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Visual Design with Affinity Designer ​

Affinity Designer is a professional-grade vector graphics tool that’s perfect for creating clean, publication-quality figures, schematics, and visual diagrams for your simulation reports. It’s simple to use, lightweight compared to Adobe Illustrator, and ideal for annotating engineering visuals such as meshes, geometry diagrams, and field plots.

This guide will help you get started and focus on the essential tools and workflows that matter most for scientific and technical documentation.

Step 1 — Start with the Tutorial ​

Begin by watching this Affinity Designer tutorial: 🎥 Affinity Designer for Beginners – Complete Tutorial

This video covers the basics — interface overview, shapes, layers, text, and exporting.

You can skip the image editing part of the video — that’s more relevant for photography work. Focus instead on:

  • Creating shapes and paths
  • Understanding layers
  • Working with artboards
  • Using the Pen Tool, Crop Tool, and Alignment options

Take notes as you go — these are the tools you’ll use repeatedly while designing figures for your reports.

Step 2 — Learn the Key Tools ​

Here are a few features you must get comfortable with:

1. Artboard ​

Artboards are like pages where you design your figures. You can have multiple artboards in one document — each representing a different figure.

Always start by:

  • Creating a new document using A4 or A3 size
  • Inside that, add an artboard with dimensions 150 mm x (variable height) (Height can be adjusted based on the figure’s needs)
  • Ensure no extra white space at the top or bottom

2. Crop Tool ​

Use the Crop Tool to precisely frame your visuals and remove any unnecessary space around your artboard before exporting.

3. Pen Tool ​

This is your best friend for creating curves, boundary outlines, and annotations. It might take a little practice to get comfortable with its control points — so train yourself using this interactive tool:

🎯 Practice the Pen Tool – Bézier Game

Spend 10–15 minutes here; it’ll help you master precision drawing in Affinity Designer.

Step 3 — Fonts and Labeling ​

For all your technical figures, maintain consistent labeling using the CMU Serif font.

Why CMU Serif? ​

It’s the same font family used in LaTeX documents — keeping your figure text consistent with your report style.

If you don’t have it yet, download it here: 🔗 Download CMU Serif Font

After downloading:

  1. Install the font on your system.
  2. Restart Affinity Designer.
  3. It should now appear in your font dropdown when adding text.

Line Widths and Labeling Standards ​

  • For figure outlines or boundaries → use a 10 px line width
  • For labels, arrows, or small markers → use a 0.2 px line width
  • Keep your text and annotations aligned and evenly spaced

These small details make your figure look clean, professional, and easy to interpret.

Step 4 — Exporting the Figure ​

Once your figure is complete:

  1. Select the artboard you want to export.
  2. Go to File → Export.
  3. Choose PDF as the format — this ensures vector quality and compatibility with LaTeX or reports.
  4. Name your file clearly, e.g., figure_3_stress_distribution.pdf.

Tip: Avoid exporting as PNG or JPG unless specifically needed for presentations. PDFs maintain line sharpness, scalable resolution, and editable vector data.

Notes ​

  • Stick to A4 or A3 document size, with a properly sized artboard (150 mm width).
  • Always keep your figure elements centered and avoid unnecessary white margins, there shouldn't be extra white space around the artboard.
  • Maintain consistent font sizes and line weights across all figures.
  • Save your original .afdesign file so you can easily edit figures later if required.
  • For visual consistency, use the same color scheme and font across all report figures.

Summary ​

  • Start by watching the Affinity Designer tutorial and skip the image editing part.
  • Focus on mastering Artboards, Crop Tool, and Pen Tool.
  • Practice your pen control using the Bezier Game.
  • Use CMU Serif font for all text labels and annotations.
  • Create figures with clean proportions — 10 px lines for structure, 0.2 px for labels.
  • Always export in PDF format for sharp, publication-ready visuals.

With a bit of practice, Affinity Designer will become your go-to tool for creating elegant, professional figures that make your engineering reports stand out.