Getting Started with Affinity: My Sketch to Vector Brand Design Workflow

Design a full brand identity, from sketch to vector to mockup, in a single app

If you’re designing brand identities, logos, or illustrations, your tools matter. Not because tools make the designer (they don’t) but because good tools remove friction from the creative process.

In this walkthrough, I’m going to show you how I use Affinity to build a brand identity from sketch to vector, all inside a single app.

We’ll look at:

• Setting up a custom workspace
• Switching between Vector, Pixel, and Layout Studios
• Turning sketches into clean vector artwork
• Building graphics with the Pen Tool and boolean operations
• Creating layouts and mockups for presentation

One of the things I love most about Affinity is that everything lives inside one environment. You’re not constantly bouncing between three different programs just to complete one piece of work.

It’s all there.

Let’s jump in.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:11 All-in-one
05:07 Tools
11:48 Vector Studio
23:17 Pixel Studio
28:28 Layout Studio
34:06 Outro

Tools used in this Affinity Designer workflow:

• Vector Studio
• Pixel Studio
• Layout Studio
• Image Trace
• Pen Tool
• Boolean Operations
• Artboards
• AI Mockups

The All-in-One Affinity Workspace

The first thing you’ll notice when opening Affinity is the all-in-one workflow.

Instead of separate apps for vector, raster, and layout work, you can move seamlessly between three studios:

• Vector Studio — for logo design and vector illustration
• Pixel Studio — for raster editing and image work
• Layout Studio — for print, publishing, and presentation layouts

Switching between them takes one click.

That alone removes a huge amount of friction from the design process instead of having to export files, reopen things in another program, and breaking your flow.

Everything happens in one place.

For designers who do a lot of brand identity work (like me), that’s incredibly useful. This kind of fast iteration is also part of my Minimum Viable Brand philosophy… getting ideas into the world quickly so they can evolve.

Customising Your Affinity Workspace

One feature in Affinity that’s particularly powerful is the ability to create custom studios.

You can build a workspace that only includes the tools you actually use… which means fewer distractions and a much faster workflow.

For example, when I’m doing logo work I might want quick access to:

• Boolean operations
• Alignment tools
• Rotation controls
• Stroke adjustments

Affinity lets you drag these tools directly into your toolbar so they’re always available.

It sounds small, but once you start designing regularly, these kinds of workflow tweaks save a lot of time.

Essential Tools for Vector Design

When building brand marks and iconography, there are a few tools I use constantly:

Shape Tools

Affinity includes all the classic vector shapes you’d expect like circles, rectangles, and more complex geometry.

These are incredibly useful for building base structures when designing logos or icons.

Boolean Operations

Boolean tools allow you to combine shapes to create more complex forms.

For example:

• Subtract shapes to cut elements out
• Add shapes to merge them together
• Intersect overlapping areas

This is one of the fastest ways to build clean vector graphics.

The Pen Tool

If you design logos or icons, the Pen Tool will be one of your most important tools.

Affinity makes it easy to:

• Draw precise paths
• Adjust nodes and curves
• Refine shapes after they’re created

Combined with the Node Tool, you can quickly smooth out lines and remove awkward curves to create cleaner vector work.

Stroke Width Tool

Another small but powerful feature is the ability to adjust stroke width dynamically along a path.

Instead of creating separate shapes, you can taper strokes and adjust line weight directly on the vector path.

This is super useful when creating expressive illustrations or hand-drawn style graphics.

From Sketch to Vector

My typical process starts with hand sketches.

I’ll sketch ideas on paper, take a quick photo, and bring the image into Affinity to begin building the vector artwork.

Once the sketch is imported, I usually:

1. Lower the sketch opacity
2. Place it on a background layer
3. Draw vector shapes over the top using the Pen Tool

This allows me to preserve the looseness of the sketch while creating scalable vector graphics.

Cleaning Sketches in Pixel Studio

Sometimes sketches need a little cleanup before vectorising them.

This is where Pixel Studio comes in.

Inside Pixel Studio you can:

• Convert sketches to black and white
• Increase contrast
• Remove unwanted marks or noise
• Clean up lines using the eraser tool

These adjustments make it much easier to convert a sketch into usable vector artwork later.

Converting Images to Vector with Image Trace

One of the most useful features inside Affinity is Image Trace.

If you’re given a JPEG or raster image, you can convert it into vector artwork directly inside the app.

The process is simple:

1. Select the image
2. Switch to Vector Studio
3. Click Image Trace
4. Adjust the trace settings

Affinity will generate a vector version of the image that can then be edited using nodes and paths.

For designers who regularly receive low-quality assets from clients (we’ve all been there), this feature is a lifesaver.

Using Artboards to Organise Designs

When designing multiple icons or brand assets, artboards are incredibly helpful.

Instead of working on a single canvas, you can create multiple artboards and keep each concept organised.

For example:

• One artboard per icon
• One artboard per badge design
• One artboard per brand variation

This keeps everything tidy and allows you to compare designs side-by-side.

The History Tool (A Hidden Gem)

One of my favourite features in Affinity is the History tool.

Instead of repeatedly pressing undo, you can scrub back through your entire design history using a timeline.

Even better, if you make changes from an earlier point in the timeline, Affinity creates a new design branch instead of deleting everything that came after it.

That’s a huge advantage when experimenting with ideas.

Presenting Designs in Layout Studio

Once the artwork is finished, the next step is usually presentation.

This is where Layout Studio comes in.

Layout Studio allows you to:

• Arrange designs for presentation
• Prepare print layouts
• Set up colour systems like Pantone spot colours
• Build polished presentation documents

For branding projects, this is perfect for preparing visuals to show clients.

Creating Mockups with AI Tools

Another fun part of the workflow is creating quick mockups.

For example, if you want to show how a badge design would look on a t-shirt, you can generate a mockup image and place the artwork directly onto it.

This gives clients a better sense of how the design might live in the real world.

And again, because everything is happening inside one environment you can tweak the vector artwork without leaving the layout section. Brilliant.

Why This Workflow Works

What I love about this setup is how fluid the entire process feels.

You can move between:

• sketch cleanup
• vector illustration
• layout presentation

without ever leaving the application.

For designers working on brand identity, illustration, or logo design, this kind of workflow efficiency makes a real difference.

Final Thoughts

Affinity has built something pretty special here.

The ability to design, edit, vectorise, and present your work all inside a single app is incredibly powerful.

Whether you’re creating brand marks, illustrations, or full identity systems, the tools are flexible enough to support a modern design workflow.

And honestly…

I still can’t quite believe it’s free.

So if you haven’t tried it yet, jump in, have a play around, and see what you can build.

Creative freedom, my friends.

More Affinity videos coming soon.

James
The People’s Branding Mentor