Affinity Designer Ruler Ipad



Liz Kohler Brown is an artist and designer who creates unique lettering projects, surface designs and illustrations. Here she is to show us how to create a repeat pattern in Affinity Designer.

I've been a designer for nearly 30 years. I've spent thousands of hours working in various design studios and now I'm bringing that experience to Affinity Designer for the iPad. Over the years I've learned what matters when you are creating good design and what doesn't. What clients want to see and what keeps them coming back to you. In this initial course we take a look at the basics of the new Affinity Designer for ipad interface, included in these 10 lessons we will be making a smiley face icon used in popular emojis. Included in this module you will learn. How to create shapes and vector art. How to use layers and the basics of interface.

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Affinity Designer for iPad has been a total game-changer for my surface design process. Not only does it enable you to do precise movements with the transform tool, which makes your repeat pattern pixel perfect (goodbye pixel lines and offset repeat elements!) but you can also see a live preview of your pattern as you create it, so you never have to wonder if a repeat element is in the wrong place as you’re working. This totally takes the guesswork out of pattern building!

Ipad

James and Andy from our docs team (with a some help from Charlotte and Sean) have created over 60 video tutorials to help you learn all about Affinity Designer for iPad. Encased in a lovely platform (as you would expect from our web devs) the video tutorials also showcase the amazing work created by leading creatives in our special beta. With subtitles available for German, English, Spanish. Affinity Designer for IPad Tutorial. 357 likes 1 talking about this. Affinity Designer for IPad tutorial. I have prepared a manual for Designer for those who need an aid in learning this tool.

I’m going to dive right into building a repeat pattern, but if you feel like you need to learn some of the basics like building colour palettes and creating vector shapes for surface design, check out my tutorial on Surface Design in Affinity Designer for more detailed instructions.

Let’s get started!

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Not in a video mood? See the whole process in written form below. Let’s start by setting up a live pattern preview document.

Create a New Document

On the document creation page, select pixels as the measurement and enter a document size (I’ll be working at 2000 x 2000 pixels). Turn on Create Artboard then tap OK to open the document.

Create and size an Artboard

In the Documents menu, tap Artboards, then drag your stylus across the background to create another artboard. Open the Transform Studio with Artboard 2 still selected and set the size to double your original artboard (I’ll use 4000 x 4000 pixels since my repeat block is 2000 x 2000).

Affinity Designer Ruler Ipad Pro

Create a Rectangle on Artboard 1

In the layers panel select Artboard 1, then tap the Rectangle Tool. Drag your stylus across Artboard 2 to create a rectangle. Open the Transform Studio to adjust the size to 2000 x 2000 pixels and set the position to 0.0.

Create a Symbol

Open the Symbols Studio (with the rectangle still selected). Open the Symbols menu and tap Add Symbol from Selection.

Paste the Symbol onto Artboard 2

In the Edit menu, tap Copy. Select Artboard 2 in the layers panel. In the Edit menu tap Paste four times so you have four Symbol blocks on Artboard 2. Put the four blocks on the four corners of the artboard, using the Transform Studio to be sure each square is exactly in the corner (the Position should be 0, 0 for block 1; 2000, 0 for block 2; and so on).

Test it

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Select Artboard 1 (this is where you’ll do all of your pattern building), select a brush and draw something. Then drag that shape in the layers panel to the Symbols layer so that it has a glowing orange line beside it. Only elements that are on the Symbols layer on Artboard 1 will show up on Artboard 2, so double check your layers panel if you have any trouble with the preview showing your elements! Best performance software for mac. The drawing should automatically show up on Artboard 2. If it doesn’t, go back and double-check the steps above.

Create a Master Doc

Affinity designer for ipad ruler

Rather than redoing this process every time I create a new pattern, I like to use this document as my Master Doc, and just copy it any time I want to start a new pattern. So, delete your test shape, go to your Gallery, tap the Menu symbol on the document, and tap Duplicate a few times. Name one of them ‘Master Doc’ so you will remember to only use that file to copy for making future patterns. I also add the pixel dimensions to the title and create more Master Docs at different sizes like 3000 x 3000 and 5000 x 5000, etc.

Build a repeat pattern

Create your repeat elements

Create some shapes using vector and/or raster brushes in Affinity. When you first start building patterns, it’s easiest to start with abstract or geometric shapes rather than complex forms that have to fit together in a specific way. I’m using the Pen Tool to create simple geometric shapes. Remember to drag each shape to the Symbols layer so it has a glowing orange line beside it.

Design the edges of your repeat

Put one element on the left edge of the canvas, then tap the Edit menu and tap Duplicate. Open the Transform Studio, tap the X position and type + 2000 (there will already be a number there, but rather than deleting it, just add +2000). This moves the duplicated element to the exact opposite side of the canvas.

Fill the edges

Repeat the same process around the edges of the canvas. Since you type +2000 on the X-axis to move something to the right, you’ll type -2000 to move something to the left. Things you need to move up and down rather than left to right can be adjusted on the Y-axis. If you put something on the corner, it has to be duplicated three times, then moved to each of the four corners using the Transform Tool.

Tip: Once you move each element into place, group it with its parent element by swiping on each of the layers, then tapping Group at the top of the layer’s menu. That way you can easily move elements up, down, left or right, without affecting your repeat layout.

Fill in the centre

Fill the repeat with shapes and filler elements like dots or lines, being sure not to draw on the edge of the canvas. Play around with the placement and colours to get the repeat exactly as you’d like it to be. Check Artboard 2 to see if your repeat is spaced nicely and make adjustments if needed.

Export the file

Affinity Designer Ruler Ipad

When you’re ready to export, tap the Documents menu and tap Export. On the export page, choose Artboard 1 as the Area and PNG as the file type, then select a save location.

Share it!

Now you can share the pattern on social media, add it to your online portfolio, or even upload the pattern to print on demand sites like Society6, Spoonflower or RedBubble! If you share the pattern on social media tag us @lizkohlerbrown and @affinitybyserif so we can see your pattern!

Variations

Patterns don’t have to be complex. You can create a beautiful pattern out of simple lines, brush strokes or dots. I made this pattern with the vector brush tool:

When I want to create complex patterns that contain a ton of layers, masks, or raster brush effects, I often make my repeat elements in a separate document, save them as a PNG with no background, then import each element onto my repeat canvas.

When you’re feeling ambitious, start creating complex patterns by fitting pieces together like a puzzle.

Create a whole collection! Choose a cohesive colour palette and stick to it for 4, 10 or even 20 patterns. Working in collections can help you develop your style as a designer and give you a cohesive set of patterns to show off in your portfolio.

About the creator

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Liz Kohler Brown is an artist and designer who creates unique lettering projects, surface designs, and illustrations. After earning a Master of Fine Arts degree, she followed her passion of teaching workshops and classes around the world, online and in person.

Liz is a Top Teacher on Skillshare, a designation for the top 1% of teachers. She has created 40+ Skillshare classes on iPad Art & Design and cultivated an online community of artists and designers from every background and skill level who share their work, provide feedback, and offer support to help each other improve and advance their creative goals. You can connect with Liz on Instagram @LizKohlerBrown and get loads of resources for iPad art and design at LizKohlerBrown.com.

Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Photo have all been updated to version 1.9, bringing new tools and features to both the macOS and iPadOS apps.

Affinity Designer Ipad Pro

Affinity Designer, touted as an alternative to Adobe's Illustrator, now has a new contour tool, allowing users to add contours and line offsets to shapes and paths.

Also added to Designer is the ability to place linked images within the document, reducing file size and allowing for easier collaborative working.

Publisher, Affinity's desktop publishing software, has faster IDML importing. Also new is the ability to bundle image and font resources from a project into a folder via the 'Package' feature. This feature allows users to effortlessly transfer resources to another system, simplifying collaboration and print production.

Users can now set PDF's to 'passthrough' in InDesign as well, enabling 100% fidelity upon export. Users also can integrate text and image links into a document from external data sources with the newly added data merge feature.

Knoll light factory 3 for mac. Affinity's Photoshop rival, Affinity Photo, gains several improvements to its RAW engine, new linked layer functionality, path text, and a new mode to control the stacking of astrography images.

Additionally, Photo sees the ability to add liquify adjustments to images as live, maskable layers, which allows for non-destructive photo editing.

The updates are available, starting on February 4, across all Affinity apps on macOS, Windows, and iPad.

Affinity is still selling all three of its creative suite apps for 50% off as an initiative to support the creative community during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

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