Affinity Design Course

Lesson 1 • Understanding the Affinity Ecosystem

Covers Affinity Designer's role within the Affinity suite and its use cases. Establishes context for why professionals choose it over competing tools.

Lesson 2 • Personas and Workflow Modes

Explains the Vector, Pixel, and Export personas and when to switch between them. Students understand how personas shape the available toolset.

Lesson 3 • Document Setup and Management

Teaches document creation, artboard configuration, and file management. Proper setup prevents costly errors in later production stages.

Lesson 1 • Boolean and Path Operations

Explains add, subtract, intersect, divide, and combine operations on shapes. Boolean operations unlock complex form creation from simple primitives.

Lesson 2 • Pencil and Vector Brush Tools

Introduces freehand drawing tools and their smoothing settings. Students learn when to use freehand vs. structured path creation.

Lesson 3 • Working with Basic Shapes

Covers rectangle, ellipse, polygon, and star tools with constraint modifiers. Shapes form the building blocks of nearly every design composition.

Lesson 4 • Stroke and Fill Fundamentals

Covers stroke weight, cap, join settings, and basic fill types. Consistent stroke and fill control is foundational to polished vector output.

Lesson 1 • Colour Models and Swatches

Teaches RGB, CMYK, HSL, and LAB colour models and their appropriate contexts. Students build and manage swatch palettes for consistent brand colour use.

Lesson 2 • Gradient Fills and Mesh Gradients

Covers linear, radial, conical, and elliptical gradients plus mesh gradient creation. Gradients add depth and realism to flat vector designs.

Lesson 3 • Pattern and Image Fills

Explains how to fill shapes with repeating patterns or embedded images. These fill types expand design possibilities beyond solid and gradient colour.

Lesson 1 • Converting Text to Curves

Covers converting live text to editable vector curves for custom letterform manipulation. This step is required before applying Boolean operations to type.

Lesson 2 • Text on a Path and Shapes

Explains how to flow text along custom paths and inside shapes. These techniques are essential for logo design and decorative typography.

Lesson 3 • Text Tool Basics

Covers point text, frame text, and artistic text creation modes. Understanding text types prevents layout reflow issues in complex designs.

Lesson 1 • Layer Panel Fundamentals

Introduces layer creation, naming, reordering, and visibility controls. A well-structured layer panel is the backbone of any maintainable design file.

Lesson 2 • Groups and Nested Structures

Teaches grouping objects, entering groups for editing, and nesting groups within groups. Nested structures enable modular, reusable design components.

Lesson 3 • Symbols and Reusable Components

Covers creating symbols, syncing instances, and overriding symbol properties. Symbols dramatically reduce repetitive work across multi-artboard projects.

Lesson 4 • Clipping Masks and Compound Clips

Teaches how to clip objects inside shapes and manage compound clipping masks. Clipping masks control visibility without destructively altering artwork.

Lesson 1 • Appearance Panel and Multiple Fills

Explains stacking multiple fills and strokes on a single object via the Appearance panel. This advanced technique enables complex visual effects without extra layers.

Lesson 2 • Graphic Styles and Style Panels

Teaches saving, applying, and updating graphic styles for consistent appearance across objects. Style panels accelerate repetitive formatting tasks on large projects.

Lesson 3 • Gaussian Blur and Filters

Covers Gaussian blur, motion blur, and other live filter effects available in Affinity Designer. Live filters preserve the original object while applying visual transformations.

Lesson 1 • Vector Shading and Lighting

Teaches gradient-based shading, highlight placement, and shadow construction for realistic depth. Controlled lighting transforms flat shapes into convincing three-dimensional forms.

Lesson 2 • Pixel Persona for Raster Detail

Introduces raster painting within the Pixel Persona for adding texture and detail to vector art. Combining vector and raster workflows maximises creative flexibility.

Lesson 3 • Composition and Visual Hierarchy

Applies design principles—contrast, balance, rhythm, and focal point—to complex illustrations. Strong composition ensures artwork communicates clearly at any scale.

Lesson 4 • Isometric and Grid-Based Design

Covers isometric grid setup, snapping, and constructing 3D-perspective flat illustrations. Isometric design is widely used in tech, gaming, and infographic contexts.

Lesson 1 • Print Production and PDF Output

Explains bleed, crop marks, colour profile embedding, and PDF/X standards for print. Print-ready files require precise technical settings to avoid press errors.

Lesson 2 • Web and Screen Export Settings

Teaches PNG, SVG, WebP, and PDF export settings optimised for digital screens. Correct settings prevent quality loss and unnecessary file size in web delivery.

Lesson 3 • Export Persona Deep Dive

Covers the Export Persona interface, slice creation, and export settings management. The Export Persona centralises all output tasks in one non-destructive environment.

Lesson 4 • Handoff and Collaboration Workflows

Teaches file packaging, annotation, and sharing practices for team-based production. Clear handoff processes reduce revision cycles and miscommunication with developers.