Affinity Designer 1.8. From Zero To Superhero

Create new documents in affinity designer 1.8 using the redesigned new document dialog with presets, orientation, art board options, and custom presets in my presets for web or print handoff.

Open and manage Affinity Designer documents via file > open or Ctrl+O, or double-click when no document is open; embed Illustrator and PSD files with place and use document setup.

Master document viewing with zoom and pan controls, navigator panel, and custom view presets to quickly focus on different parts of large projects.

Explore view modes in Affinity Designer 1.8 to preview artwork as vector, pixel, retina pixel, or outline, using a split view to compare left vector and right pixel previews.

Explore artboards as discrete areas containing artwork for print or web, stored inside the layers panel, enabling multi-page layouts and multi-screen designs, with custom sizes and fillable colors or gradients.

Learn to create and remove artboards in Affinity Designer, choosing document-based or custom sizes, inserting device presets, duplicating boards, and deleting multiple boards from the layers panel.

Select artboards or artwork, move, resize, and rotate them with the transform panel, apply colors or gradients from color swatches, then align and distribute to space artboards precisely.

Learn how to export art boards in Affinity Designer, choosing whole document or individual boards, selecting file formats, and using export slices and the export persona for precise saves.

Learn to use Affinity Designer's basic shape tools—rectangle, ellipse, rounded rectangle, and trapezoid—switch with the M key, clone with Ctrl+J, and color and adjust corners via the context toolbar.

Explore how to use shape presets in Affinity Designer, including predefined custom shapes like arrows, stars, and hearts, and learn to create and organize your own presets into categories.

Master the pen tool in affinity designer 1.8 to create precise paths and polygons, exploring pen, rubber band, smart, and line modes, and refining with the node tool.

Master freehand drawing in Affinity Designer with the brush tool, customize strokes via the brushes panel and context toolbar, and refine color, width, opacity, and stabilizer for smoother results.

Apply solid fills and gradients to shapes and text with the fill tool. Create linear, radial, elliptical, conical, or bitmap gradients, adjust color stops, and refine fills and strokes.

Discover how symbols in Affinity Designer enable reusable artwork for web and UI, with changes in one symbol updating all instances, plus renaming, detaching, and independent edits.

Master clipping masks in Affinity Designer by creating clipping groups and using insert inside selection to place an image inside a shape, then adjust layers and release masks as needed.

Learn to customize any shape with the corner tool in Affinity Designer 1.8, rounding individual or multiple corners, changing corner types, and converting rounded corners to simple paths.

Discover how to use the appearance panel in Affinity Designer 1.8 to add multiple fills and strokes for dynamic effects, such as expanding strokes for a retro neon look.

Use the vector crop tool to crop vector objects and images non-destructively. Constrain with shift, or start from the center with control, using the bounding box as a clipping mask.

Learn to rotate, reflect, move, and resize objects in Affinity Designer using transform origin, transform panel, and quick toolbar options for both quick and precise transformations.

Align and distribute objects in Affinity Designer using vertical and horizontal alignment, artboard references, adjustable gaps with distribution, alignment handles for snapping edges, and stacking to control overlap.

Create complex shapes from simple objects in Affinity Designer using geometry options like add, subtract, intersect, and divide. Build a flower from overlapping ellipses with a stem and leaves.

Learn to work with typography in Affinity Designer using artistic text and frame text tools, control fonts, sizes, kerning, tracking, and stylistic alternates, and convert to curves for branding.

Explore creating and formatting paragraphs with the frame text tool in Affinity Designer, including text frames, filler text, paragraph alignment, bullets, expand field, and text on a path.

Learn to place text on a circular path around an ellipse, align center, adjust flow direction, and style with font, color, tracking, and glyphs to create badges and stickers.

Learn to add and adjust ruler guides and column guides, enable snap in, and set two columns with ten millimeters outer space for precise, grid-based layouts.

Explore layers and the layers panel to organize your design, rename and color-code layers, group objects, control visibility and opacity, and use masks and clips to manage assets.

Explore clipping masks and opacity masks in Affinity Designer, learn to clip and reveal parts of images, paint with black and white, and release masks for non-destructive edits.

Explore the stroke panel to control stroke style, width, joins, caps, and arrowheads (start or end), with scale options and pressure-based width profiles.

Experiment with the effects panel to apply non-destructive layer effects like outline, 3D, and gradient overlay. Adjust blend mode, opacity, radius, and alignment to make your artwork pop.

Discover how the history panel in Affinity Designer 1.8 records changes, lets you restore earlier states with branch icons, and save history with the document for future revisions.

Learn to save and print artwork in Affinity Designer with quick save shortcuts, auto save, and print ranges, then export options for pdf or jpg.

Affinity Designer saves for web and print using formats like JPEG, PNG, PDF, PSD, TIFF, and vector formats; access the export dialog to choose area and settings.

Use Affinity Designer's export persona to create slices with the slice tool, adjust export options, and export individual or all slices to a chosen folder.

Celebrate completing the course by gaining independence in Affinity Designer and mastering features like art boards, ship presets, symbols, text, guides, and panels for professional designs and a smoother workflow.