How everyone will come back home your host Elias Sarantopoulos
In this Affinity Designer tutorial I'm going to teach you how to create a business card design and take you through the process
We will set up the document guides for both the Bleed area and the Trim area and focus in adding our content.
We will create artboards for both sides of the Business Card, we will add Text on a Path,
icons and shapes,
you will learn how to create your own Asset library to store your icons for your projects and
export the final Business Card design. All that in your iPad with Affinity Designer.
The standard dimensions of US and Canada printed business cards are
3.5 by 2 inches,
but with the addition of the Bleed area, which is an extra 1/8 inch of space
for design elements and backgrounds that extends beyond.
So the total business card size we are creating is
3.75 by 2.25 inches.
In addition we have an extra 1/8 inch of space for the Trim area where the card is going to be cut.
The remaining is the
Safe area where we keep all text and graphics that we don't want to be cut off by the printing machine
that size is 3.25 by 1.75 inches.
So inside Affinity Designer let's go ahead and create a New document so tap on the New Document icon,
for Device go ahead and choose Print (Press Ready),
Color profile CMYK that's what we're going for,
instead of Millimeters for units I'm going to choose Inches and
for dimensions the total size of the Business Card including the Bleed area is
3.75 inches by 2.25 inches.
Don't forget to create an Artboard so tap on the Artboard
icon here and then tap OK.
And now we have an empty New document with an Artboard 1
The first thing I'm going to do is tap on the
Document menu and I'm going to set up my Snapping options.
So I'm going to Enable Snapping, Snap to Grid, Snap the Guides,
Snap to Layer Bounding Boxes and tap Done. Now Let's go ahead and set up our Guides
which is of course very important since we are creating a Business Card.
And the first is I'm going to set up the Bleed area so
that's 1/8 inch all around,
so tap on the Add Horizontal
and from the top, that would be 0.125 inches,
tap another horizontal Guide here
and from the bottom that will be
2.125 inches.
Now let's add the vertical guides so the first one from the left
is 0.125 and
from the right
there will be 3.65 inches, OK, so we just define the Bleed Area.
Now we also have the Trim Area. That's an additional
1/8 inch, OK, so a tap on the Add Horizontal guide
so the from the top that would be 0.25 inches
and from the bottom that will be 2 inches. Let's add the Vertical guides so from the left
0.25 inches
and from the right
3.5 inches, like so, see there we go.
So now we have set up the Business Card correctly. Now what remains
is the Design area or the Safe area where all the critical elements will be kept inside and
the total size of that if I draw a rectangle you see is 3.25 inches by 1.75 inches.
and that's exactly the
Safe area we're going to be designing our Business Card.
So now it's time to design our Business Card by first adding a background color which will extend to the Bleed Area and
for that I'm going to use the Rectangle tool just going to tap and drag to create one
like so. I'm going to change its color to Black
There we go. And
for the next tool I'm going to use another shape tool and that will be the Cloud tool
OK, so first let me go ahead and change its color,
there we go, and then just tap and drag to create one
Like so. Now
before I let go at the bottom, we have the Context Toolbar and we have some options here.
We have the Bubbles
which sets the number of protrusion on the shape
12 is fine
but for the Inner Radius which controls the length of the bubbles relative to the width of the shape
I'm going to bring the percentage number up to let's say to 95%,
like so, OK. I just want to make sure that it sits right in the center
there we go.
OK, now for an icon here in the middle, let's see some kind of a logo
I'm just going to bring up the
files that I have on the Cloud, it's just a sample icon here
I'm going to bring that in and then I find myself many times
That I like to resize things using the Transform Studio. So I'm going to tap on that and
then I'm going to tap on the Lock icon under the Dimensions.
so the width and the height are adjusted in proportion to each other, maintaining the aspect ratio.
So I'm going to tap on the number, I'm going to use your 0.4, like so,
then I'm just going to tap and bring this right at the center.
OK.
Let's go ahead and add a Circle, so I'm going to use the Ellipse tool
So I am going to tap and drag one
Let's see...
Let's say around there, OK.
Center this, let's change the color to Black.
But as you can see the first issue we have here is that the Ellipse sits right on top of the Skills icon?
So I'm going to tap and hold I'm going to bring this under and then for the Skills icon. I'm going to change its color
I'm going to use the Layer FX Studio
here and under the Color Overlay, I'm going to use the Color Overlay so tap on that,
make sure it's ON and then at the bottom we have
the Context Toolbar so tap on the color and just use a color of your choice
like so, just make sure this also sits right at the center, there we go,
let's look at the circle,
the circle is also is fine
and on the next part we can actually work on the Text on a Path.
For creating Text on a Path
I will first go into the Layers panel and under the Artboard 1
I'm just going to swipe to the left to select all the layers underneath it.
Tap on the Layer Options and just tap on the Lock icon to lock them up.
Then I'm going to use the Ellipse tool, just going to tap and drag to create an Ellipse,
like so. I am going to make sure the center sits right on the center.
And as for coloring doesn't really matter either Fill or Stroke
but just for reference I am just going to swipe this to the right to just have a Stroke
and then I'm going to make a duplicate of this ellipse
so I'm going to tap on the Edit menu and tap on duplicate because we will have
2 Text on Path.
Alright, so we want to use the Artistic Text tool, specifically the Art Text
so you want to tap on the outside and
and I'm just going to write my name
and this is Aligned centered and this is the beginning and end point
So you want to bring this right at the center?
Let's make sure that
the font I'm going to be using is Avenir, black color is fine, I'm okay with that.
Let's go back to the layers here and then I'm going to have that ON.
Again tap on the Art Text tool and
we have to do this on the inside and that will be
Helping you Develop
OK
Again I have to play around with the end, the beginning and end
I am just going to select all this text...
Let's go on to typography, I'm not going to use All Caps
The size is fine
Just going to leave it as is.
OK, so I got those two right now and as you can see the Helping you Develop is...
because we do this on the inside, I need to size this up so they're on the same Radius.
So I'm just going to
Tap this and size it up just a bit
Like so and then select those two and make sure they're sit around the center,
there we go.
And another thing I'm going to be doing is actually select the
Ellipse tool, just going to tap and drag to create
just a couple of circles here,
there we go.
Let's change its color so instead of Stroke. we want to have a Fill,
White is fine and
I'm just gonna bring this right the center right there
Then I'm going to make a duplicate of it and just bring it to the other side,
like so.
So as you can see we are pretty much done on the backside of the Business Card but you know
you can actually rename Artboard 1
so go inside the Layer Options, tap where it says Artboard 1 and then
Going to use the name of Backside,
there we go.
That should take it soon, there we go. And
for the for the next part we're going to work actually on the front side.
For creating the front side of the Business Card, the first step is to duplicate the Artboard
So I'm just going to tap on the Layer Studio here, going to tap to select the artboard backside
Just make sure you have your Snapping ON and I'm going do this with Gestures.
So I'm going to tap two fingers of the canvas and then I'm just going to tap and drag,
like so, there we go.
Let's go ahead and rename Back Side to Front Side so tap on the Layer Options here
tap where it says Backside and
Rename this to Front Side,
there we go,
like so OK. So why do we need from this Front Side artboard?
Well, we don't need the Ellipse or the Text on a Path,
we just need the rectangle and the Skills icon. So tap on the Trash icon, there we go. I'm also going to tap on the
lock icon to unlock this I'm just going to size it up just a bit,
there you go, just move it there. Now I'm going to select the rectangle
Go to the Edit menu and duplicate this
And
I'm going to change its color,
there we go. I'm just going to tap and bring this in right in the center,
let's see
Just make sure this is right in the center as well
and now we are ready to work on the
half side of the Front Side of the Business Card.
The remaining side of our Business Card is where we will add our personal information with perhaps some social icons,
text or what have you. So instead of me spending time adding text fields
I want to show you how to bring in and save your own icons inside Affinity Designer,
under the Assets Studio. So for that I'm going to bring in the Files app as a floating app and
up on the Cloud I have stored some PNG icons. So I'm going to tap on the LinkedIn icon, I'm going to save this locally
And then I'm going to bring in the Photos app as a floating app,
here it is, I am going to tap and drag this and bring it inside the canvas.
OK.
So let's go ahead and tap on the Assets Studio and by default we get these iOS 12
category with subcategories like Miscellaneous Controls and so on.
If I tap again, you can see that I've created my own category here, Social Icons with a subcategory called Icons.
So let me show you how you create your own Category and Subcategory.
Tap on the top icon, tap where it says Add Category
by default you get Unnamed so you want to tap again and
rename category instead of unnamed let's say
My Stuff
OK, then tap again to create a Subcategory,
by default we get the
Name Assets so we want to rename this. So rename subcategory,
let's say Social
OK, now before I add this into the social subcategory
I'm going to tap on the Layer FX Studio
and tap on the color overlay and turn it on and
I'm just going to change its color to white.
OK, make sure this selected, back on the Assets Studio,
tap and then Add Asset from Selection, there you go.
I can just delete that and if you want to bring it into your project tap once and then tap Insert,
like so, OK.
Another thing you can do is you have the ability to save your category so you can export that.
So tap on the top icon and then tap on the Export Category option,
that will prompt you to export it up on the Cloud or what have you so
anytime you wish to insert icons or shapes into your Affinity Designer Assets Studio just import that
And so I finished adding some text fields and social icons to the business card and now we are ready to export it
personally, I always save my projects first as an Affinity Designer native file so tap on the Document menu and
then tap on the Save a Copy and as you can see under the File name we have an Affinity Designer default extension.
So I'm just going to cancel that out
and then I'm going to export this as PDF so tap on the Document menu and then tap on Export and
here I've selected the PDF Preset and under the File name
double tap and perhaps give it a name of
Business card.
As for Use Document Resolution from 300 dpi I'm going to bring this up to 600 and
I'm also going to include the Bleed.
Just going to tap OK and I'm just going to save the file up on the Cloud.
Well, there's a lot you can accomplish inside Affinity Designer including creating professional business cards. In this tutorial
we cover the essentials and beyond so you can produce your own designs.
Thank you for spending time with me,
let me know if you have any questions below the comments section and don't forget to subscribe to my channel and share the knowledge. Elias Sarantopoulos.