38 Best + Free Affinity Designer Courses & Certificates [2026]
Ranked by Michael Kuhlman, CourseDuck's founder, from student reviews across every provider. How we rank
Our top picks
- Affinity Designer: The Complete Guide to Affinity Designer [Udemy]
- Learn the Entire Affinity Suite: Photo, Designer & Publisher [Udemy]
- Affinity Designer: Solid Foundations [Udemy]
- Vector Drawing on the iPad with Affinity Designer [Udemy]
- Affinity Designer Quick Start Guide for Beginners [Udemy]
- Vector Logo Design in Affinity Designer [Udemy]
- The Complete Affinity Designer for iPad Course [Udemy]
- The Affinity Designer Crash Course [Udemy]
- Affinity Designer: The Complete Guide to Creating Vector Art [Udemy]
- Web Design in Affinity Designer Masterclass [Udemy]
About the best Affinity Designer courses
Frequently asked questions
- Udemy and Eduonix are best for practical, low cost and high quality Affinity Designer courses.
- Coursera, Udacity and EdX are the best providers for an Affinity Designer certificate, as many come from top Ivy League Universities.
- YouTube is best for free Affinity Designer crash courses.
- PluralSight, SkillShare and LinkedIn are the best monthly subscription platforms if you want to take multiple Affinity Designer courses.
- Independent Providers for Affinity Designer courses & certificates are generally hit or miss.
- Average
- $58,909 a year
- Middle half earn
- $39,000 to $74,000 25th to 75th percentile
- Full range
- $18,000 to $111,500
Share of US job postings in each pay band; the dark bar holds the average, the striped bars the 25th and 75th percentiles. Source: ZipRecruiter salary data, gathered when this guide was first published in January 2021.
1
Affinity Designer: The Complete Guide to Affinity Designer (2024)
A 23 hour beginner course on Affinity Designer v2 from a working tattoo artist, with short lessons, a full vector workflow and a Pixel Persona painting project.
Best for: Complete beginners who want one long, sequential walk through every Designer tool with a working pro's asides.


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- Short lessons that are easy to rewatch, and reviewers say they explain why a tool exists, not just where it is
- V2 lessons come first, and students working in Affinity v3 say they can still follow along without trouble
- Covers the Pixel Persona and a digital painting project, handy if you don't own Affinity Photo
- About 50,000 students and a 4.7 rating from more than 5,000 reviews, with 90 percent at 4 or 5 stars
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- Roughly 13 of the 23.5 hours are older V1 lessons parked below a divider, so the current course is about 10 hours
- More than one reviewer calls the practice examples too simple to transfer to real design work
- The chatty delivery ('this bad boy', 'awesome') drove one two-star reviewer to skip through the videos
2
Learn the Entire Affinity Suite: Photo, Designer & Publisher (2022)
A project-based tour of Affinity Photo, Designer, Publisher and the iPad apps from two instructors, still the only one-stop suite course on our list despite showing its age.
Best for: Beginners who want all three Affinity apps in one course and would rather build a logo, brochure and poster than sit through tool demos.


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- Covers Designer, Photo, Publisher and both iPad apps, which no neighbouring course does
- Lindsay Marsh's Designer and Publisher sections are slow, clear and note the Adobe equivalents
- Most sections end in a real deliverable: logo, business card, trifold brochure, cookbook spread, poster
- Downloadable project files and a tracing worksheet for pen tool practice
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- Recorded on version 1 and last updated in 2022, so menus and a few panels differ from Affinity 2 and 3
- Jeremy Hazel's Photo sections move fast and skip steps; reviewers say they rewind constantly
- Student questions reportedly go unanswered, and the iPad sections are dead weight if you work on desktop
3
Affinity Designer: Solid Foundations (2023)
Nineteen hours of project-led Affinity Designer teaching from a 30-year studio designer, with a 4.9 rating that almost nobody in 1,900 reviews argues with.
Best for: Complete beginners to vector design, and Illustrator switchers who want the why behind every tool, not just the where.


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- Explains why a tool is used and when, not just which button to click, reviewers say repeatedly
- Practice videos let students attempt a task first, then watch Foster's solution
- Nearly every image used in the lessons is downloadable so you can follow along
- 1,494 five-star ratings and only 8 at one or two stars from about 1,900 reviews
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- Long: 106 lectures over 19 hours, and one reviewer says it took three years to finish
- Recorded in Affinity Designer 1 with added videos for 2.2, last updated December 2023
- Only four sections and no quizzes, so the structure is loose for a course this size
4
Vector Drawing on the iPad with Affinity Designer (2019)
A short, project-based intro to vector illustration on the iPad, taught by illustrator Brad Colbow, with a 4.7 rating from about 1,700 reviews despite dating from 2019.
Best for: People who sketch and want to turn drawings into finished vector art on an iPad, one tool at a time, through two real projects.


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- Brad Colbow's easygoing, funny teaching style gets consistent praise, even from students who came back years later to review it
- Two real projects (a haunted house and a full poster) mean every tool is learned by actually drawing something
- Reviewers new to vector art call it a perfect first introduction; one with no prior experience says he learnt it with ease
- Short at about 4.5 hours, so it fits in a weekend without padding
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- Last updated in October 2019 for Designer version 1; menus and tools have moved in version 2 and later, so following along takes searching
- Some students struggled to see where Brad was tapping on screen and had to rewind and pause often
- Light on detail in places, and newer Affinity tools are not covered at all
5
Affinity Designer Quick Start Guide for Beginners (2025)
A free 48 minute tour of the Affinity Designer 2.5 interface and core tools from a qualified ICT teacher, rated 4.8 by 39 students with nothing below four stars.
Best for: Anyone who just installed Affinity Designer and wants the panels and main tools explained in under an hour, for free.


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- Free, and reviewers say it is packed with information for a video that costs nothing
- Short enough to finish in one sitting: five lectures, 47 minutes of video
- Clear, easy-to-follow explanations from a qualified ICT teacher
- Covers the Pen, Shape Builder and convert-to-curves basics
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- Made for version 2.5 and last updated January 2025, so one reviewer already finds parts outdated
- Interface and tools only: no projects, quizzes, or assignments
- Only 39 reviews and about 920 students, so the rating rests on a small sample
6
Vector Logo Design in Affinity Designer (2023)
What You'll Learn
- Discover why vector is paramount to awesome, effective logo design.
- Follow a comprehensive client brief delivering total satisfaction.
- Construct a mood board based upon reference material and use it to develop designs.
- Mind Map to generate awesome ideas to apply to your logo designs
- Discover the manual material used in the sketching process.
- Prepare sketches ready for the scanner of camera.
- Understand the art of sketching and how we execute ideas on paper.
- Discover how we add extra meaning to symbols to develop awesome logos.
- Master every primary vector tool in Affinity Designer
- Navigate around all Affinity Designer panels and menus with ease.
- Wield the pen tool like a pro, mastering nodes and segments.
- Design almost anything in vector in Affinity Designer.
- Marry text like professionally with the logo design symbol.
- Kern text properly for ultimate logo design aesthetics.
7
The Complete Affinity Designer for iPad Course (2023)
What You'll Learn
- Take a complete piece of art from concept to finished export in Affinity Designer
- Create beautiful custom brushes for use in their own art
- Learn professional workflow techniques to maximize the work you do
- Create and sketch organically without having to open a laptop or be tethered to the desktop
- Create seamless textures using symbols and professional technique
- Create assets for use in mutliple applications, such as brushes and textures
- Be able to apply complex concepts like blend modes, masking layers and color theory
- Build a solid foundational portfolio by the end of the course
8
The Affinity Designer Crash Course (2018)
What You'll Learn
- Students will learn all the tools necessary to take their sketches and turn them into finished professional looking vector artwork.
9
Affinity Designer: The Complete Guide to Creating Vector Art (2020)
What You'll Learn
- an understanding of Affinity Designers tools
- an understanding of Affinity's Designers vector/pixel Hybrid workflow
- an understanding of common graphical and illustrative terms
- simple creative techniques that yield high visual impact
- FREE sketches to work from
- FREE brushes, textures and color pallettes
- one completed project
10
Web Design in Affinity Designer Masterclass (2019)
What You'll Learn
- I will create beautiful and modern website designs in Affinity Designer
- I will Improve my knowledge and understanding of web design principles
- I will easily work in Affinity Designer using all the major tools
- I will master quick yet powerful techniques and get great results instantly
- I will learn about web typography
- I will understand a typical website's structure
11
Affinity Designer for Beginners | Updated for Version 2 (2022)
What You'll Learn
- You will learn the foundational skills of Affinity Designer
- You will learn how to use the most important tools for graphic design
- You will gain real world experience as you complete the course projects
- You will feel confident working in Affinity Designer












