Book Image

Up and Running with Affinity Designer

By : Kevin House
Book Image

Up and Running with Affinity Designer

By: Kevin House

Overview of this book

Affinity Designer is a widely adopted creative application, and in a reasonably short space of time, it has become a leading design and illustration application. Affinity Designer, along with Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher, is part of a suite of award-winning creative software applications developed by Serif Europe. Built on the latest technologies, which make it fast and smooth, Affinity Designer is quickly becoming the go-to professional creative application for vector drawing and pixel-based painting. Up and Running with Affinity Designer is a comprehensive hands-on guide to the Affinity Designer software. Whether you're new to the creative industry, a seasoned professional looking for a proven alternative, or an enthusiastic hobbyist, this book will help you get up to speed in no time. You’ll learn how to create documents and explore workflow best practices while working through practical exercises using the knowledge and skills developed in each chapter to solidify your understanding of the fundamentals. Finally, you’ll bring it all together with real-world practical applications by building a fun logo and professional illustration, forming a base for in-depth exploration in your own projects. By the end of this Affinity Designer book, you'll have gained the knowledge and confidence to use Affinity Designer as part of your creative toolset.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Familiar with Affinity Designer's Interface and Layout
5
Section 2: Deeper Exploration of Affinity Designer's Documents, Tools, and Workflow
9
Chapter 7: Tools – Pixel Persona
12
Chapter 10: Workflow: Symbols, Assets, and History
13
Section 3: Bringing It All together

Main tools – Tools panel overview

In the default interface layout, the Tools panel is located as a column of vertical icons on the extreme left side of the window. Depending on which Persona is active, the tools displayed will change in appearance, as shown here:

Figure 1.21 – Three Persona tool panels with the Designer Persona additional tool flyouts

Figure 1.21 – Three Persona tool panels with the Designer Persona additional tool flyouts

If you look carefully, you'll notice in the case of the Designer Persona tool panel in the default setup, there are some nested tools indicated with flyouts below other related tools. The Pixel and Export Personas currently do not have any default flyout tools, although this may change in future updates.

The default order of the tools is set up for them to logically work with one another. The types of tools or tool groupings are as follows: Design tools, Shape tools, Text tools, Selection tools, Retouch tools, and Export tools. The specific tools for each Persona will be covered in full detail in Chapter 6, ToolsDesigner Persona, Chapter 7, ToolsPixel Persona, and Chapter 8, Tools, Panels, and ProcessExport Persona. As with many interface elements in Affinity Designer, you can customize how or which of the tools for each persona are shown, and you can even change the order if you wish. We will discuss this in much more in detail in Chapter 3, How to Customize Your Affinity Designer Workspace.