In this Affinity® Designer tutorial, we will create one of the basic holiday icons, which is the star. We will use the Star tool in Affinity Designer to draw the basic five pointed star shape. Using a Boolean operation, we will cut away part of the star, creating a 3D effect. Once we have the star completed, we will add a golden color and the Outer Shadow layer effect.

Open Affinity Designer and let's get started.

1. Start a new document that is 1000 x 1000 pixels at 144 dpi for web/mobile or 300 dpi for print.


2. Select the Star tool, and draw a star shape on the canvas.


3. In the Layers panel, name this layer star.


4. In the Context toolbar, set the Fill color to your choice (see screenshot).

In order to manipulate the shape nodes, we first need to apply the Convert to Curves feature.


5. From the Menubar, click Layer - Convert to Curves.

In preparation for using the Subtract Boolean, we will draw triangles over the part of the star that we want to cut away.


6. Select the Pen tool and draw a triangle over one half of the top point of the star (see screenshot).


7. In the Context toolbar, set the Fill to black for the triangle (see screenshot).


8. Repeat the previous steps for the other four points on the star (see screenshot).

In the Layers panel, you should now have the star layer and five Curve layers containing one triangle each (see screenshot).

Now we will use the black triangles to cut away parts of the star.


9. In the Layers panel, select both the star and the triangle layer just above the star layer.


10. In the Boolean section of the Toolbar, click the Subtract icon.

The black triangle will disappear and that same triangle shape will be cut away from the star (see screenshot).


11. Repeat the previous step and cut away the other four triangles.

You should now have a stylized version of the basic five pointed star. We will change the color to gold and add a shadow effect.


12. With the star layer selected, change the Fill color to E3BD15 (see screenshot).

Now we will add the shadow.


13. With the star layer still selected, click the Layer Effects icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.


14. In the Layer Effects pop-up window, check the box next to Outer Shadow. Keep the default settings but set the Radius to about 5 to 11 pixels (see screenshot).

Once you have your star element, you can add it too your holiday graphic elements collection (see screenshot), and use it in many holiday projects. For example, duplicate the star several times, add a thin line with the Pen tool and you have a string of holiday stars.

Index - How to Draw a Holiday Theme Collection of Elements

Affinity® Designer screenshots used by permission of Serif (Europe) Ltd. This article is not endorsed by Serif Ltd.