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Top 10 most read articles for designers in 2021

As the new year gets underway, we explore the most popular articles for graphic designers in 2021 here on Affinity Spotlight.

We look back at the expert tips, tricks and tutorials that captured the imagination of Affinity Designer and Publisher users over the last year–from workflow advice and how-to guides to behind the scenes insights from Affinity pro-users.

1. 8 Ways to speed up your logo design process

When you’re working to tight deadlines, it’s more important than ever to save time without sacrificing on quality. In this article, we look at how keyboard shortcuts, workspace customisation, Boolean operations and global colours can be used to redefine your workflow when designing logos in Affinity Designer.

2. 20 Top class templates for Affinity Publisher

If you’re looking to get a head start with your next publication or just need a bit of creative inspiration, check out our pick of Affinity Publisher templates available to purchase on Creative Market.

3. Creating great Publisher page layouts with StudioLink

Looking for a way to take your page layouts even further? With StudioLink’s ability to switch between different Personas, you can take advantage of each of the Affinity apps’ unique features. In this article, we explore some of the effects you can produce in the Photo Persona and Designer Persona, which can help you to build some truly eye-catching designs for your pages.

4. How to use the isometric drawing tools in Affinity Designer

Following the introduction of isometric drawing tools in Affinity Designer 1.7, we asked Affinity Designer guru, Frankentoon, to create a tutorial to explain the features of the Isometric Panel–and it is still one of our most-read articles about Affinity Designer. So, if you’d like to learn more about the Isometric Panel and how to set up isometric grids, be sure to check it out.

5. Free font websites for Affinity Publisher–our top five

Are you bored of your current system fonts? Why not explore some free font websites before parting with your hard-earned cash? We go beyond the essential features expected of such sites, i.e. searching, category filtering (top rated, featured, by style) and font previewing, which most sites share, while talking you through our top five.

6. How to create repeat patterns with a live pattern preview in Affinity Designer for iPad

Liz Kohler Brown is an artist and designer who creates unique lettering projects, surface designs and illustrations. In this tutorial, she shows us how to create a repeat pattern in Affinity Designer for iPad, from setting up a document all the way through to exporting the final design for sharing or exporting to print on demand sites like Society6, Spoonflower or RedBubble.

7. Creating a bold numerical design with Mario De Meyer

Mario de Meyer is a freelance graphic designer based in Ghent, Belgium, whose work has a strong focus on typography. In this tutorial, he shares the process behind a slick numerical design he created for 36 Days of Type 2021 using Affinity Designer.

8. How to use Symbols in Affinity Designer

Symbols are a game-changer when it comes to creating repeatable elements in Affinity Designer. They allow you to intelligently link objects throughout your document so when one instance is edited, the others are automatically updated too, which could potentially save you hours of time. Here, our in-house product expert Matt takes a closer look at this incredible feature and the many ways it can be used.

9. Making selections in Affinity Designer 1.9

Selecting objects in a design can be tricky with complex documents, so in Affinity 1.9, we provided some powerful new selection methods to enhance your ability to experiment and work faster. Here, our Technical author Alan runs through those helpful features and how to use them.

10. Artboards explained

Artboards can be a little unfamiliar to beginners, so to help you make more use of them, our documentation manager Andy goes through artboards in-depth in this article.