Up and Running with Affinity Designer: A practical, easy-to-follow guide to getting up to speed with Affinity Designer

Description

Add Affinity Designer to your creative skillset while creating innovative designs and illustrations, building a solid foundation for your future Key FeaturesUnderstand Affinity Designer's interface and setup, discover its capabilities, and develop an efficient workflowHarness the power of an easy and flexible vector and pixel workflow in one applicationLearn practical skills and gain the confidence to power your own creative projectsBook Description Affinity Designer is a relatively new creative application and, in a reasonably short time, it has quickly become a powerhouse design and illustration application. Affinity Designer, along with Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher, is part of a suite of award-winning creative software applications developed by Serif Europe. Built on the latest technologies, which make it fast and smooth, Affinity Designer is quickly becoming the go-to professional creative application for vector drawing and pixel-based painting. Up and Running with Affinity Designer is a comprehensive hands-on introduction to the Affinity Designer software. Whether you're new to the creative industry, a seasoned professional looking for a proven alternative, or an enthusiastic hobbyist, this book will help you get up to speed in no time. Complete with straightforward explanations and supporting hands-on exercises, this easy-to-follow guide will help you gain a solid foundation in Affinity Designer and form a base for in-depth exploration in your own projects. By the end of this Affinity Designer book, you'll have gained the knowledge and confidence to use Affinity Designer as part of your creative toolset. What you will learnExplore the interface and unique UX characteristics of Affinity DesignerDiscover features that allow you to manipulate and transform objectsApply color, shading, and effects to create unique compositionsEmploy layers to organize and simplify complex projectsUse grids, guides, and snapping features as design aidsAdapt to Affinity Designer's custom workspaces and keyboard shortcutsExplore the workflow and design best practices for more predictable and successful outcomesIdentify potential stumbling blocks in your design process and learn how to avoid themWho this book is for This Affinity Designer book is for graphic designers, artists, illustrators, and hobbyists. Anyone curious about Affinity Designer's unique toolset and vector and pixel workflows or looking for cost-effective alternatives to the Adobe suite will find this book useful. Experience in working with other similar tools will be helpful, but not necessary. Table of ContentsGetting Familiar with Affinity Designer's InterfaceGetting Familiar with the Three Personas of Affinity DesignerHow to Customize Your Affinity Designer WorkspaceDocument Setup and ModificationMain Studio Panels and ManagersTools – Designer PersonaTools – Pixel PersonaTools, Panels, and Process – Export PersonaWorkflow: Layers and ObjectsWorkflow: Symbols, Assets, and HistoryCreating a Professional LogoCreating Astronaut Ricky and Sidekick K9Rocketing into the Pixel Cosmos Cover Title Page Copyright and Credits Contributors Table of Contents Preface Section 1: Getting Familiar with Affinity Designer's Interface and Layout Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with the Affinity Designer's Interface Technical requirements What is Affinity Designer? Understanding the user interface and its menus The menu bar The Persona toolbar Toolbar The context toolbar The Tools panel The document view The Right Studio An overview of the menu bar The Affinity Designer menu The File menu The Edit menu The Text menu The Layer menu The Select menu The View menu The Window menu The Help menu Main tools – Tools panel overview Toolbars – overview The Persona toolbar The Toolbar The Context Toolbar Studio panels – overview The document view and artboards – overview Toggle UI New View Window modes Navigation tools – overview Panning Zooming Rotating Summary Chapter 2: Getting Familiar with the Three Personas of Affinity Designer Vector and Raster – the power behind the Personas Separate but equal Designer Persona – embracing the control and precision of a powerful vector workflow Designer Persona workflow Pixel Persona – expanding your creative options with a built-in raster studio Pixel Persona workflow Export Persona – a dedicated exporting environment Normal exporting Export Persona workflow Summary Chapter 3: How to Customize Your Affinity Designer Workspace Affinity Designer preferences The Preferences panel – at a glance General preferences Color preferences Performance preferences User Interface preferences Tools preferences Miscellaneous preferences Keyboard shortcuts – a closer look Workspace customization – Studio panels Workspace customization – the Tools panel and toolbar The Tools panel The toolbar The Clip to Canvas feature Summary Section 2: Deeper Exploration of Affinity Designer's Documents, Tools, and Workflow Chapter 4: Document Setup and Modification Technical requirement Registering Affinity Designer and the welcome panel New document setup and editing your current document setup The New Document dialog Using Artboards Working with Artboards Summary Chapter 5: Main Studio Panels and Managers Panel behavior Resizing and hiding Studio panels The Color panels The Color panel The Swatches panel The Stroke panel The Effects panel The Styles panel The Brushes panel – Designer and Pixel Personas The Type panels – Character, Paragraph Typography, and Text Styles Manager panels – Guides, Grids, Snapping, and Resources Guides manager Grids Manager The Snapping manager Resource Manager Summary Chapter 6: Tools – Designer Persona Designer Persona tools The Move Tool The Artboard Tool The Node Tool The Point Transform Tool The Contour Tool The Corner Tool The Pen Tool The Pencil Tool The Vector Brush Tool The Fill Tool The Transparency Tool The Place Image Tool The Vector Crop Tool Shape tools Text tools The Artistic Text Tool The Frame Text Tool The Color Picker Tool The View Tool The Zoom Tool Summary Chapter 7: Tools – Pixel Persona Pixel Persona tools The Move tool Selection Tools Painting Tools The Dodge Brush tool and Burn Brush tool The Smudge Brush tool The Blur Brush tool and Sharpen Brush tool The Color Picker tool The View tool The Zoom tool Summary Chapter 8: Tools, Panels, and Process – Export Persona Export Persona tools The Slice tool The Slice Selection tool Export Persona panels The Layers panel The Slices panel The Export Options panel Summary Chapter 9: Workflow: Layers and Objects The Layers panel and the types of layers What are layers and how do they contribute to a good workflow? Creating a layer stack plan and taking advantage of Sublayers Setting up and managing Main and Sublayers Layer Context menu Moving or repositioning layers Clipping Artboards and the Layers panel Objects in Affinity Designer Finding objects Grouping and ungrouping objects Duplicate and Power Duplicate Compound objects Isolating object layers Rasterize Converting shape tools or text objects into curves Copying, pasting, and inserting objects Summary Chapter 10: Workflow: Symbols, Assets, and History Symbols Creating symbols Using symbols Assets History Summary Section 3: Bringing It All together Chapter 11: Creating a Professional Logo Prerequisites and expectations Let's get started – downloading the sketch Document setup Summary Chapter 12: Creating Astronaut Ricky and Sidekick K9 Prerequisites and expectations Let's get started – downloading the sketch Document setup Placing the reference sketch Creating the layer stack hierarchy and adding a background color The steps we will be following Summary Chapter 13: Rocketing into the Pixel Cosmos Prerequisites and expectations Let's get started – downloading the sketch Document setup Placing the reference sketch Creating the layer stack hierarchy The steps to create this illustration The process in brief Steps for painting in the Pixel Persona Pros and cons – a win-win situation Summary Image copyright Other Books You May Enjoy Index