Course description

Affinity is now one free app for vector drawing, photo editing and page layout, made by Canva. This course teaches you to use it properly, from your first shape to a finished brand pack: drawing with shapes and the pen tool, colour and type, a logo with all its versions, photo editing that never harms the original, retouching, multi-page layouts with master pages and styles, and exports that work on screen and in print.

It's a full, hands-on course, not a quick tour. There are 10 sections and 55 written lessons, each with a worked example, common questions and a short task to do in the app. You follow Jasleen, who runs small-group history walks in Gateshead, as she builds a bridge icon, a logo, an edited photo, a pocket guide zine, a social graphic and a print-ready flyer, including the mistakes she made and how she put them right. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet, key points and files to practise on: drawn practice pictures, SVG shapes and paths to trace, a mock-up map of the app, colour and type cards, checklists and planners, all made for the course.

Affinity has changed a lot recently and still changes, so the course describes what each tool does and where it usually lives rather than exact menu paths, and says plainly what was true at the time of writing. If you're moving from subscription design software, you'll find the habits that carry over and the ones that don't.

What you'll learn

• Getting started: what Affinity is now, what's free and what needs a paid Canva plan, installing it safely, finding your way round the studios, and documents, artboards and a tidy folder routine.
• Vector basics: vectors and pixels in plain words, shapes, aligning and arranging, fills and strokes, boolean operations and building an icon from shapes.
• The pen tool and nodes: nodes, segments and handles, drawing with the pen, editing paths, freer drawing, and tracing a sketch into a clean vector symbol.
• Colour, gradients and typography: global colours and contrast, RGB and CMYK in plain terms, gradients and fades, artistic and frame text, character and paragraph settings, and text on a path.
• A simple logo and icon set: from brief to wordmark and lockup, four logo versions on artboards, symbols, a small icon set and checking a logo at every size.
• Photo editing basics: image size and resolution, cropping and straightening, non-destructive editing with adjustment layers, tone and colour, selections and masks.
• Retouching and combining images: the healing, clone, patch and inpainting tools, honest retouching for a business, combining images, blend modes and text over photos.
• Page layout: planning a booklet, master pages, text frames, picture frames, text styles and building an eight-page zine.
• Exporting and working faster: exports for screens, print PDFs with bleed and PDF/X in outline, files from other apps, asset libraries, shortcuts and using Affinity alongside Canva.
• Final project: a small brand pack of your own: a logo set, an edited photo, a social graphic and an A5 flyer, with a planner, checklists and model answers.

Who it's for

Hobbyists, small business owners and anyone leaving subscription design software who wants capable design software without a monthly fee. You don't need any design experience, just a computer and some confidence using it. The course is about using the software; for design theory, Graphic Design for Beginners and Logo Design and Branding for Beginners go further. It gives general information, not legal advice. Rootlet isn't connected to Affinity or Canva. The people and businesses in the course are fictional.

What will I learn?

• Install Affinity safely, find your way round its Vector, Pixel and Layout studios, and keep your files in a tidy, backed-up folder
• Draw precise vector shapes, combine them with boolean operations and build an icon to an exact spec
• Draw and edit clean paths with the pen tool and the node tool, and trace a hand sketch into a vector symbol
• Set up brand colours as global colours, check text contrast and understand RGB and CMYK in plain terms
• Set type with confidence, put text on a path and convert text to curves while keeping a live copy
• Build a simple logo with a wordmark, a lockup and four versions, and check it at every size
• Edit photos without harming the original, using adjustment layers, masks, selections and careful retouching
• Lay out a multi-page booklet with master pages, linked text frames, picture frames and text styles
• Export the right files for screens and print, including a print PDF with bleed and the PDF type your printer asks for
• Put it all together in a brand pack of your own: a logo set, an edited photo, a social graphic and an A5 flyer

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