Have you found a nice pack of brushes that you’d like to use in your project, and you’re wondering how to add brushes to Affinity Designer? Let’s explore brushes in the Designer Persona and Pixel Persona and see how they work.
Once you’ve learned how to add brushes to Affinity Designer, you can head over to Envato Elements to get unlimited downloads of graphics, fonts, and photos that will help you improve your designs.
What You’ll Learn in This Tutorial
- How to install brushes in Affinity Designer’s Designer Persona
- How to install brushes in Affinity Designer’s Pixel Persona
Tutorial Assets
You’ll need the following resources to complete this project:
1. How to Install Brushes in Affinity Designer: Designer Persona
Step 1
Let’s start with a new document by going to File > New, or you can open your own project to work on if you prefer. Locate and activate the Brushes panel under View > Studio.
Step 2
It’s important to know that Affinity Designer brushes are different and act differently in Designer Persona and in Pixel Persona. Let’s take a look at both situations:
- Brushes in the Designer Persona act like vector brushes (Illustrator brushes), and you need Affinity Brush File or PNG files to install them.
In the image below, you can see the Brushes panel in the Designer Persona. You already have a variety of brushes that you can use, but you can never have too many, right? Open the drop-down menu from the little arrow and see all the brush categories available. To add brushes to Affinity Designer, first you need to open the menu in the upper-right corner of the Brushes panel and click on Create new Category. This way, you’ll keep the new brushes in their own place.
Step 3
By default, Affinity Designer will name the new category Brushes, but you can rename it as you want according to the style of the new brushes, by choosing Rename Category in the menu (1).
Download the zip folder containing your new brushes. Locate the download on your computer and Extract its content. I’m using the 16 Grunge Brushes pack, and the folder includes PNG files. Choose New Textured Image Brush from the Brushes panel menu, and locate those PNG files. Select the brush that you want to add, and click Open. The brush will be visible in the Brushes category now. Repeat the process to add the rest of the brushes in the collection, or as many as you need (2).
If the brushes you download are in the Affinity Brush File format, then you would choose Import Brushes from the menu and locate the file on your computer. But this type of brush specifically made for Designer is not so common. More often, we want to install and use vector brushes or Photoshop brushes.
Step 4
Grab the Vector Brush Tool (B), select one of the new brushes, and start drawing a path on your artboard. Easy, right?
Step 5
The brushes in the Designer Persona act like Affinity Designer vector brushes. You have a path that you can modify and distort at any time using the Node Tool (A). Also, you can adjust the Width of the brush to make it wider or thinner. For a smoother brush stroke, I also recommend that you check Stabilizer up in the Context Toolbar before drawing (View > Show Context Toolbar).
The downside of installing brushes in the PNG format is that you can’t change the color of the brush. They always keep the original color in which they were created.
Step 6
Right-click on a brush and choose Edit Brush. Experiment with settings like Width, Size, Opacity, or Pressure. You can also define the starting and ending points of the brush by moving the two red lines. Hit Close once you’re done.
2. How to Install Brushes in Affinity Designer: Pixel Persona
Step 1
Activate Pixel Persona by clicking on the colored squares icon in the upper left corner of the application. Now, take a look at the Brushes panel and notice that you have more brush categories here. Check them out!
In Pixel Persona, the brushes act like raster brushes (pixel-based brushes), so you can install pretty much any Photoshop brush if you download an ABR file. I am using the Watercolor Photoshop Brushes set. Extract the files on your computer.
Open the Brushes panel menu and choose Import Brushes. Locate the ABR file in your download and hit Open. You will get a successful installation message, and now all the brushes will be visible in the Brushes panel.
Step 2
Grab the Paint Brush Tool (B), select one of them, and start painting on your artboard.
Step 3
In the image below, you can see two of the watercolor brushes in action. Feel free to adjust the Width, Opacity, Flow, and Hardness up in the Context Toolbar according to your needs.
The good news is that, in Pixel Persona, you can change the color of the raster brushes. Pick any color from the Color panel, and the brush color will update too.
Step 4
Right-click on a brush and choose Edit Brush. Experiment with all the settings available to generate different stroke results.
Congratulations! You’re Done
Now you know how to add brushes to Affinity Designer. Install as many vector or raster brushes as you want, and explore all the settings available.
Don’t import Photoshop brushes and expect to see them in the Designer persona. Always remember that Designer Persona brushes and Pixel Persona brushes work differently.
Now that you know everything, feel free to take your designs to the next level with Affinity Designer brushes.
Also make sure to check out Envato Elements, where you’ll find plenty of brushes in different styles and shapes. Download them and use them to create cool designs.
Want to Learn More About Affinity Designer?
We have loads of tutorials on Envato Tuts+ that teach many other useful techniques. Here’s a list of tutorials specially made for you.