Affinity Designer Quick Start Guide for Beginners (Udemy.com)

A free, 48 minute walkthrough of the Affinity Designer 2.5 interface and its main tools, split over five lectures. Mark Krukowski, a qualified ICT teacher with seven years in the classroom, spends 36 of those minutes on a three-lecture tools section and then wraps up with a short summary. There are no projects, quizzes, or assignments. It is aimed squarely at people who have just installed Affinity Designer and want someone to point at the panels and explain what the Move, Pen, Shape and Shape Builder tools do before they start poking around on their own. Designers switching from other software will find it a quick orientation rather than a real course.

The 39 reviews are almost all positive, with a 4.8 average and nothing below four stars. Students say it is easy to follow and packed with information for something that costs nothing. One reviewer suggests watching the whole thing first, then going back to practice, and points to a useful bit at the end about convert to curves. The main complaint, from a four-star review, is that the course is a little behind the current version of Affinity Designer. It was last updated in January 2025, so check which version you are running before you start. The bigger limitation is scope: it covers the interface and tools, not how to make anything.

As a free primer it sits well next to the full-length Affinity Designer courses on this page. Watch it in an evening, then move to something like Affinity Designer: Solid Foundations or the Complete Guide if you want projects and depth. Anyone hoping for a course that teaches actual vector illustration should treat this as the warm-up, not the main event.