Affinity Designer 1. 8 From Zero To Superhero

1. Promo video: have you been looking for a cheaper and super powerful alternative to adobes products? Well, now you've found it. Hi, I'm David and let me help you discover Affinity Designer 1.8, which brings in a lot of new features, tools and improvements to make your design work much, much easier. So let's take a look at what you will find inside. Inside the scores, you will learn how to create new documents and art boards, how to create, customize and transform your artwork using new shape presets and the pentacle and point transform tool and how to work with text, including text on a path and how to use the most important panels, like layers, stroke or history and trance me lots and lots more. Basically, you will learn all you need to make your designs from dropping that very first note to hit in the export button. And hopefully, by the end of the course, you'll be able to work with designer absolutely independently. So let's jump inside 2. 1What is Affinity Designer: affinity designer is a factor graphic design application that has taken the designer soft world by storm. More and more graphic design enthusiasts appreciate it's easy to use yet powerful tools and , of course, the price. You can use designer to create basically any kind of actor graphic design project such as logo design, digital illustrations, website designs, mobile app designs. Icahn's pattern is end Other factor design assets. However, the list dozen and here affinity designer introduces a unique concept off personas, which basically is a way of gathering different functionalities and tools in a one piece of software. So, apart from the standard of actor persona, with the older traditional of actor design tools like the shape tools, the panto, etcetera, you get a pixel persona for doing pixel adjustments on photos and an export persona for some more complex exporting jobs. Designer is a bit like a graphic designer Swiss Army knife. In a one piece of software, you get tools and options that allow you to complete basically any kind of graphic design task. This course is main goal is to get you up in the running with the most important vector tools and options that come with designer. And let me tell you, there is quite a lot of them, including the selection. And the art board told the creation tools, like the shaped stools, the pan tal or the brush tool, the adjustment tools like the filter, all that transparency tool over the crop toe and the typography tools and many others. And if you're not completely new to graphic design software, a lot of options or concepts might seem familiar to you, and it will make the whole learning curve not as steep for you. However, if a designer is your first approach at learning and graphic design tools, don't worry. We're going to take things nice and easy and make the whole learning process simple and enjoyable. We're not just going to be talking about certain tools and options. You can find a news here. We are also going to take what we've learned and use it to create practical projects. I believe that this approach will help you learn faster and really experience the potential off affinity designer. But we won't be digging into every little detail, though I don't want us to get stuck at the technicalities and spend way too much time on things that at the end of the day don't really proved to be essential in a day today. Graphic designers job. Instead, we will focus on everything that will push on a fast track to get you from zero to superhero level. So without further ado, let's start our affinity designer adventure with exploring the programs interface. 3. 2Let’s take a look around and explore the interface: affinity designer is not really different than other pieces of graphic designer software, as in it is logically divided into separate parts that host different features. At the top, you have the main application bar with all the menus, like file at it, text layer, etcetera. Below you will find the controlled toolbar with the tools and adjustments that are pretty much constant. Here you'll find tools like that personas toolbar, the view modes that stacking order the orientation and the alignment options that's snapping options. The geometry options to create more complex shapes and the drawing modes. For instance, join inside or behind existing objects. Every time you select a tool from the two books on the left, you will see an additional set of options appearing beneath the controlled pool bar that's called the Context Pool Bar and Host Tool specific options correspondent with the Active tool. Remember that you won't see the context toolbar unless you have a document open up by default. Suttles, like the artistic text, the triangle and the no totals have a small black arrow next to the primary tools I come. That means that it actually is a group of tools and If you click on any of them, you will reveal additional tools that are connected to the main one. Of course, the way the toolbar and the tool books are being presented to you is not fixed. You can customize their appearance quite freely. The toolbar customization in affinity Designer begins with turning its visibility on and off, and you can do that by going to the view menu and choosing show toolbar and totally in this option on an off will make the toolbar visible or hidden and hiding. The toolbar will also hide the context toolbar. But if you wish to leave the tuber visible and hide only the context toolbar again, just head over to the View menu and click on the show context Toolbar option. Sinister. It is visible by default. Click in this option will hide it, leaving the toolbar intact. You can also tell if it into designer which tools and options you want to be displayed in the toolbar. All you need to do is to go to the View menu and choose customize toolbar. The window that pops up as soon as you activated the customized Tober option hosts all the tools that can be added to the toolbar. So if you think that you could use one of the tools that it's missing from your toolbar, just grab it and drag it up to doc it with the rest of the tools. On the other hand, if you think that the tuber is cluttered with unnecessary tools, you can drag out of the ones you don't need and drop them either in their customized Tober window or anywhere in your document. Sometimes you can go a little too far with adding and removing tools from the tool bar. So when you get yourself trapped in the customization process and what you end up with is a messy toolbar where you can find what you're looking for, you need to reset the toolbar, and the most intuitive way of resetting the toolbar would be just by hearing some sort of a reset button. But there isn't one in designer. In order to reset the toolbar, you need to drag the default group, play out in the toolbar to bring back all default tools in their default spots. And if you're really starting out and you get confused by all the icons in the toolbar in the bottom left corner. You can choose to display names off the group with the icons instead of just the items. Of course, you can customize the tool books as well. You can change it's appearance by going to the view menu and choosing the customized tools option to every tool to the toolbox. Simply drag one to a spot where you want the tool to be kept. And if you don't need a specific tool, just drag it out of the tool box. You can add each and every tool available, even the ones that, by default are hidden behind the primary tools. For instance, if you want to make the frame textile always visible, you can drag it into the tools panel, regardless of the fact that it already is inside the panel of it hidden behind the artistic tax tool. If you want, you can organize your tools in multiple columns. Just choose Thea pro PRI. It number from the switcher in the bottom left corner. You can put your tools in as many as eight columns on the right hand side. We got the panels that collectively are called the studio. You can find the list off all available panels. When you go to the View menu and then choose studio, each tick sign to the left of the panels name suggests that a specific panel is active. If you click on a panel name, you'll close that panel, and if you click on it again, you will bring it back. You can move them around and, ah, docked um, basically anywhere you like. Just wait for the blue halo to appear and then release the left mouse button to dog the panel in place. Some panels come with additional menus you can activate by clicking in the top right corner . This will reveal a list off panel specific options. Lastly, you can adjust the overall appearance off a designer's you I men and you can switch between the light and the dark mode. All you need to do is to go to the edit menu and then choose preferences in the box that pops up. Choose the user interface. Aiken, The U I switch sits right below the top. Sliders struggle between the dark and light modes to see the difference in the UAE appearance, which luckily is instantaneous. I mean, you don't need to click OK anywhere to see the change, but you can play around with the sliders to customize the look and feel off the selected US scheme even further. I know it's quite a lot to take in it. Wanna go? So I would like it to take a moment and get yourself familiar with the interface. So just go ahead and click around, changed the toolbar and the toolbox to add and remove tools. Also change the appearance of the studio to add and remove panels and changed the you I modes and customize them with the appropriate sliders just so you get the hang of it so we can later start using designer for real and create our first new document. 4. 3How to create new documents: create any new document is the first and probably the most crucial step in a digital design process. If you want to avoid problems with your documents when handling them over to a Web developer or a print shop, you need to know how to properly set them up. If you have a vanilla affinity designer installation, you almost probably see a welcome a screen every time you start up the program, and you can create your new document directly from here simply by clicking the new document button you can find in the bottom right corner. And this will open up the very same new document dialog box. You can access that traditional way simply by heading over to the file menu and then choose in new. As soon as you do that, a new window pops up where you can specify settings and page dimensions, depending on the purpose of your document. So since the designer 1.8, you'll see a completely redesigned new document dialog box that's basically divided into three sections On the left, you will find of the presets and templates, Aiken's and with the presets selected on the right side, you'll find tamps with various pre defined document sizes that you can check on the far right. And there you can also change the orientation off the page as well as decide whether you want to create and hardboard or not. So once you're set on the present, just hit create to actually create a new document from that precinct. Of course, you can always modify all the valleys off the document you want to create. You can change the size units, orientation, etcetera and what's nuisance? Actually, Designer 1.7 is Theobald City to create your own custom document presets. So, for example, you want to choose the Web type for your document. But you want to set some specific dimensions, say, for like, a Web better or maybe an ad. So just enter those dimensions in the appropriate box is and then choose a small plus button sitting right next to to the custom text and that will put your preset in the my presets tab. Unfortunately, it will get a generic name like unnamed one, and there is no way to change it. Upon creating your present, however, you can right click on the preset and choose rename preset And then, of course, answering your name in the box that pops up From now on, your new preset will sit inside that my presets stab with a new name. So these are the most important aspects of creating new documents in designer 1.8. For now, let's not clatter our hats with color formats and margins. Let's keep them simple and move on to managing and view, and you're already created documents. 5. 4How to manage already created documents: each of your previously created documents can be opened in one off three different ways. You can head over to the file menu and the choose open, which will open up a standard open window. All you need to do is to search for the folly one open and just double click on it. So that's the standard. But ah, in my opinion, a bit of a slow way. I am a fan of shortcuts. You know both the keyboard and the ones that are someone hidden in the program. So to open up a document in designer, you can always just use the control plus oh, keyboard shortcut, which will start up the same open command. Alternatively, you can double click anywhere in the document window provided. No other document is already opened. So design lets you open any file created in any program in the F unity family like affinity photo and publisher, but also typical a raster files like J Picks or P and G's and, of course, of actor files like GPS or as VG. But that's definitely not old. What's great about this piece of software is that it also allows you to open on files like a I or PSD. So if you have a library off previously created illustrator and photo show piles, you can open them up in designer, usually preserving the original surprisingly well. In most cases, the program will open up with you original layers and even masks. So once your document is open, you can still change it settings using the document set up command. And to do that, simply head over to the file menu and choose documents set up. Alternatively, you can use the control plus shift plus P keyboard short in the dialog box that pops up. You'll be able to change all the aspects of your document that you said when you are creating it. If you want to work on multiple documents at the same time without the need off, opening them in a separate windows, you can use the in bad documents function, head over to the file menu and choose place. This will allow you to navigate to the place you you keep the document you wish doing bad and, ah, once you found it, just hit open to place it inside the current document, and you can place virtually any design file You wish and AI file a PSD file and as v g or a P s. But also pdf's and even text files that you can freely added. You cannot place images, though using this function. For that, you would have to choose the place image toe would share. We will talk about later, so this is how you can open and manage documents you have already created. It's a straightforward process that shouldn't give you too much trouble. So now let's move on to you and your documents inside Designer, as some aspects of it are pretty special. 6. 5How to view your documents: when we are talking about viewing documents, we don't just really mean looking at them, but rather inspecting their appearance for a more technical point of view. So if you're working on a large project, you need to have total control over zoom in Panin or creating custom views and designer offers. Several Zuman impending options, including the zoom tool, the View tool and the Navigator panel. And using the zoom tool is a straightforward process. So with the tool selected, click and drag right to zoom in on a certain part of the document and click and drag to the left to zoom out. Alternatively, you can just click to zoom in by a defined increment or alter click to zoom out by a defined increment to temporarily switch to the zoom toe. Press the space bar and the control key in that sequence. If you press the control key first and then the space bar designer won't activate Zoom Tool , which to me is a bit counterintuitive. And if you want to be really precise with zoom level used, the contacts toolbar in the upper left corner. You'll see a Zoomer value you're currently on and a click insiders inbox and enter the zoom value of your choice. You can also click on their little arrow on the right to choose from one off the pre defined zoom values, and using the slider will give you basically the same results as using the zoom toe. So move the slider right to zoom in and then move this leather left to zoom out. Also, if you quickly want to reset the zoom level just to use one off the handiest shortcuts, which is a control plus one, so that's the zoom tool. But what about the view, too? Now the view tool allows you toe pan across your document and the best production technique when using this tool is simply to press and hold on the space bar just to temporarily switch to the view, too. And once you've done it, click and drag to move the document around. If you want to send to your canvasback, simply double click with the tool anywhere in the document window and you will achieve the same effect by double clicking on the view tool in the tools panel. Unfortunately, this trick doesn't work with the tool temporarily being turned on by holding down the space bar. But viewing big, especially vertically oriented documents, can be simplified even further by using the Navigator panel. And I bet you'll love it if you're planning to create posters or websites in designer, so the panel is turned on by default, and you will find it doctor, along with the transform and history panels. So move this lighter button inside the Navigator panel to zoom in or out from a part of your document, or use the plus and minus buttons to do the same. When you really zoomed in, a gray square appears in the pretty box, showing you which parts you. You're exactly viewing. And this feature can be particularly helpful when you want to create custom views of your artwork. So say you're working in a large document, and you need to repeatedly move between different parts of it. And, ah, it can be really annoying, having to click and drag just to get to a specific part of the document window. So to simplify the process, you can create a set off custom views. So from the Powell on menu, first the choose advanced and then at the bottom of the panel, you will notice a small list with a cog next to it. So click the cog and choose. Add. Now, this will let you at a custom you preset based on which part of your document you're currently positioned on. You can, of course, repeat the process for any view you you would like to create. So once you have a set off custom views, you can just select them from the bottom, drop down menu toe quickly move between different parts of your document. So these are the most fundamental and the most useful viewing techniques in designer, and I believe that learning them will make a work low much, much faster. 7. 6How to use the view modes: If you want to take total control off, how your artwork is being presented, you can use designers of viewing modes, and you're gonna switch between them using a dedicated group in the control toolbar. So first we got the fact remote, which is the default one. Because, of course, designer is primarily a factor designed tool, so you won't find a specific I can for the factor mode because it's the default one. But then you got the pixel mode, which allows you to preview your artwork as if it was composed of pixels, not vectors. Then we got to the retina pixel mode, and this allows you to preview your work as if it was rendered on high pixel density screens. And, of course, we got the outline mode, which allows it to view just that, like a bare bone structure of your artwork, which means that you'll see just the paths without any effects applied to them. And I think that the easiest way to understand the viewing Moz would be by, you know, using a simple example. So with any factor, file open from the view menu, choose view, motive and then choose split, and this will make a big third ical black bar appear on the screen, and this allows us to use different viewing modes on the different sides. So by default on the left, you will see the standard HVAC ter preview and on the right, the pixel preview, and you might be wondering how this is helpful. So putting your art workers side by side will let you judge what it will look like once it leaves your canvas. And, for instance, it lands in someone else's Web browser. So the pixel viewing mode will show you the artwork as it would be presented on computers, tablets and smartphones. So it's pretty important to control that aspect of your work. And, of course, if you want to, you can change the view and mode. So first select the side of the screen. You want to change the view and Modoff and then from the control toolbar, click on one of the icons representing a specific viewing mode, and you can also drag the center bar to the left on to the right to say, apply mawr off the viewing mode to each part of the artwork, or you can just move your art board or page around to basically achieve the same effect. So once you're done with the Previa, you can go to the view menu, then choose view mode and then choose single view. I think we got the document creation and viewing techniques pretty well covered. And of course, I'd like you to practice a bit on your own. So create new documents using different presets, create custom presets, used the view and tools and definitely get yourself familiar with the view and modes. And once you do, that will be able to move on to creating art wards in affinity. Designer. 8. 7What are artboards: If you're not too familiar with the concept off art words, let me just explain that don't very briefly So our boards are like discreet design areas that encompass the artwork that will be printed or saved for Web, of course, depending on the type of the design you're working on. So anything falling outside the art boards will be basically considered as notes or sketches that you don't want your audience to see so it won't print and it won't get saved for the Web. So our words let you basically create multi page print documents or simulate a multi screen environment like a website design or a mobile app design. Their size can be based on default presets, but it can also be customized to render any media Sisay wound. Of course, you could move them around to arrange them just the way you need. Now there's a few special things about art boards in designer, so first of all, there is no dedicated panel for them. All your hard words sit inside the layers panel and a Secondly, art boards enough in into designer can be filled with a solid color orig radiant. You know that makes just the Web and mobile app design jobs much, much faster. So imagine creating a landing page in designer and imagine that you want to have the background filled with a specific color. Now in designer, you don't have to create a separate object to know that was served as a background. All you need to do is to fill the our board, where they soon with a color that you want and also traditionally, our boards are squares or rectangles that basically cannot be rotated. But designer lets you create our words out off any shape, rotated by any degree value that you would like. But, you know, before we jump into transforming our reports, maybe let's first just take a look at creating and removing them inside. Affinity designer. I just wanted to quickly show the concept off our boards, and now we can move on to the specifics 9. 8What are artboards: There are three major ways of creating art board scene designer. So when creating a new document, you can check the create art word option sitting right beneath the document, two units setting. Now, with this option checked, the newly created document will contain an or board, of course, using the document dimensions that you choose. So if you choose not to create your boards, the document will contain Onley blank page without the typical our board attributes. So, for instance, you won't be able to freely move or resize the page. Of course, unless you change it, change its sights of the document options. But you definitely won't be able to fill it with a color, and the objects will get clipped. Want to move them out of the page? However, even if you missed the option to create an art aboard with the document or no decided not to create it, but then you just change your mind. You can always use the art aboard, too. Simply grab it from the tools panel and then just click and drag to determine the size of a new art board. You know, depending on the design, job fuel either create an art aboard to whose size will be based more on the comfort of working rather than a specific sizes. However, if the latter is the case because, for instance, you're treating a Web layout or a mobile play out designer can let you set specific size of your hard words. So, first of all, when you activated the art aboard, too, the Context toolbar is giving you an option to insert an art award using a pre defined size . So from the menu you can choose the in. A certain art abort is in the document size or using one off the device specific sizes, and the list is pretty long, and you can choose from devices such as iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch or Google Nexus. And once you're set of the template you wish to use for your art board and I'll just press the insert art board bottoms sitting on the right, and the process is so small that even gives you the our boat. Ah, name correspondent with a specific device. And if you can't find the device size you wish to use for your artwork or you needed some custom size, here's what you can do. First, select the art abort you wish to change and then move on to the transform panel and enter their desired with and height values there and in designer, you can also create an art abort from an object. So, for instance, let's just quickly grab a rectangle tool and create a simple, direct and go looking more or less like this. Then let's head over to the R Barstow and from the size option. Let's choose selection right here and then let's just hit Insert art aboard. So what happens now is we have an art board right here, and we also still have our our original shape. And when you need multiple art words off the same size, your best bet is to simply duplicate the one you already have. So to duplicate in Art aboard, you can control click riven old click on it with the move toe or D are both two and then just drag it. But even if that's too much for you, you can just grab the or board and then head onto the edit menu and choose duplicate selection, which, by the way, has a very handy short cut off control plus J that will allow you to duplicate it, not just the onboard spot, any objects you create. So, luckily, removing or words is much more straightforward. All you need to do is to grab an art ability, were too elite and then press the backspace key or that lead key. Alternatively, you could remove a Nard ward by selecting it in the layers panel and by pressing the trash icon and even always dragged the our board in the layers panel to that trash Can I come? And to remove multiple art boards at once, you first need to select them in the layers panel by clicking on them while holding down the shift key. And then the process is basically the same as before. Just press the backspace key or used the trash Aiken to delete their selected art aboards. These are all that techniques you can use when creating and remove in art words. Next stop will take a look at how to manage the art awards inside affinity design 10. 9What are artboards: art words can be repositioned within a document window, and you can resize them at any stage over the design process. Remember that, as with any other object, in order to effect an art aboard first you need to select, and you can easily select on our board using either the move toe or the art abort tool that you can pick up from the tools panel and likely they sit right next to each other. So once you do that, once you select an artwork, you'll be able to move it around by clicking on it and dragon it. You can also change the size of any our report by Dragon, one of its corners. Now, if you need to rotate an artwork, just enter any value in the rotation window inside to the transform panel. There is one extremely important thing you need to be aware off in order to truly understand how how the arbors in affinity designer think any object sitting on a Northport will get clipped to its edges by default. However, if you drag it away from an audible too far enough, it will get detached from it. And by the way, on Lee Then, when inaudible is empty, you'll be able to control it with the move to, as you already know, solid colors. Ingredients can be added to our boat using the color or swatches panels or even the filter . All you need to do is to select an art aboard and then just select the color. Notice, though, that if you select the art aboard with the move toe, you'll be able to add the fill color from both the context toolbar and the panels. However, if you select on our board with the art aboard tool in the context, Khobar won't let you end of the fill color who have to select it from either the color or the swatches panel. Our reports, just like other objects, can be aligned and distributed. So the easiest way to align or distribute our boards is by using the alignment option in the tool part. When you select more than one art abort, the element option will allow you to line our boards horizontally or vertically to the center, to the bottom or to the top. On the other hand, distributed our boards is particularly useful when you're working on a document that contains more than two art boards. So if you want equal distances between, our two boards, used their distribution options inside at the alignment panel, so you can use the auto distribute options to maintain default distances between your art boards. Or you can specify the exact distance in pixels that you would like to have between your art boards. So these are the waste you can organize your art aborts. It's important to know how the reposition and distribute them. It really makes the design process much more effective, faster and professional. 11. 10How to export the artboards: If you need to save your artwork, designer lets you export your art awards in a single file or as separate files if you need to quickly save your work as images. For instance, for Web use simply head over to the file menu and choose export. By the way, the keyboard shortcuts will find here control plus all plus Shift Plus, as is the same as the safe for Web command shortcut you can find in other applications, so it might give you an idea off what's about to happen. So in the dialog box that pops up, you can choose from different file Four months of suitable for different kinds of design jobs and choosing different file formats opens up different saving options. But what's important to hear is Theo area selector. So here you can choose to export the whole document, which would include all the art of boards. Or you can simply choose the order bolts name, which would only save ah, the contents that are on that specific art abort. So once already just hit export. Find a place to store your file and you're done, and that's the most straightforward way off exporting your art boards. But for full control, however, you need to head over to the export persona. So let's keep it simple for now and notice that the export persona lets you save each individual our report using different settings. So first, select an art aboard and then from the export options you can choose. Or you could modify a certain preset to ultimately get to files in different formats. So once you're ready in the bottom right corner, you'll find the export slices button, along with a number of files that ultimately will be produced through export. When you click on it, designer will ask you to indicate the place where you want to save your files, and once you found it, just hit export and ah, program will export all your art Birds, along with all the sightings, have set for each art aboard. So just to wrap things up or birds are one of the most powerful tools that designers disposal. You know they can make. Design is so much easier and way better organized, and designer gives you some great options when it comes to handling our boards, and few spend some time to understand them. Your life is a design will become easier and happier 12. 11The Drawing Shapes Tools: affinity designer gives you a decent choice off various pre defined shapes you can quickly create. Now the most of basic ones are the rectangle, the L lips and the rounded rectangle tools that you can find sitting close to each other in the tools panel. And the quickest way to initialize any of these tools is by pressing the M key on your keyboard, and if you compress in it, you'll be switching between these tools. So let's see how to draw shapes in designer and how to customise them on a very simple, practical example. First, grab the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle by clicking and dragon to change the size of the shape. You can also press and hold down the control key on your keyboard to start the creation process from the center point. Now let's fill the shape with a color, so just double click on the philae. Come in the tools panel to open the color chooser. In here, you can choose the colors using this slider on top and then of the collar window bilow. So once you're set on the color, just click close. So once a, the shape is created we can now clone it. So the quickest way to clone an object is by, as you may remember, pressing the control plus J shortcut, and this will put the rectangle on top off the existing one. Now we can resize that the newly created shape and we can do it by using them. Move toe. You can hold down the control key to resize it from the center spot, and now we can fill it with, say, pale blue. Color Designer uses something that is called a context toolbar that offers different adjustment options, depending on the tool use and the shape you create. For instance, if we grab the rectangle in the context toolbar, we can change the quarter Type two rounded, and this will around old the corners. But if we want to round on Lee selected ones, we need to uncheck the single radius option. And, ah, now we can around, for instance, only the top corners and make the button ones sharp. Just to practice this functionality, let's create another rectangle, but this time let's make it smaller and attach it to the bottom of the existing ones. Let's also around only the bottom corners and finally, let's fill it with a great color. So now let's grab the Ellipse, too. Let's click and drag to create an ellipse, and the shape that you'll be getting initially is definitely far from being a perfect circle. So to constrain their proportions while creating any shape, just press and hold down the shift key, which in this case will result in creating a perfect ellipse. No reposition on the ellipse eso It sits in the center off the bottom rectangle, and as you probably noticed, we're creating a simple computer right here. But we are not done yet. We they stand for our monitor. So let's created with another tool, which is called of The trap is oId tool, and you can find it in the triangle tool group. So with the tool active, just click and drag to create a trapezoid, and once it's ready, just move it so it snaps with the monitor. At this point, we can change the size of it, but we also can change the character of the trapezoid to use in the left point and the right point options in the context toolbar, so changing them will move the right or left side off the trapezoid. Just remember that if you want to retain a symmetrical shape, you need to enter the values so that some upto 100 silver instance. If we set to the left point to 10% the right one needs to be set to 90%. And lastly, let's it fill it with a darker gray color now, so let's finish the stand using the rounded rectangle tool. Let's make it fairly narrow. And of course, we can around the corners to the max, using the context toolbar that's also fill it with a light gray color, and we are basically done with creating the computer. So what's most important here is that we learned the basic ways off using the shape tools in designer. Of course, there is much more to discover. For instance, under the Triangle tool, you'll find lots off pre defined shaped ALS, which I encourage you to experiment with all the roads and techniques used to create an adjust, the basic shapes you can apply to create the custom shaped stools. So remember to press and hold the control key to start the creation process from the center spot and president, hold down the shift key to constrain the proportions and also used the context toolbar to modify to specific options. And with affinity. Designer 1.7 You can also use shape presets. It's a completely new feature that can streamline their shape creation process, so let's take a look at it next. 13. 12How to use shape presets: with a Fendi designer comes a variety off pre defined custom shapes. And if you're wondering how to create arrows, stars or hearts, just head over to the custom shaped stools in the Tools panel. In here, you'll find almost 20 shape tools, and each one of them has a unique customization features. But what's new to affinity designer is that now you can create your own favorite shape setups so you can easily use them again, which, ever pre defined shape, told the juice in the context toolbar. You will see a little cog icon, which, when pressed, will open up a set of pre defined shapes based on the default options available for the selected tools. So shape presets work a bit counter intuitively. So from the Presets library, you cannot just drag out a shape onto the art board. Instead, you need to first create a shape and then click on any of the presets to change its appearance. Of course, you can create your own shape presets. All going to do is to create any shape you like and customize it to your heart's content. Click on the Cog icon in the Context toolbar and from the panel menu in the top right corner. Choose, create preset in the window that pops up. You can specify the presets name and also from the same panel. You can choose the manage presets option, which will open up all the available shape presets. And in this panel you can create a new category, reset default presets, import or export them. But most of all, you can filter all the available presets just so you can in one place, explore all the available presets. All you have to do is to select a shape from the list on the right, and on the left side, all the priests available for that specific shape will be revealed. Unfortunately, you cannot turn one shape into another using presets, for instance, you cannot turn a store into a heart. You are basically just constrained to presets based on the specific initial shape. So that's something to bear in mind. So all in all shape presets are a nice and quick way of creating custom shape variations, and you can quickly build the library's off user defined objects that will definitely speed up your workflow 14. 13How to use the Pen tool: the mental is undoubtedly one of the most important design tools ever. It's a mainly used to create freehand lines between sharp or a rounded corners and in affinity Designer path stretches from one point called a node to another. And that's exactly what the pen tool does that once you grab the panel from the tools panel or you initialize it by pressing the PQ on your keyboard in the context Wilbur, you'll notice quite a lot off action buttons that modify the PATH creation process. So the 1st 1 the pen mode, offers the classic mental behaviour Simple. Clicking will create straight path segments, and the clicking and dragon will create smooth path segments. When you click and drag, you'll see direction handles that indicate the overall direction and feel off the next segment. Unfortunately, quite often, you won't get exactly the results you looking for, partially because you can't really see what the next line is going to look like once you drop a note. But since a fancy designer 1.7, you can now use the robber band mode, which allows you to preview the next line, and that makes the shape creation process much much easier and definitely much more predictable and to make the shape creation process easier, you could also try this smart mode, which will try to smooth out of the past for you. If you're simply click and don't drag, however, you don't get too much control over the look of the paths When using this mode and to create closed polygons, use that polygon mode, which will allow you to create triangles, squares and other political shapes. And the last term mode, the the line mode creates what the name suggests. So it creates straight lines from one note to the 2nd 1 when learning how to use the pen tal and even later, once you really know how to use it. So chances are that you're not going to be getting the right shape the first time. And in designer, there's a few ways you can adjust already created paths. For instance, you can grab the Noto from the Tools panel and click on any note to bring up that direction handles. If it's a smooth note, of course, and then just click and drag to change the curvature off the path segment, and you can always press and hold on the old key. If you want to alter only one part of the segment with the no till you can also click and drag, I note to move the path segment, or you can click on an empty segment to add a node. So with the path segment selected and the node tool active in the context toolbar, you'll notice a convert section. And from here you can use one off the three pre defined actions that will help you convert a note into a sharp one, a smooth one or a smart one. Using the action group, you can also, for instance, ah, break a curve or close it or create a closed Fila ble object. A very useful feature that came with Designer 1.7 is the ability to select nodes last so style. Now, unfortunately, you have to select the whole object first, which is a bit counterintuitive. Eso you Can you use this new functionality, but once the object is selected, you can now select Onley specific notes by holding the old Kim and then dragging around the notes you wish to select. Penn is a very powerful and versatile to that can be a bit intimidating at first, but Designer 1.7 makes using it easier and flexible than before, especially the new Moz. Like the rubber band mode, combined with a little bit of practice and patients will allow it to create to truly stunning artwork. I want to combine its power with the power of the no total. You'll be able to create free form shapes easily and with great precision. 15. 14How to use brushes in Affinity Designer: affinity designer allows you to create Freehand shapes, not just the pre defined ones, and the best way to draw swooshes ornaments, waves etcetera is by using brushes. So to draw brushstrokes in designer, you need to use the factor brush tool, which you can activate by clicking. It's I got in the tools panel or simply by pressing the B key on your keyboard. Brushstrokes can be painted it directly on the art board, or they can be added to already existing paths. And every time you either paint or add a brushstroke, you could modify it using the brushes panel Ortho Context toolbar. Every time you click and drag, you will create a brushstroke that will have a stroke applied to it, but it won't have a film, so by default you will apply the basic brushstroke. But you can choose any other brush stroke type from the Brushes panel. Using the Context toolbar, you can adjust different aspects of the brush strokes before painting, so we can, for instance, a set the color off the stroke. You can said it's with or capacity to control the overall look and feel off the stroke. What's important to understand is that all these values are applied before you draw a stroke. Once it is there on the canvas, you can modify it just like you would modify a stroke, not a brush, which means that if you activated the brush tool again, you will start creating a new stroke, not modify the existing one. And this actually is a great thing because you don't need to expand any paths. You can just grab one and edit it as a normal stroke so you can change the color. Do with the blend mode, etcetera, and using the note to you can change the position and band of the notes to completely change the look of the stroke. All your brushes sit in the brushes panel that you can access from the studio tab, and in here you'll see a drop down list with all the brush categories at your disposal. So select one of them to reveal a set off process and then click on any of them and provided that you have the brush still active, you can just click and drag to create a brush stroke. And if you need to customize the brushstroke, simply double click on its thumbnail in the Brushes panel. And in the dialog box that pops up. You can change the brushes appearance options such as its with size variants or opacity variants. But what's really cool is the stab allies er option you can select in the context toolbar. Once its own, your brush strokes will be much more controlled and smoother. So these are the basics of using the brush tool in designer brushes. Come in really handy when you want to create some free hand work like paintings or digital illustrations. 16. 15How To Add Gradients Using the Fill Tool: With the filter, you can change the Phil and stroke colors of shapes and text objects. Interestingly enough, the filter should really be named the Grady INTs tool as it shines when it comes to add ingredients to Phil's and strokes. It even has a keyboard shortcut. The letter G, which is more suitable for a great inter plying talk. OK, but how does this tool work? So with an object selected grabbed the fill tool from the tools panel. The context Will. Barton now displays options you can use to add solid colors and the Grady ants to a selected object. The context option allows you to choose which part the Phil or the stroke off the object is going to be affected. From a drop down menu to the right, you can choose to remove the color by selecting none. You can also choose solid to add a solid color, and you can choose one of the great Ian fills, such as linear radio, elliptical co nickel and bit map. Next to that, you'll find a color box that will let you either adjust the solid color film or just the Grady in film. If, of course, he chose any great and as the fill type. And really, this is where the fun begins. The book that pops up lets you customize every aspect of the Grady in film On top. You have this lighter with color stops, which, when moved, will add or reduce the amount of color assigned to it. To add a color stop, simply click inside the slider and to change the color of a specific color. Stop just selected and click on the color books below, which will open up a color adjuster. You can also use the button below to insert, copy and delete a color stop off course if you want. You can change the type of the Grady in from linear through elliptical radio conical. But this old Sims, um a bit too complicated and a bit too technical when at ingredients should be fun, right? Well, the easiest way to add a Grady into an object is to simply select it. Then grab the Grady install and click and drank, too, added the Grady int. And of course, if needed, you can adjust it using the context toolbar. So whenever you want to add Grady INTs to either fill or stroke. Remember that you can do it with the filled to. And there's a number of Grady in types to choose from, and they are highly customizable. So creating Grady INTs, looking exactly the way you want them to is an easy and enjoyable process. 17. 16How to use symbols: symbols are reusable pieces of artwork especially used for four Web and you I design purposes. The best thing about them is that each symbol instance is dynamically connected with its parent symbol. Each change in a symbol is innocently reflected in all its instances, and in designer that the symbols pal is hidden by default. You gonna switch it on from the studio tab, the first bottle you'll seen. The symbols pal can be a bit misleading it to Reid's create, but when you click on it well, nothing happens. And that's because the first step in the symbol creation process is to create a piece off artwork that you want to convert into a symbol. And most types off artwork or you can create in designer can be converted into a symbol. For instance, simple objects and groups, off objects, custom shapes, objects, brushstrokes placed images and text. And once you have an object created click that create symbol bottom in the symbols panel, you'll instantly see that a symbol based on your selection has been created and it gets a generic name and un. Unfortunately, there is no way off changing the symbols name while creating it you can, however, change assembles them after you've created it, simply right. Click on its thumbnail in the symbols panel and choose rename and then just enter the new name in the box that pops up. I notice that creating a symbol also converts the object you used into a symbol. So to add another instance of that symbol, simply drag it onto the art board by default. Whenever you make any change to a symbol, instance the other symbol instances will be affected in the same way. For example, if you change the fill color off just one symbol innocents, the other ones will get the same filled color. And if you add a stroke to a symbol, all other instances will get the same stroke. But what if you don't want a particular object to be a symbol anymore? Well, if that's the case, simply click the detach button to break the link between the this particular object and the symbol definition. And from now on, any change that to make to this particular object will not affect the rest. However, you can change some aspects of a symbol independently without losing their symbolism. Functionalities If say, you just want to change the color off a certain part of a symbol, but nothing else just turned the sink option off. This will allow you to alter the appearance off just one symbol instance without converting it into a regular shape. Symbols are most useful when you need to reuse the same objects over and over again. Imagine creating a branding project. You'd grab a logo and put it on different things, like posters, business cards, etcetera. At some point, you might get some feedback from a client saying that they want to change something about the logo, like the phone size or type or the color, and all you need to do is to just just the symbol, and all the changes will be applied toe all symbol instances. 18. 17How to use the drawing modes to simulate masking: there are essentially two different ways off creating the clipping masks in affinity designer. But if you're not familiar with clipping masks in general, let me just quickly explain. So in plain words, clipping masks are groups that consists of an object containing another object, and that container dictates that the overall shape and size of the whole group. So imagine a photo being squeezed into a heart shape. That whole group is a clipping group, so how can we create a clipping mask? Inside Designer? The easiest way would be to use the insert inside selection mode you confined in the toolbar on the right, so it's just to recreate the clip in effect. So first grabbed the heart tool and draw a heart shape, and the color and size off that shape don't really matter at this point. Then press that the insert inside selection bottom in the toolbar, and that's the last icon in the group. First from the right now click the Place image till icon in the Tools panel. This will open up the file Explorer, and once you found the image you want to use, click on it twice to base it inside the heart. Sometimes you're going to have to do some repositioning or scaling to make the image perfectly visible. And you can, of course, experiment with different shapes. But no matter what shape you use, you will always create a Clippard group like this. And in the layers pound, you'll see that the clipped object looks like it is sitting in a signed the object that is clipping. And this is actually quite an important thing to understand, because in designer you can create a clipping mask just by Steyn within their layers panel . Let's step back a few times until we are only left with our heart shape and the background from the tools panel. Again, click the place image tool and simply place an image. And don't forget to go back to the drone normal mode. In the layer spell, you should see the hard shape and the placed image. Most likely, the image will be above the heart since we pasted in after creating their heart shape. Only to do now is to move the image layer beneath the heart layer until a light blue bar appears. And now if you just let go of the mouse button the image gets clipped and you're basically done. You can, of course, resize or move your image to your liking. By the way, if you want to get rid off the mask, or you just want to replace the image inside the shape first right, click on the clipped image and choose release. This will release the mask, and you will be back with the original image and the original shape. This is basically all there is to know about clipping masks to get started. I encourage you to experiment with masking, so just grab some shapes, try to place different images or shapes inside them, and then tried to release the masks. Justo, just just to get the hang off the whole process. And at the beginning, it all might seem a bit difficult to understand. But after a few tries, you should be able to use masking effortlessly 19. 18How to use the Corner tool: creating objects, paths, curves and combinations of those is one thing, but freely it's just in their appearance, so it looks exactly as the designer intended. Well, that's another thing. So let's take a look at two, customizing the objects in designer, starting with the corner, too. Back in the day, if a designer wanted to create a rounded corner, he or she had to either use the rounded rectangle tool or some dynamic effects. And then came the dynamically adjustable corners. But the I think the ultimate stage in in the the rounded Corners evolution is that designers corner tool and you'll find it in the tools panel just below the note to. And it also has a default to shortcut, which is the letter C. So how does this to work, since it's not meant for creating shapes, but for adjusting them, you need to have some objects created, and this can be any kind of object and the best part of the corner tools that you can around any corner off any shape with it. But of course, the easiest way to understand the process of rounding corners is by doing it with simple shapes. No, let's select the triangle and grab the corner tool. Next, click on any of its points and start dragon inside. This will turn a sharp corner into a rounded one, and the context will Bar will change as well, letting you enter an exact roundness value. So clicking and dragging a corner inward will make it more rounded and clicking and dragging outwards will make it sharper. And if you want to round more than one corner at the same time, just shift. Click on the corners who want to round and started dragging them inwards. This will affect all selected corners. He would also murky around the shape with the corner tool provided that you selected it before, and this will select all the corners and allow you to round them at the same time. And if it's a precision that you're after, just type in the roundness value in the context toolbar to round all the corners at the same time, the corner tool allows you not just around the corners but also changed the corner type. Let's select the underlying square, and with the corner it'll click on one of the corners. Now from the context toolbar, you can choose from none which will sharpen the corner, rounded, straight, concave or cut out. And if it's something that you're after, you can change the corner types individually so that the square has four different corners . Of course, rounding corners is not limited to rectangles or squares. If you want, you can around the corners of a star shape polygon Broadway path created with the mental. So when you're done with rounding corners and you wish to expand, their appearance pressed the bake corners bottom in the context toolbar, and this will convert the rounded corner to simple paths, so rounding corners with the corner tool couldn't be easier. You just click and drag, and the corners get magically rounded. You can around just the selected corners or all of them at the same time. The corner tool is really easy to use and gives you instant 20. 19How to use the Point Transform tool: Now let's talk about the point transform tool, which is a new tool. And it kind of works like a note tools enhancement that we talked about before. And this tool sits right here below the no total, and it doesn't have a default a short cut. So this tool allows you to very precisely transform shapes in relation to a specific transform origin. And I think that to the best way to understand how this deal works is by creating a simple origami bird. So let's grab the mental. And it started with creating a very simple triangle. So I'm just going to drop in just a three notes to make this triangle look something like this, and I'm going to fill it with a with a blue color. Maybe this one and what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna press the control plus g short cut on my keyboard to duplicate this triangle. So now we have two identical triangles, and what I want to do right now is they want to transform this triangle to the right, and I'm gonna grab the point transform tool. And as you can see it now, we have this little like a marker right here and we can move it around. And in relation to this marker, we can now transform our triangle. So in my case, I'm going to put it right here, and we're going to snap it with this point. And, of course, don't forget to turn on the snapping. And now, if we just grab a different node, click and drag, we can move this triangle in relation to that transform point. So I'm going to put it maybe somewhere here, maybe a bit more here to should be fine. And, ah, just to repeat, Dennis, I'm just going to do the same thing again. So again, control Plus J. And with the point transformed tool, I'm going to set the original point to the top point, grabbed bottom note and move this guy up to maybe somewhere here now, just so you can see what it's really going on here. Why all these shapes are being stacked like this. Let's maybe just grab this this triangle and fill it with a lighter blue colored. There we go. And now we can just, you know, complete her all these transformations, and so I'm gonna grab this triangle again and again. I'm going to use the control plus J shortcut on my keyboard Set the origin points to maybe this bottom left and grab this guy and move it to somewhere here. Now, as you can see, we are gone, going to have to in just a second, do some additional transformations to make this whole design look as it should. But for now, let's maybe keep this guy some. Well, let's make it. Let's make it like this. And now with the notable, I'm just going to grab this note and praying this guy all the way to the bottom to somewhere here. And since this is supposed to be like a like a left wing, I guess it would be good to put it all the way to the back so we can use their control plus shift plus left bracket, keyboard shortcut or use thes position controls to move this guy all the way to the back and make it the darkest just like this. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to just grab this triangle press control gated duplicated on one more time. But this time I am going to that Let's go back to the move toe. I'm just going to reflect it one more time because if you were to use just a point transform tool and even if you just put it may be somewhere in the center, you can see that we might not exactly get the result that you want. And in this case, maybe even if you could just move it somewhere. Here, this is this isn at this is not the precision that we are looking for. This point transform to Lismore for, I guess rotating objects not necessarily reflecting the object. And so I'm just going to grab this triangle, and I'm just going to reflect it and then just move it to the bottom to snap it like like so. And I'm going to fill it with the same blue color as before And, of course, still with notes. Still, if you want, you can just maybe manipulate some of these would then note, still manipulate some of these guys maybe to something like that, just to make it just to make this design a bit look a bit more different. Make the wings a bit bigger if you want Teoh and Yeah, we're basically done with our bird. So what? What's important to remember with the point transform tools that you can grab it from the toolbox and you consent the original point basically wherever you want. And then you can just freely rotate that element just like just like that. And one good piece of advice, I think, is to assign a custom shortcut to the point transform tool because, um, you are going to be using. It's quite a lot with the, uh well, what? They're no tool. So I think that it might be a good idea to give a radio to give it the same shortcut as the No Till. Because in this this way you may simply depressed the A key. Repeatedly, you'll be toggling between the point transform tool and then no total. And if you're using at the point, transform until you will be using the no till to adjust some something. So let's let's just take a quick look how to assign a custom shortcut to a tool here in designer. So let's go to the Edit menu preferences. Then let's go to the keyboard shortcuts and in here, let's find let's find out the files, find the tools. And in here we just need to find the point transform tool here is this guy. And as you can see, I've already assigned the same shortcut to my point transform tool as the No Till and you might get like prompts a mat warning messages that you that the chosen shortcut is already being assigned to a tool. But you can just go ahead and skip that warning and use the same shortcut for the notes. So and for the points transform tool. And I think that it's just going to make your life much easier if you have the same shortcut. The shortcut assigned to both of these tools if you want to use the points transformed, too. 21. 20How to add multiple strokes and fills: the latest versions of Affinity Designer come with a U appearance panel, and that panel allows you to add multiple fills and strokes to your objects as like dynamic effects you don't need to actually physically create. And those strokes and and fill stooges, um, can use the appearance panel to add them as effects. Now that panel might not be as powerful as you might think. You might think it well. It's a step in the right direction, but it definitely needs some enhancements. But that being said, we can still use it to achieve some nice effects, and that's what we are going to be doing next. As you can see, I got a simple document with a with art board filled with a black color, and now we're going to create something like a retro neon effect with with the appearance panel. So to do that, I'm just going to grab the mental. And as you can see, I got the I got a white stroke applied just so you can see everything better, and I'm just going to create my first few lines like this. Maybe let's move this guy a bit to the left, so it actually looks like a proper seven. And then with the with the Ellipse stool, I'm just going to create in their lips that is going to look more or less like this. I'm just going to put it somewhere here and right now we could maybe just increased the stroke value just a bit. Maybe to something like this. Let's move this guy a bit to the right. So now both of these guys are just stroked paths. But what we would like to do is we would like to turn them to filled objects. But before we do that, maybe let's play around with the cap and join. Maybe, let's let's leave it. Let's leave these guys like that. If you want, you can make them. You can make them round it to achieve this kind of fact, that's that. That's totally up to you. But what to what we definitely would like to do is we would like to turn these strokes into filled paths. So from the layer panel, let's choose expand stroke. And now, as you can see in the in our toolbox, we only have to fill. Right now, we don't have any stroke and what we could also do is we could maybe failed this guy with same dark as the background color in my swatches panel. I only have three switches that we're gonna be using. So, as I said, let's fill these guys with the black color. And since you want to add the strokes a same time to both of these both of these objects and we don't want to group them and we want to make sure that our well that the effects are being added simultaneously to both these objects and they're exactly the same, let's unite these objects but using the ad command from the toolbar. So now we can move on to the appearance panel. And if you cannot seat in your studio, just go to the View Menu Studio and choose appearance. Maybe I'm just going toe print over here. So now we can see our appearance panel and our swatches panel. So, as you can see in our appearance panel, you got the film, which is our black filled, and we got the stroke that doesn't have any color. Apply to it and it doesn't have any value applied to it. No thickness. So let's choose maybe this pink color. And let's increase the stroke value quite significantly to maybe something like 20 points. Maybe even but more. And now, if we move on to our appearance, pal, if you know, just add a stroke using this pardon, you can see that we are actually adding a stroke on top off our stack and by default, it doesn't have any effect applied to do it, so there's no color no with, so we need to add them. So for our effect toe work, I'm going to add a black fill and I'm going to increase the stroke value, maybe a but to something like something like 16 points cycles. Tissue bill, right? And then I'm just going to hit add stroke one more time. This time, let's fill it with this. Clark this on blue color. And again, let's fill this guy. Let's let's increase them the that the size of our stroke to maybe something like this. And at this point, we could leave these guys as they are. But of course, if you want, you could still manipulate these values because they are all live effect. So he could maybe increase or decrease the stroke with values. If you want Teoh at, let's do the same. This guy, let's may make it a bit more, maybe a bit more thick to something like this. And, of course, if you want, you could still play around with the line that option so we could align it to the inside to the outside weaken. Do that with all these values to just achieve different, different effects. So this is Thea appearance panel, and as I said, it's ah, quite powerful, but not as powerful as you might hope. But again, if you want to add multiple strokes and fills to your objects dynamically, you can definitely use Thea Peer in this panel. 22. 21How to Use the Vector Crop tool: the vector crap. It'll is a great way off nondestructive removal, off parts, off objects or groups of objects. With this tool, you can a crop factor objects, groups but also images. So let's take a look at a simple example off how you could crop an image. So first, click the place image tool in the toolbox. And this, of course, will open up your file viewer, and you can just find an image you'd like to crop and click open. Now you can select the vector crop tool, and as soon as you click on an image, a bounding box with 6/4 handles will appear. All you have to do now is to click and drag one of them to crop the object, and you can use the shortcut said that she can use when creating objects. So, for instance, if you want to constrain the process of cropping, you can just press and hold on the shift key on your keyboard. And if you present, hold down the control key, you'll start the crop in process from the object CenterPoint so cropping with the factor. Crop tool is a nondestructive process, and that means that you can reverse it simply by dragging one off the corner handles in the opposite direction to reveal parts of objects that you cropped before. Additionally, you can click and drag the object inside the crop in bounding box to move it around. The tools bonding box works like a clipping mask, so every moment off the cropped object is constrained to that bounding box. So the factor crop tool can be really helpful if you're creating a website layout in affinity Designer, I mean, just imagine downloading a large stock image from the Internet and based it and patient in your design. So with the crop tool, you can easily adjust its size, so it fits in the layout perfectly. You don't need to really create clipping masks on, and you know it's a great way to it's just your composition non destructively. 23. 22How to rotate, reflect move and resize objects: transforming objects till they look exactly the way you intended is every designer's bread and butter. So the tools designed to do just that should be easy to use. So let's take a look. A rotating, reflecting, moving and reciting objects and at the transformation tools offered by affinity designer. So you already know how to use the move tool to quickly resize and rotate their selected objects, but it can enhance the rotation process with the tool by adjusting their rotation center. Simply click. The enable transform origin bottom in the context will bark and reposition it to establish a new rotation reference point. From now on, any rotation will take place in relation to that point. And if you're working on more than one object and you want to rotate them at the same time , normally you would select them and then try to rotate them. Using the bounding box appearing around all objects. However, you can use the transform objects separately, option to rotate the objects individually. The easiest transformations can quickly be performed using the toolbar. You can choose one off the pre defined transformation options there, so flip horizontal will let you flip the object across the vertical axis. The flip vertical will allow you to flip the object across the horizontal axis, and the rotate counterclockwise will rotate the objects to the left and rotate clockwise. World rotated the object to the right, and you'll find exactly the same options when you go to the layer menu and choose transform . So with these options are the best way to quickly transform an object. But they are not meant for precise artwork manipulations. If you need precision, you better head over to that transform panel. And with their transform pound, you can precisely move, resize, rotate and share an object. So to move an object vertically and Torri value for the Y axis and to move the object horizontally entering value for the X axis, you can enter the exact of values for the width and height to precisely resize an object. And don't forget to check the link icon to the right if you wanted to scale proportionately . But if not, just leave this icon unchecked. And as for the rotation, you can enter the exact angle value you want the object rotate by. You can change the original point that alters the rotation of reference position. For instance, you can make the rotation happen in relation to the objects central Point or to its top right corner, etcetera. And if you need to share an object or even a whole later, for that matter, you can enter a specified number off a degrees in the share box off the transform panel. Also, don't forget that you can press and hold on the shift key to adjust the number by fractions off pixels. Affinity desire allows you to transform single points as well, not just whole object. So to do that, grab the note tool and select a single note. You can also shift click on multiple notes to select them. If you were so you can use the arrow keys to move the node around. Or you can go to the transform panel and enter specific horizontal and vertical coordinates . So remember that for fast transformations, you can use the move toe and the toolbar. But if it's precision that you're after better used that transform panel 24. 23How to align and distribute objects: aligning and distributed is extremely important, especially for you. I design and the affinity designer deals with the challenge using its alignment options. So what exactly is aligning when you want the objects to be positioned in a certain relation to each other or to an art board? You need to align them and you can align multiple objects or you or a single object. But the letter case can only be done in relation toe on our board or a page. So to align objects, select them and head over to the toolbar, where you will find the alignment options. From the drop down menu, you can choose to align the objects, either vertically or horizontally to the left, to center and to the right, so that's a lying. But what about distributing? Distributor in lets you position objects in relation to each other or tow our boat using specific values. For instance, you can distribute certain objects or groups by creating specific gaps between them. So to do that, first, select the objects you wish to distribute and then select, distribute vertically or distribute horizontally. In each case it is it is the last alignment option. Then you can just uncheck the order, distribute option, and then you can enter a specific value that will determine the gaps between the objects. Affinity designer comes with a new feature that allows you to visually adjust the alignment or even snap badges off objects two sides off. Other objects order center points, but to do that, you need to enable the show alignment handles option in the context. Toolbar. Why don't you do that? You'll be able to drag small widgets that will show inside the objects onto the edges off other objects for easier visual alignment. Before we move on, there is just one more thing to take a look. It I'm talking about stacking, no stacking. It's used to reposition objects that are at least partially overlapping each other. The objects stacking position will determine how much of it will be shown and how much of it will be hidden. So head over to the toolbar and choose one of the options to move an object all the way to the back, move it back one step printed forward one step or move it all the way to the front and, by the way, to quickly re position an object within the stack selected and press control plus left bracket to move it down one step or press control plus right bracket to move it up. One step, one step in the stack so aligning and distribution can be quite difficult to understand at the beginning, but it's definitely worth toe learn. Once you get your head around it, you'll be using more often than you might expect. 25. 24How to create complex shapes from simple object: There's a number of ways how you can create more complex shapes from simple objects using designers, geometry options, and you'll find them in the toolbar sitting in a separate group. So to make them work and truly understand how they work, you have to select at least two, preferably overlapping object. So maybe let's create a some simple ellipses that will overlap each other. So first, let's create a new document with an art aboard, and the dimensions really don't matter at this point. But what matters is that I think that we could fill it with a soft green color. Now grab the Ellipse stool present, hold on the shift key and then just click and drag to creating perfect circle. Lastly, let's fill the lives with a simple white collar. No, it's duplicated this ellipse a few times. First, let's set the transform origin to the center bottom spot, then press Control plus J to duplicate the Ellipse. So once it's ready, we can now hold down the shift key and rotate the corporate ellipse by 15 degree increments . All that's left to do now is to press the control plus Jay again a few times to finish that transformation because ultimately we're going to create a flower shape before you perform our first operation. Let's quickly copy wanna lips to our clipboard. We will need it in a second. So now we can select all the ellipsis and use the first geometry option, which is ad, and this will unite all our ellipses. Now let's based back in the Copa, the lips and the line it to the center with shape we just created. We can no cut a hole inside by first selecting all the elements and then using the second geometry option, which is subtract next up, we can quickly create a stem for our flower, so let's just quickly grab the rectangle tool and create a toll thin rectangle. After that, we can take care of the leaves so it's again based back our lips. But let's do it twice, and then let's stack them slightly on top of each other. When you know, select both ellipses, you will notice selection lines intersecting in the center, so when we use the third geometry option intersect, we will create a leaf out of the overlap in parts of the ellipses you can now rotated the leaf and moved closer to the stem. But we can also take this operation one level up with the ellipsis overlapping old click the Intersect option. The effect will be the same as before, but in the layers panel you'll find a compound shape. You can twirl it open and select one of the ellipses, and once you move it, you can alter the appearance off the effect and creating nice leave that you don't even need to rotate. Lastly, you can use the divide option to separate all the overlapping in parts of the flower and move them or even delete them completely. So this is how you can use the geometry options in affinity Designer. Along with other creation and transformation techniques, they will complement your shape creation tool box. 26. 25How to create artistic text: a good designer knows how to handle his type, so let's take a look at how to work with typography tools in designer. So there are two main typography tools for you to use the artistic text tool and the frame tax, too, and you'll find them both in the tools panel. Simply click the a icon and hold on the mouse button to reveal both of them. The artistic textile is meant to create single words and phrases more commonly used in artistic typography. So the way it works is quite simple with the tool selected. Either click on the artwork and start typing or click and drag to set the font size. There are basically two main ways offer the just in the artistic text. First you can use the context will bar for that. So in the top left, you'll find the active funds name, and you can open the list and hover over other funds. Names too quickly preview what you're taxed is going to look like, and the same principle works for other lists like phone style, fun size, character style, paragraph style, etcetera and secondly, you can use the character panel to take full control of your text. You can open the panel either from the studio menu or simply by clicking on the character icon in the context toolbar. The character panel lets you set many important character traits. Meddling the front family, its size style, etcetera but also tracking, which lets you control the gaps between all of ladders. Kernan, which lets you control pairs off ladders and also letting, which basically lets you control the line height. They're off course more options waiting for you to discover. But what I would like to direct your attention to is the typography panel. It's slightly hidden, though you need to click on the character panels menu and choose show typography. Or, alternatively, you could just go to the text menu and choose show typography. In here. You'll find the lots of different stylistic alternates available for the chosen fund, so just click on different options to see the text changing. So it's important to understand is that the available stylistic alternates are typeface dependent. Usually, free funds won't have any alternate styles, but the paid ones will have a bunch of them, and those styles will include different letters, swooshes and other ornaments. If you're working on a branding project and you need to do some custom changes to the text , you need to convert it to simple curves. And to do that right, click on the piece of artistic text and choose convert to curves or use the default. Short cut off control plus enter artistic textile is used to create short passages off text for headings, branded or logos. If, however, you are at a longer passages of text, you need to use the frame text tool, which will talk about next. 27. 26How to create paragraphs: the second textile in designer. The frame tax tool lets you add paragraphs off text with the tool active, click and drag to create a text frame. From now on, you can type in their paragraphs that will be constrained by it. And if you need just a text placeholder, you can fill your text frame with Tommy filler text. All you need to do is to right click inside the text frame with the text frontal active and select insert filler text. And now you can control the paragraphs from the paragraph panel, which you can open up either from the context toolbar or by going to the View studio menu and choosing paragraph inside the paragraph pal. You can align the text inside the frame to left center right, and you can also justify it. You can control the Indians off the paragraphs so you can intend just the first line, the whole paragraph from the left or from the right ad space before the paragraph or after the paragraph. New in affinity Designer 1.7 is the ability to add bullets and numbering. You can find a group of tools responsible for adding them at the bottom off the paragraph panel. In here, you can choose to build lists off paragraphs by adding bullets or numbering to them. If you just bullet, you can decide what kind of symbols you want to use for bullets. You could even add multiple symbols as bullets. But if you go too far and decided to reduce the number of bullets, just press the backspace key to delete them. What's interesting is that you can just type in anything you want in the bullet text box to set it as your own custom bullets symbol. And if you're using the designers filler text option to populate your text frames, you cannot change individual words or phrases that is, until you're right. Click on it and choose expand field. From now on, the text will behave like regular paragraphs that you can target individually. If you're wondering if you can split the text into columns in designer, unfortunately, there is no option to do that. You have to manually change the size of the text frame and then clone it to the side. Luckily, the text inside the text frame will re adjust itself to fill the entire frame, so the artistic textile and the frame textile are the two main textiles in designer. They let you take full control over your text, but there is one more textile there is slightly hidden. It's called type on a Path to that allows you to add tax on paths to achieve even MAWR artistic results. So let's take a look at it next. 28. 27How to create text on a path: I guess the most typical scenario in which you would want to use tax on a path is on adding text to labels, badges or stickers. Just like in this case, To complete this design, we will add just two pieces off text on circles that will go around the center text creating their lips and put it in the center of the badge. Leave it empty and at a light stroke, now grab the artistic text to and hovered it over the ellipse. Once you're close enough, the cursor will change and indicate that if you click now, you'll start at in text to the path. And if you click closer to the outside off the ellipse, you'll added attacks on the outer part of the path, and if you click closer to the inside, you will add it. The tax to the inner part of the ellipse. In any case, you will seat two markers, green and red that will indicate the beginning and the end off the text path. How, since we want to put the text exactly in the center of the ellipse, we need to move the green marker to the left edge of the ellipse and the red marker to the right edge of the Ellipse. Next, all we need to do is to click on the Align Center option in the contacts toolbar. Of course, we can still adjust the text anyway. We like. We can change the font family font weight, color, size, tracking, etcetera. Text on a path behaves just like any other piece of creditable text. We can also change the size of the of the Ellipse and make the effect fit the overall design a bit better. We could also add some symbols that come with the phone to the text to see whether we can use some interesting symbols to give our tax a bit of character. We used to browse the glimpse available for that specific fund. So from the text menu, choose Show Cliffs browser. In the panel that pops up, you'll find all the glitz available for the typeface you're using like stars, adults, copyright symbols, etcetera. I'll try to find a nice dot and double click on it to put it before and after the text. Now let's copy the text and rotated, holding down the shift key all the way to the bottom Now we need to make it flow the right way. So let's just the revert tax path option from the context toolbar. Now the tax is flowing in the right direction, but it is too close to the inside of the ellipse. It it looks like it's sitting on the wrong side of the path to fix it. Let's increase the baseline value that you can find in the context toolbar. There we go. The text and the design are complete. The process is simple and quite intuitive, and it can definitely allow it at some nice artistic effects to your designs. 29. 28How to add guides and column guides: Now that we know how to add shapes and text, we can move on to working with guides. So in designer, you can add a ruler guides in two ways. So, first of all, make the rulers active, either by using the control, plus our key combination, or by going to the view menu and choosing show rulers. Then you can just click on one and drag a guide out. So in my case, I got a document with an image already placed. I'll drag out four guides in total to mark the margins for the tax that's coming. So that's one way off adding ruler guides. Alternatively, we can go to the View menu and choose guides manager in here. You could add new guides and remove them. Once you double click on and you guide, you'll be able to type in and the exact position where you want the guide to be. In my case, I want to add 10 a millimeter margins, so I will simply type that in. I will add and remove 10 millimeters from the guides to move them a little bit closer and create the margins. Not what we could do is we could add some artistic text as a title and some frame text as the article. But before you do that to make sure that snapping is enabled that this will make it easier to align the text frames with the guides. So first, let's type in the title, then change the font to anything you'd like next. Let's at a text frame spanning across the page from one guide to the other, then the right click on it and choose insert filler text to populate the frame with some dummy text, and after that you can adjust it until it looks so well with the title. We could, however, take this project to the next level by using column guides on a column. Guides allow us to create grits particularly useful when designing for the Web, but in our case they will also work great. So first make sure that the show column guides option is turned on. Then open up the guides manager and look to the right. In here, you can control the number of rows and columns. In this case, I'm only going to use two columns since I want the article to be put exactly into columns and I will also add a 10 millimeter off Goddard Space. You can decide whether you want the column guys to be filled or outlined. I will choose outline and change the color to something visible. At this point, we got two columns that we can now use as guides for our new text frames that will be filled with adjusted text. If you want, you can always change. The column guides, for instance, make them smaller to give the tax frame some extra room. So there we go. Our magazine page is basically complete, and that's precisely what the guides and especially column guides can be used for. Web layouts, flyers, magazines and any kind of design that needs precise composition. 30. 29Working with layers and the Layers panel: layers are probably the most important thing about organizing your work in designer. You can imagine them as sheets of paper being stacked on top of each other, and you can bend the paper to see what's underneath. Or you can leave it intact to keep everything covered so the layers panel is on by default . But if for some reason you don't have it active, just go to the View menu studio and then layers. When working with layers In designer, there are a few important concepts to bear in mind, so an any new layer or an object gets a default name. But you can easily change it first by double clicking on the name and then typing in a new one. The order. Your layers are being captain. The Layers panel is important. The later that is sitting on top off other layers will be presented as it's being the closest to the spectator and as if it's sitting in the foreground. A selected layer is highlighted in the layers pal and also has a version 1.7. You can no tax specific layers with colors, so just right click on a new layer and and the bottom of the list that shows up. We'll find color swatches you can use to mark their layer. So layers in designer now display a thumbnail on the left, and you can change its size from their panel menu so layers can be hidden. Just unclipped the check mark on the right or locked. So there they are no longer eligible, and all you need to do is still just click on the padlock icon. So layers are also great for organizing your work. It's a good idea to put groups of objects that are logically connected with each other on separate layers. For instance, you can put the heather elements of a website layout on a separate layer. All you need to do is to just creating you layer, using the appropriate icon in the panel and then just move all the objects to that layer. And the easiest way to group objects is by selecting them first and then using the control plus G shortcut, which is the same as going to the layer menu and choosing the group command. Each layer has its own opacity setting. You can adjust it using a slider that you confined in the top left corner, So move it more to the left to drop the opacity doubt and move it to the right to bring the opacity up. You could, of course, just input the desire to opacity value manually. Layers are a great and essential tool to keep your assets well organized, but they're so much more than that. Using the layers panel, you can, for instance, a mask and clip objects, so let's a take a located next. 31. 30Layer clipping and masking: There are two types of masks available in designer clipping and opacity masks. Let's take a look at how they work and what they do, starting with that clipping mask, so clipping masks allow you to fit one object inside another. The same concept is using the insert inside targeting we talked about before. This time, let's use another photo that you can pull out from the stock panel and let's ah, let's create a simple ellipse on top of the image. Let's now take a look at a clip in functionalities off the layers panel. So the easiest way to do that would be to simply move the ellipse layer over the family off the layer with the photo to clip it. And this operation creates he clipping a group that you can see in the layers panel. When you move the ellipse around, you'll reveal other parts of the image that is being clipped, and the easiest way to unclip the objects is by dragon, the clipping object out off the clipping group in their layers panel. And if for some reason you find it difficult to put the object inside another, you can just right click on it and select masked to below. And if you don't want the image to be clipped anymore, just select the mask. Thumbnail right, click on it and choose release mask and the mask will be reduced back to an image, and the ellipse shape the other type of masks you can create In. Designer is more commonly used for covering and revealing certain parts off objects or effects applied to objects, and those masks can be both pixel and vector in nature. So let's take a look at how to create an opacity mask. So first, select the object you wish to mask. In our case, this will be the very same scene we used before. And secondly, at the bottom, the Layers panel will find a small icon that, when clicked, will add an opacity mask to the object. Now let's move on to the pixel persona and select the paint brush tool. Let's choose the black color and start painting over the image. And, ah, what's gonna happen is we are basically using the mask to visually hide parts of the image we're painting on. That's how masks work, bled color hides and white color shows. If at any stage of the masking process. You want to do some changes. Just use the white color to paint back all the fragments you hit before. And don't forget that you can control how the tool behaves in the context toolbar. You can change its with capacity flow and hardness, and all of these options combined will give you a different mask in effect. And you can also use the bracket keys to quickly change the size off the brush tip. And if you don't want to use the opacity mask anymore, you can again right, click on it and choose release mask to reduce the effect. Two separate objects. So as you can see, even though designer is primarily factor designed piece of software, you can also do some simple photo editing with it. So later clipping and masking expand still layers panel capabilities. Quite extensively, it leads. She contain objects within other objects and non destructively remove parts of objects. And it all makes the layers one of the most useful pals in designer 32. 31How to use the Stroke panel: The stroke panel is one of the most powerful pals, allowing you to take full control not just over the color and weight of the stroke, but also over the curves, shape outlines and vector brush strokes. So let's take a closer look at its abilities. First of all, if you don't have the panel up, just head over to the View menu studio and then stroke of the stroke panel lets you control this style of the stroke so you can remove the stroke completely, looking at a solid stroke at a dashed stroke or at a brush stroke. And unfortunately, we can't control the color of the stroke from the panel to change it. We have to go to the context toolbar or to our toolbox that we can, however, control the with off the stroke as well as the joint and the camp style. If you want your strokes to dynamically, change ends as you scale your object up or down. Don't forget to mark their scale with object option. If you don't, this stroke won't adjust itself to the new size of a given object. And what's new in designer is Theobald lit. Ito. Add arrowheads to the strokes so you can add them to this start or the end of your lines. You can control their size in relation to the path you can decide whether you want them to be inside or outside of the path. And ah, lastly, you can redirect the start and and Arrowhead. So the stroke panel. You can also control the with profile off the stroke using the pressure option. In here, you can move the end points of the profile to change their look and feel of the stroke. And, ah, if you wanted to, you could also add another pressure point to change the with profile even more dramatically . So the stroke penalty is one of the most important panels in designer. It would be really difficult to control the strokes, appearance with or profiles without it. 33. 32How to use the Effects panel: layer effects are a great way of making your artwork stand out. They are non destructive, which means that they won't permanently change your artwork. But it can be turned on and off as many times as you want and whenever you want. So the effects panel is a part of the default studio layout. It sits in the same group as the layers, styles and text styles panels. And if you can see, just head over to the View menu studio and then just choose effects. So let's apply some effects to a simple piece of artistic text from the Effects pal. I'm going to choose the outline effect the three D effect on the Grady Int overlay effect. As soon as we do that, you can notice a drastic change it all made to the text. Now it looks much more prominent and interesting, So in the effects palette, each effect can be adjusted in a pretty limited way. Usually it's just a combination of the color opacity or radios. However, if you need to take full control over the effects at its your artwork, just click on the cog icon a next to any effect. This will open up the layer of facts window. We'll find all the options you can set for any effect. Of course, each effect will have its own unique set of options, but also some common ones. So since we've added the outline effect, we can change the blend mode, opacity or radius, but also the alignment, making the stroke a line to the outside centre or inside the film's style, making it a solid color. Contour orig, radiant. And of course, we can change the color of the outline itself. Moving on to the three D effect, you'll notice that here we also have the radius and opacity values. But what is distinct for this effect is the ability to control the light pretty extensively . You can control the diffuse light, the speculator light. You can change the shiny nous and even change the direction of the light source. There's quite a lot you can change here, and I encourage you to experiment with the three D effect settings, as they are one of the most spectacular and allege understand the concept behind layer effects much quicker. Lastly, we added the Grady int overlay effect, and here you'll find great in specific options like the great in color and type, scaling, offsetting and changing the Grady int angle. All of these effects are non destructive, which means that they don't modify your artwork permanently. You can choose to add and remove them as many times as you want, simply by clicking the little check mark on the left to the effects Name. Layer Effect are a great way of making your artwork pop. They're easy to use and quick to learn, so you should definitely give them a try in your own designs. 34. 33How to use the History panel: I know that you might be thinking that learning how to use the history pal is rather boring , because what's what can be interesting about it, right? Well, the latest iteration of designer has made history much more interesting than before, and it even allows you to go back to the future. I know it all may sound a bit complicated, maybe, but SciFi. But let me explain. First of all, if you don't have the history panel up, just head over to the View menu, then studio and history. Inside the history panel, you'll see all the actions you took before to create a certain object. So just is an example. Let's type in the word history. Then let's just no change the front family Alice changed from size and color to anything we like. Basically, what we want to do is we want designer to record any changes we made to our artwork and finally, in the History Pal, you'll notice all of those changes being indicated. So now let's undo all those changes and weaken Simply start pressing that control plus Z on the keyboard, or just choose the initial state off our artwork, which was the word history typed in. So now, if we change the text in any way, for instance, we fill it with another color changed phone size. All the previous changes will be lost, right? Normally they would be lost. But now designer automatically creates alternate futures, which is indicated by a little branch icon in the history panel. And once you click on it, the previous changes you made to your artwork will be restored. So that's pretty neat, huh? So this new feature off the History pal can be especially helpful when you're working on some complex documents that need a lot of adjustments or sketching. So now you can easily go back to changes you've made without losing them forever. So another interesting thing concerning the history in affinity designer is Theobald City to save the file with the history. So if we go to the file menu and then choose save history with document, you will be prompted with a little box well telling you that if you save your fire with the history, anyone convey you the history. Anyone can view the changes you made to your documents, but also you'll be able to save your history for future revisions. So if you want to well, if you know that you might be changing your document a lot, it might be a good idea to save the history along with your document. So that's just a nice feature to keep in mind when working with history in designer. So there you go. These are the most important aspects off the history panel and saving the file with with your history. And I think that maybe at the beginning it sounds boring to learn about the using the history panel in designer. But once you learn it and understand its abilities, it's really a great piece off a piece of knowledge. 35. 34Saving and printing your artwork: It's a great production technique to save your file right after you created it. It will prevent you from situations where you got so caught up in the design process that you forgot to save the file. And now you are in despair because your computer crashed. So save a file in designer, go to the file menu and choose save as Of course, you would always use the control plus shift plus as a shortcut. And once you do that, a new dialog box will pop up, asking you to give your filename and the only file format at your disposal. Here is designers native dot a f design, and to quickly save your current project, just press control. Plus as on your keyboard. Or, of course, alternatively, you gonna go to the file menu and Jews saver. It would be great if you remember to save your file frequently, but chances are that you are going to forget about it. You know, that's just what happens when you're focused on the design part and it really pay attention to do no such uncreative stuff like saving a file. But likely designer has got your back when you open up of the performance preferences, you'll be able to set the file recover Interval, and here you can tell the software to also save you work in a specific time interval measured in seconds. In case you computer crashes, designer will automatically recover to file for you based on its last saved version. And if you want to print your artwork, just use the print option, which is sits in the file menu and has a standard control plus p keyboard shortcut. So the most important thing about printing and designer that you need to bear in mind is that by default it will want to print out the whole document. However, you can choose which parts you want to print under the range option. You can choose to print the whole document. Just a selection, which prints out objects currently selected or a specific artwork if you're using, are worse in your document and on the right will notice a preview box to give you an idea of what's about to be printed. So the printer and copies options are pretty self explanatory. What I want to pay attention to is the fit type option. Here you can choose the the scale option to manually. It's just the size of the artwork you can select fit to printable, which will fit the artwork on the page, and it will try to fill it entirely. And you can also choose shrink to printable, which will scale the artwork down so it can get printed on the page. You could also use the orientation option to rotate debates with better hosts your artwork . And remember that the that the rotation won't toe work if you set the fit type to scale. So by now you should understand the basics off saving and print in your files. And you might be asking yourself, though, Okay, but what if I want to save it as a PdF for J. P G? How can I do that? Well, that's a question answered by the exporting options offered by designer 36. 35Saving by exporting: exporting in Designer combines saving for Web and saving for print functionalities in one. It allows you to save and share your artwork in variety of different file four months, such as J Pack, PNG or PdF. So to get to the exporting dialog box that will actually allowed to export your artwork, you need to go to the file menu export. Alternatively, you can just press control plus ultra plus shift plus ass on your keyboard. So in the dialog box that pops up, you can. It's just the exporting settings, so some of the settings pertained toe all file four months. You can choose, but some Onley to select it ones. So as for the file formats available, I think it would be easier for you if you look at them like this. Image and Web sharing file formats, including J Bag PNG and Gift Edit Herbal Image files include PSD and Tiff and Edit Herbal Vector files include S PG and E. P s. So by default, designer will assume that you want to export the whole document and you can change it by selecting other area toe export. For instance, a specific art board or selection with or without the background, of course, depending on the file type he chose. So depending on which area you choose to export, your choice will affect the size of the exported artwork. For instance, if you choose to save only the selected part of their design, its size will, of course, be smaller than the size of the whole document. And that, naturally, doesn't mean you cannot change the size of it in the size tab. Type in the values you need. And if you want to preserve the aspect ratio, keep the padlock locked of the precepts. Tab allows you to choose from one of the pre defined sets off settings. Of course, each file format has its own unique sets. At the bottom of the export, settings will find a very handy piece of information, especially for weapon mobile app. Designers estimated file size will tell you how big the file is going to be if you decide to expert it with current settings. This information is very important from the U X standpoint. Smaller follow size means less time and bandwidth consumed to download or open an APP or a website, but unfortunately, the export dialog box offers no preview that will allow you to see how changing a certain options affect the overall look of a file. What she is important, especially for J packs. So as a general rule, you can just go with the high quality pre set, which will set the quality at around 80%. That's going to be a good compromise between quality and file size. Once you're set on the file format, size and range, you can just hit export type of the name of the file in dialogue box that pops up and then just press save and you're done. The file's been exported, so this is basically the quickest way of saving your files in different formats. But if you need more control over what and how you want to export, used the export persona. 37. 36Using the Export Persona: one off designers, personas is all about exporting your artwork. The export persona is a separate workspace with unique tools. Dedicated toe. Only one task exporting your artwork. All art words, layers, objects and groups will be exported as slices. So to initialize the export persona, click on its icon in the Persona toolbar, and as soon as you do that the whole workspace will change. The tools number will be reduced to just a handful, allowing you to focus on the exporting process. You'll find two unique pals in the studio on the right hand side, the export options and the slices panels and the layers panel will take on a new exporting features. So thanks to the expert persona stools and panels, you can create slices, which are basically tiles hosting parts of your design that are going to be exported. You can create those slices using the sliced tool, which is the first tool in the Export personas tools panel. So to create a slice, click and drag over any piece off designing wish to export, and you're gonna create a slice off practically anything you want. A symbol, a piece of text, every single letter or an object just Marquis around it, and you'll create a slides that she'll be able to target in this slices panel. In here, you can control the most important aspects of the file that is going to be ultimately created from the selected slice. On each slice can have different options set in the export option of panel. You can choose one of the presets on the file format, etcetera. In order to change the slices name, you have to click on it first. Just like you. Would you click on a layers them? If you wanted to change that, the new name will automatically get reassigned and abused as Theo exported files. Name. So to quickly export a particular slice, just click the export I can, sitting in the right and of the slice name box. But to export all the slices at once, you need to use the expert slices button sitting in the bottom right corner. Off the panel, you'll be asked to indicate a folder where you wish to keep this license and just click export. The slices will get safe in in that particular fuller. So if at any stage of the exporting process, you change your mind and one toe older, some aspects of a particular slice. You can do that with the sliced. Simply click with it on a slice and dragged by its sides to change its size or click and drag to reposition it. The export persona gives you full control over your design in terms off, exporting and saving it. There's an abundance of options to tweak and to choose from. The process is quick and quite user friendly. Have just if you spend a minute or two to get yourself familiar with it. 38. Summary: So congratulations. You've made it through the course. I really hope that by now you are feeling way more comfortable in using a designer independently. And I really believe that once you master the software, your designs will get much, much more professional, and the whole design workflow will be more enjoyable. So I really hope that this course helped you in creating new documents, working with art boards and, of course, using the shape presets using symbols. And by now you are independent in creating your own tax into working with text, working with guides and using the panels using all the things that are new to affinity. Designer 1.8 and 1.7 and all the things that you really, really need in your world day to day designer workflow. So, as always, have a nice design. My name is David Tyminski.