Affinity Designer 2 - The Crash Course for Beginners

Creating new Documents

Creating Documents is extremely simple but also incredibly important for your future projects. You will learn all about presets and how to change their settings to fit your project the best.

The User Interface

Understanding the User Interface is crucial in navigating any software confidently. So in this Lecture you're going to learn where you can find the different tools, panels and more in Affinity Designer 2.

Navigation is Key

In this Lecture we're going to take a look at the different ways to navigate on the canvas. At the end of this Lecture you will have the confidence to navigate the canvas using the different tools, panels and keyboard shortcuts.

Working with Shape Tools

Becoming confident in using the different Shape Tools is highly important to create the designs and Illustrations you want to create. So, in this Lecture that is what we're going to cover. We'll be taking a look at how to create and manipulate different Shapes easily and how we can apply some basic color to them as well.

The Basics of working with Color

In this Lecture you'll be learning the basics of working with all sorts of color. We'll be taking a look at the color panel and the swatches panel, as well as how to create your own pallets and swatches that you can use on multiple documents.

Gradients & Global Swatches

Working with Gradients is extremely easy within Affinity Designer and in this Lecture I'm going to show you how to create them. We'll also cover global swatches to make changes across our document in no time at all.

The Pen Tool

Mastering the Pen Tool is very important to create all sorts of different shapes. It may seem a little intimidating at first, but don't worry, it's actually not that complex of a tool to master. So in this Lecture we're going to learn how to use the Pen Tool!

Starting our Project

In this Lecture we'll be starting our first practice project, a Flat Design Character! We'll start out by setting up the document and saving it to your computer.

Groups, Layers & Rounded Rectangles

In this Lecture we're going to build the basic shape of our character by using rounded rectangles and circles. During this process you will learn how to create groups and how to use the layers panel as well!

Facial Features

In this Lecture we're going to be adding facial features such as the eyes, the nose and the mouth using different shapes and tools we've learnt previously.

The Shape Builder

In this Lecture we're going to be giving our Character a nice simple hairstyle by using different shapes and combining them using the new Shape Builder Tool.

Adding some Clothes - The Final Touches

In this Lecture we're going to convert some shapes into curves and finish up our first Project by giving our Character some clothes!

The Export Persona

In this Lecture we're going to export our Character using the Export Persona.

Final Project - Working with Guides

In this Lecture we'll start working on the final Project of this Course. We'll create our new Document and learn how to work with Guides.

Working with Images

Importing Images and working with them in Affinity Designer 2 is very easy and in this Lecture you will learn all about it!

We'll add a nice Background Image to our Document and also add a dark transparent shape on top of it to create some much needed contrast later on.

Alignment Options

In this Lecture we're going to create a simple Button and learn how to align all of our Objects perfectly.

The Frame Text Tool

In this Lecture we're going to finish up our main Content and learn how to use the Frame Text Tool, as well as how to insert some easy to use filler text directly within Affinity Designer 2.

The Quick FX Panel & Gaussian Blur

In this final Lecture we're going to take a quick look at the Quick FX Panel and create a nice Gaussian Blur effect for our Background Image.