How to Create a Greeting Card Template in Affinity Designer

What You'll Be Creating

Looking for an Affinity Designer template tutorial? Then look no further! In this Affinity Designer tutorial, we'll be creating a greeting card template and then using that template to create a Lunar New Year card.

What You'll Need

To create the template, all you need is Affinity Designer. If you want to follow along to create the Lunar New Year card template, you'll need the following resources:

You can also follow along with the tutorial and create your own assets as you go! Affinity Designer is a powerful tool for creating vector graphics.

1. How Do I Create an Affinity Designer Template?

Step 1

First, let's open up Affinity Designer and create a new document. Go to File > New.

Step 2

We're going to create a greeting card template at a 5 x 7 inch size. (127 x 178 mm)

Tip: You can change the document units with the dropdown under the DPI unit if you wish.

We need to create a canvas that will accommodate both sides of our greeting card. This means that we need to make the size of this document twice the width of the card, which would be 10 x 7 inches. (254 mm x 178 mm)

Insert a page width of 10 inches and a page height of 7 inches.

Step 3

Keep the DPI at 300 so that this is suitable for print. Anything lower than 300 and your prints may turn out to be of low quality.

Step 4

The rest of the default settings should be fine, but just in case yours are different, make sure you have these settings:

• DPI: 300 (or higher)
• Create artboard: Unchecked
• Color format: CMYK/8
• Color profile: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
• Transparent Background: Unchecked
• Margins: Not included
• Bleed: All 3in

After reviewing your settings, go ahead and click Create to start your new document.

Step 5

Now you should have a document with landscape proportions. We need to add some guides so we can tell where each side of the card is.

Go to View > Guides Manager.

Step 6

This will bring up the guides manager dialog window. Go ahead and click the new guide button. You can find this under the right column. Click it to create a vertical guide.

Step 7

Notice that by default the guide has been placed in the middle of the document. This is perfect for our needs as this splits the document in two. Now click close!

Step 8

You will now be presented with a document like this: a canvas which is split down the middle. The right of the canvas will be the front of our card, and the left of the canvas will be the back of our card.

Step 9

Now our document is ready to start designing. But first, let's turn this document into a greeting card template. This way, we can use this template every time we want to create a greeting card with these specifications.

Go to File > Export as Template...

Step 10

Now find a suitable folder on your desktop and save your Affinity Designer greeting card template.

That's all there is to it! You just created an Affinity Designer greeting card template. We can now use this file any time we want to create a 5 x 7 greeting card.

Want to learn how to create a Lunar New Year card with this template? Then keep on reading!

2. How Do I Design a Card From an Affinity Designer Template?

Step 1

Now let's begin our design by concentrating on the front cover first!

We'll be creating a Lunar New Year card. The concept is a dark night sky along with some fireworks. Let's create a simple background color for the front of our card.

Go ahead and select the Rectangle Tool from the toolbar.

Step 2

Now click and drag to create the shape.

Using the Move Tool and transform anchors on the rectangle, move the shape to the right side of your document and fill the area up to the guide.

Step 3

This will be the base of our background! Now let's change the colors here so it is suitable for our night sky.

In the top left of the screen, select the fill area.

Step 4

Use the color selector to pick a dark blue. You can choose any color you want here—try and experiment with different shades. Perhaps a dark purple could also work!

Step 5

Now we have the background base finished!

Make sure there is no border around your shape. You can check this by looking at the stroke area and ensuring that it's set to none.

Step 6

Next, let's add some fireworks to our night sky to set the mood. We could do this by creating the shapes ourselves. However, we're going to use some vector fireworks from Envato Elements:

• 20 Bonfire and Fireworks Icons

To add these fireworks to our project, first download them and unzip the files to your desktop. Then go to File > Place.

Step 7

Navigate your way to the folder where you unzipped these. Then select one of the SVG firework files and then click Open.

Step 8

You will now see your cursor change into a new icon. Click anywhere on the canvas to place the firework element.

Step 9

This has now been placed in our canvas as an embedded document. The cool thing about this is that it's all grouped onto one layer for us. It's also a vector type image, so we can move and scale it any way we please.

Go ahead and move and scale it!

Step 10

Now repeat that process, selecting different fireworks and placing them randomly around the canvas. To add new fireworks, again go to File > Place.

Step 11

Experiment and move around your fireworks until it feels balanced. Make sure to leave some space to add the greeting text! Don't stress too much, though—you can easily remove any fireworks that get in the way.

Eventually, you should have something that looks similar to this!

Step 12

Looking good so far! But it's not much of a greeting card without a greeting, is it?

Now we're going to add some text to our document. Click the Text Tool in the toolbar.

Step 13

Next, click somewhere on the canvas and type out your desired text. In our case, we are going with "happy new year"—simple enough, right?

Step 14

Next, we'll format our text. With the text box selected, use the options in the top bar to change the font settings.

We're using the Beauty Salon Script font at 64 pt with a white color.

Tip: You can install fonts when Affinity Designer is running, but if they don't show up, save your work and restart the program.

Step 15

Now select the Move Tool and rotate the text to align with the movement of the image. To rotate text, use the corners of the transform box.

Step 16

Great! Now, let's add a little extra flair to the front of our design. It's the year of the ox, so let's put something here to emphasize that.

We'll be using the Chinese Lunar New Year graphic object from Envato Elements. It comes in both EPS and SVG file format, which is perfect for this project.

After you've downloaded and unzipped the file, you can insert it into Affinity Designer.

Open the SVG by going to File > Place.

Step 17

Locate the SVG in your files and open it up. Now, using the same process as for the fireworks, let's place it in the bottom right!

You may need to scale it depending on your canvas size. We want this to add a little bit of extra flair to our design.

Step 18

We don't want there to be too much emphasis on this element, so that it takes away from the greeting itself. We need a way to make its presence a little more subdued.

Let's add an effect to it! With the object selected within the Layers panel, click the layer effect dropdown.

Step 19

Now select Negation from the dropdown. This will give it a dark tone and make it blend into the background.

Step 20

There, that's the main part of our greeting card finished. The front cover of our lunar greeting card is done! You may want to tweak and adjust this to suit your tastes.

Step 21

I want to leave the back mostly blank, but it feels a little bare with nothing there. Let's add a little something to the back of the card to make it feel more complete.

Right-click the ox object layer and Duplicate it.

Step 22

Select your duplicated ox graphic. Now let's place this on the left area of canvas. This will be the back of the card when it's folded.

Place it near the bottom and scale it as needed, as we have done with previous graphics.

Step 23

We don't need the negation effect for this one, so let's set the layer type to normal.

Step 24

Now it stands out just a little too much!

Now let's set the Opacity to 50%. This adds a little bit of a flair to the back of our card, while still being nice and subtle.

Step 25

I think we could do a little more to make it feel more official! To round it off, let's add a little text under our emblem.

Select the Text Tool and place some text under the ox graphic. You may need to move and adjust both the ox and the text layer until it feels just right.

Step 26

For the font, let's use the same one we used on the cover again. This will add a nice bit of consistency between the front and back of the greeting card.

We're using the Beauty Salon Script font at 24 pt with a black color.

There you have it! This Lunar New Year card is ready for print. When you print it, you simply cut any excess from around the card and fold the middle. If you're sending your work into a print shop, they will likely ask for either an EPS or a PDF file. To export in these formats, you can go to File > Export and select the PDF or EPS tabs as needed.

More Affinity Designer Template Resources

We hope you enjoyed this Affinity Designer tutorial! Looking for ideas or inspiration for Affinity Designer greeting cards? Then check out these greeting cards and vector art packages from Envato Elements! You can use any template with Affinity Designer if it's saved in the EPS format.

1. Christmas Colorful Greeting Cards (AI, EPS, JPG, PDF)

Check out these Christmas templates for a greeting card! The sleek blues and dark background give this a really classy but chilly feeling. It comes in the EPS format, so you can open it up in Affinity Designer right away!

2. Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards and Elements (AI, EPS, SVG, and More)

This robust set comes with many different Valentine's Day greeting cards and tons of graphics. These are provided in a large variety of formats, which will surely meet your project needs! The EPS and SVG file formats work especially well with Affinity Designer!

3. Halloween Greeting Cards (JPG, EPS)

Check out these spooky Halloween-inspired greeting cards. They come in several different color variants! All of the cards are included as EPS files, so you can open them up in Affinity Designer and start adding your own customizations to these spooky designs.

4. Mother's Day Greeting Quotes and Cards (AI, EPS, SVG, PNG)

This collection of graphic elements and greeting cards gives you everything you need to create custom Mother's Day greeting cards. It comes with handwritten type, decorative elements, and of course greeting card templates. The EPS file format makes it perfect for opening up in Affinity Designer.

5. Space Birthday Card Greeting and Invitation (AI, EPS, JPG, PNG)

Check out these cute birthday greeting cards! Pop them open by using the EPS file format in Affinity Designer. These cute graphics are perfect for creating personalized birthday wishes.

Looking to learn more about Affinity Designer and vector art? Check out these amazing tutorials from Envato Tuts+!