the Smooth Curve action. Press the Smooth Curve icon. We now have added nodes that can be adjusted to make our curve even smoother. Click to add new points to our curve. We’ll learn more about the Pen Tool and Node Tool later, but you can see that the Node Tool gives us powerful options for working with nodes and curves.

Layers can be rearranged by clicking and dragging. If we drag the rectangle to the top, it will cover the rest of the layers.

Along with clicking and dragging to arrange layers, the Toolbar gives us more options for rearranging the layers. Drag the rectangle layer back to the bottom. Select the Bookshelf layer. These icons allow us to change the position of a layer. You can move the layer to the bottom or top of the stack by using these icons. You can see that next to each name of the layers, they say what kind of layer that is, whether that is a Group, a Curve, or a Rectangle.

I don’t find these tools very helpful when we only have a few layers, but these options can be very helpful when you have dozens or even hundreds of layers. Inside a Group, we have multiple layers that make up the image. If you want to rename a layer, double click on the layer’s name, then type in a new name and press Enter on your keyboard. To select another layer, you can hold down Command or Control, and select multiple layers.

To select one layer, click on it. Hold down Shift, then click on another layer. All of the layers between the two that you clicked on will be selected as well. If you would like to make a layer more see-through, you can select a layer, then lower the Opacity. There are also shortcuts to changing the Opacity. If you want to protect your layer from getting deleted or moved, you can lock a layer in place by pressing the Lock icon.

Even with the Move Tool selected, you can’t move a locked layer. Now it can be freely moved again. If you would like to flip a layer, have it selected, and then use the tools in the Toolbar. You can flip your shape vertically or horizontally by pressing these icons. We’ve learned all of the basics of the Layers panel in Affinity Designer, but throughout this chapter, we’ll learn even more ways to use it. Another way to duplicate layers is to select the layer in the Layers panel, then press Command or Control J.

Delete the duplicate. To keep our workspace uncluttered, delete this duplicate layer. Select a layer, then press Command or Control C to copy it. Press Command or Control V to paste it.

We now have a duplicate layer. Now we can use the icons at the top right to determine where our new layers will be pasted. The new layer can be behind, in front of, or intersecting our original layer. Press the first icon, then press Command or Control V to paste. You can see that the new layer is now underneath the original. There are many options for duplicating layers. You really only need to know one, so find which one works best for you, and then use that method whenever you need to duplicate a layer.

Using Groups, layers are easy to move and adjust at the same time. It can be moved and resized all at once. If you click on the triangle to the left of the Group, you can see that the Group actually has many layers and Groups inside of it. Groups are so useful because you can combine multiple layers, and it saves you the time of selecting multiple layers over and over to move them. If you open the Light Bulb Group, you can see that many layers make up the Group. If you want to make a new Group, you can select one layer, then hold down Shift to click on more layers.

If you ever want to select a layer inside of a Group, you can press the triangle to open the Group, and then look inside the Group to affect just that layer. If you would like to work more inside of your document rather than the Layers panel, you can double click on a Group to select a layer that is inside of a Group. Click once on the Bookshelf. Over in the Layers panel, you can see that the book is actually a Group.

If you zoom into the book, you can double click on one of the rectangles to select it. You have selected a rectangle that was inside of two Groups, without actually opening a Group and searching for it in the Layers panel. If you ever want to remove an object from a Group, open the Group, then click and drag the layer outside of the Group.

Groups are a great way to organize your layers, and I highly encourage you to use them. We’ve now isolated the Computer layer from the rest of the document. If you want a layer to take up your entire screen, you can double-click on the layer icon.

If you want to find a particular object in your document inside of your Layers panel, all you need to do is select the object inside of the document, and it will automatically be shown inside of your Layers panel. Double click on the pencil. Now we have selected the specific curve, and it is being shown in the Layers panel. Double click on the pencil one more time.

Finding individual layers inside of the Layers panel can be quite cumbersome. It is much easier to click on the object inside of the document, and have Affinity do the work to find it inside of the Layers panel for you.

Both allow you to group objects together and keep your document organized. Hold down Shift to select all of the rectangles, then drag them to the trash can. Select the Rectangle Tool. Click and drag to create a few rectangles.

In the Layers panel, we can see that each rectangle has become its own layer. This is fine for now, but if we continue this process, we will have far too many layers to work with.

In the Layers panel, we can see that all of the rectangles are beneath the new layer, and are acting like a Group, which can be closed like a Group. Select two of the rectangles. Press Command or Control G to group to rectangles.

Layers are very similar to Groups. Both allow you to put multiple objects in the same layer, allowing you to keep your Layers panel clean and organized. Because of this, each rectangle had a blue outline as we dragged it out.

Press the New Layer icon. Click on the Layer Color, then select a bright pink color. Scroll to the bottom, and select Properties. You can see that the rectangle has a pink outline. Click and drag to draw a rectangle. To see how this works, let’s make the turquoise circle a child layer of the text layer.

It looks like the circle disappeared, but if you select it in the Layers panel, it is still there. It will only appear where the text layer is because it is now clipped inside of it. To do this, click and drag the circle underneath the text layer, then to the right.

The parent and child layers work as a Group. If you select the parent layer the text layer you can move both of the layers at the same time. To make the circle its own layer again, and not a child layer, click and drag the layer above the parent layer again. Press Command or Control X to cut it. We are now going to make the blue circle inside of the turquoise circle. Select the blue circle. Select the turquoise circle.

Before pasting the circle, press the Intersect icon at the top right of the screen. The blue circle is now a child layer to the turquoise circle. Move the blue circle inside the turquoise circle. Press the Intersect icon at the top right of the screen. Move the dark blue circle into the blue circle. Just as with Groups, we can have child layers inside of child layers. At any time, we could change the Opacity of a circle.

Right now the Blend Mode is Normal. Normal is what we have seen throughout this course. It’s when one layer stacks on top of another layer to hide what’s beneath it.

The different Blend Modes allow you to change the blend of your layer to change how it interacts with the layer beneath it. Even if you don’t know how a Blend Mode works, Affinity Designer gives you a live preview as you hover over the options in the Blend Mode list. Darken gives a dark blend. Overlay combines the two layers together. For this layer, select Overlay.

In the Layers panel, uncheck the green rectangle. You can see that underneath the rectangle, there are nine circles. As we change the Blend Mode of the rectangle, it will affect the colors of the circles beneath it. Select Overlay. As we change the color, it will change how the colors blend together. Blend Modes are a powerful way to combine colors of multiple layers. Throughout the course, we’ll see more practical ways to blend layers together. The Fill color is the object’s main color, and it fills the center.

The Stroke is the color that outlines an object. To see the Fill and Stroke of an object, select it. Regardless of what tool you have selected, you can always see the Fill and Stroke in the Color panel.

The Fill of an object is represented by a filled in circle, while the Stroke is represented by a circle that has a circle cut out of it. You can see that the shape we have selected has a black Fill and no Stroke, because the Stroke has a red line going through it. We’ll learn more about Strokes later in the chapter, but for now, let’s change the color of the Fill. First, make sure that you are working with the Fill. To do this, click on the Fill circle. You’ll know that you are working with the Stroke now because the Stroke circle is on top of the Fill circle.

Click on the Fill circle, then choose new color from the Color Wheel. Right now, we are working with the Color Wheel, but you can change this option by clicking the icon at the top right of the Color panel. Let’s try working with Sliders. Since I am most comfortable working with the Color Wheel, I’m going to change back to that, but feel free to use whichever option works better for you.

Here, you can enter in numerical values for your color if you have a specific one in mind, or change your color to a new one.

If you click on the circle underneath Opacity, you can also add Noise to your color. You now know the foundational skills for changing colors in Affinity Designer.

We can find it in the Tools panel on the left side of our screen, or we can find it in the Color panel. These two Color Pickers are very similar, but have slightly different capabilities. Let’s learn about the Color Picker in the Color panel. To use this Color Picker, just click and drag on the icon, then move your cursor over a color that you would like to sample. I’m going to click and drag on it to select the white color that’s in the background.

Once the object is selected, press on the sample color circle to apply it. Even if we have a layer selected before sampling a color, we always need to click on the sample color circle to apply it to the object.

To apply that color to an object, first select the object. Even though the triangle layer is selected, the teal color will not be applied until the sample color circle is pressed. If I move the program window a bit on the right side, I can see my Desktop background. Click and drag the Color Picker to the Desktop color. This is a fairly unique and powerful feature of Affinity Designer. Select the other Color Picker. In the Context Toolbar, we have a feature that says Apply to Selection.

With this checked on, when we sample a color, it will automatically be applied to whatever we have selected. If you want, you can uncheck the Apply to Selection option. Without it checked, when you sample a color, it won’t immediately be applied to your layer, but will be stored in the sample color circle. It only allows us to select colors from inside our document. Check on Apply to Selection. However, the great thing about this Color Picker is that it allows us to change the Radius.

Right now, we are selecting a color from a Radius of Point 1 X 1 , but we can change this to Average X Now when you press anywhere inside of your document, your rounded rectangle will receive an averaged color from anywhere you click. If you click just outside the star, Designer will average the black and white colors, and will apply a grey to your rounded rectangle.

Both of the Color Pickers have their strengths and weaknesses, but by combining both of them, you should be able to easily select any color that you desire. To apply a swatch to an object, select the object or layer. Inside the Swatches panel, you can see that it has automatically made the last colors that we used into swatches.

Designer will remember the last 10 colors that were used, and put them in the Recent swatch category. Designer comes with some default swatch palettes. Right now, we are in the Greys, but we could use any of these categories. Select the Web Safe Colors. Then choose a red color to apply it.

Designer gives many other color palettes to work with, including Pantone color palettes. Press the icon in the top right corner to make a palette. Application Palette means that you can find the palette anytime you open Affinity Designer.

Document Palette means that the palette can be shared with others who have Affinity Designer. System Palette means you’ll be able to find this palette in other Affinity programs, such as Affinity Photo. Select Add Document Palette. Select Rename Palette. To add a new swatch, have the object selected that has the color we want, then press on the first painter palette. We can apply these exact colors to any future objects in our document.

When you are adding colors, make sure that you have the proper color circle selected, rather that be the Fill or Stroke color. If you have the Stroke color circle selected, and then press the first painter palette, you have added a no color swatch. Global swatches are special swatches that can be applied to multiple objects, and then if you change the color of the swatch, all of the objects with the swatch applied to them will have their color changed, too.

To make a Global swatch, have an object with a color selected, and then press the second painter palette. Apply this swatch to the heart and star by selecting them, and then pressing the swatch. To alter the color of the swatch, double-click on the swatch. In this case, the heart and star change colors. Let’s learn a couple more options for adding swatches to our document.

Go to the menu in the top right corner of the Color panel. You can edit the color of regular swatches as well, but it won’t change the objects that have the swatch applied unless a Global swatch is applied to the object. We can also can create a new palette based off of an image. Go to the menu at the top right corner, then scroll down to Create Palette From Image. Select the Spring Flowers image, then press Open. If we want to increase the number of swatches that Designer will make, we can change the number, then press Preview.

We can export our color palettes to share with other people, or import palettes from other people. You can change the location if you want, but I will keep mine as a Document palette, and then press Create.

We now have a beautiful palette of flat design colors that we can use on future Affinity Designer projects. Swatches are a powerful way to keep consistent color schemes throughout your designs.

Go to the menu at the top right corner, then press Appearance, then Large. Change the color by using the Color Wheel. We can see this by looking in the Context Toolbar. Now we can see the Stroke much better. Increase the size using the Context Toolbar. To switch the colors that are in the circles, press Shift X. A good shortcut to know to switch between your Fill and Stroke color circles is to press X. Change the Fill color by selecting the color circle, and then changing the color.

You’ll notice that nothing happens. This is just a simple line, and does not have a Fill color. Select the line at the bottom. You’ll notice that the line has no Fill and a black Stroke. Almost all objects have a Stroke and Fill applied to them, but some simple objects in Affinity Designer just have a Stroke. The first option we can change is the Style, and we will go over each of these one by one in this section.

We have the Solid Line stroke selected now. We can change the Width by dragging the slider. This feature is only relevant if the object is not a closed shape. Because this line is not closed, we can change the Cap option to determine how the ends of the line will look. Zoom into the end of the line. Change the Cap style to see the differences.

Zoom in to see how the join works. Select the heart, and give it a stroke by increasing the Width. With these options, we could have a round or sharp join when our object changes directions. The Align option changes where the stroke is placed relative to the blue outline. Change the Align options to see the differences. Right now the stroke is encroaching on the Fill. This is particularly evident if the Width is increased.

When Draw behind fill is checked on, the Fill will remain intact no matter the size of the Stroke. Increase the size of the heart again, then check on Scale with object. Typically, this is a good option to have checked on. Select the circle shape, then change the Style to Dash Line. With this type of Stroke, we have a new option at the bottom. The first number determines how big the dash is. The second number determines how big the gap is in between the dashes. As the numbers are increased, the sizes and gaps are increased.

The fourth number determines how big the alternating gaps are. Now to look at the Textured Line stroke, go to the star shape, and apply a stroke by selecting it, and then increasing the Width. To see the Stroke better, decrease the Width. Go to the Brushes panel. Press on Basic to see more brush options. Select any brush to see it applied as a stroke. Using the Textured Line gives more variety to your designs. While this section was long, hopefully you learned some useful tips to improving the Stroke in your designs.

Scroll to the bottom of the Layers panel to select the Background layer. Our Background layer is a rectangle that was drawn to cover the entire document, and then it was locked in place with the Lock icon. If you don’t like how the gradient looks, you can click and drag to create a new gradient at any time.

Select the Gradient Tool. To apply a gradient in a straight line, hold down Shift while dragging out the gradient. Click on the other color stop to change its color as well.

To move the entire gradient, hold down Command or Control, and then click and drag one of the color stops. To add a new color to the gradient, click anywhere on the gradient line, and a new color stop will be added. To delete a color stop, click on it, then press Delete. One easy option is to switch the colors by pressing the Switch icon. In the Context Toolbar, you can also change the Type of gradient.

Change the gradient to Radial. We now have blue in the center of the gradient that transitions evenly all around it to the green color. Move the green color stop toward the edge of the document. However, we might want to go back and change the gradient again.

To do this, select the layer that had the gradient applied to it, in this case, the Background layer. Then, select the Gradient Tool. Now the gradient can be adjusted again. To do this, make sure the Background layer is selected, then go to the Swatches panel.

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