Creating a Flat Design Illustration in Affinity Designer

In today’s tutorial, we will create a flat design illustration of a computer mouse, a keyboard, and a monitor. Each item is created from basic shapes. Flat design illustration consist of two-dimensional elements. This style is very popular in user interface design. Check out Freepik to see some examples of this type of design.

Mouse

Step 1

First, grab the rounded rectangle tool and make a vertical rectangle. Second, get rid of the stroke of the rectangle.

Step 2

With the rectangle selected, go to the Tools panel and uncheck the single radius box.

Step 3

Set the bottom left (BL) and bottom right (BR) corners to 45%.

Step 4

Now, create a smaller rounded rectangle on top of the first one.

Step 5

With the smaller rectangle selected, go to the Tools panel and set the roundness to 40% in the Corner section. 

Step 6

Now, grab the ellipse tool and place it in the center of the smaller rounded rectangle.

Step 7

Next, select both the ellipse and the rounded rectangle. Go to the Align panel up in the tools panel.

Step 8

Then, select Align Center in the Align Horizontally section.

Step 9

Now, make a duplicate of the ellipse by pressing CTRL + J on the keyboard. Or, right-click on the ellipse and select Duplicate.

Step 10

Go to the Layers panel and select the original ellipse. Make the original ellipse a darker shade.

Step 11

While pressing the Shift key on the keyboard, drag the original ellipse down slightly.

Step 12

Now, select all the mouse elements. Press CTRL + G on the keyboard to group the elements together.

Step 13

Press CTRL + J on the keyboard to duplicate the mouse.

Step 14

In addition, press CTRL + Shift + G to ungroup the elements. Alternatively, you can right-click on the mouse and select Ungroup.

Step 15

With all the ungroup elements selected, go the pathfinder panel and select Add. Now, give the shape a darker shade.

Step 16

With the mouse shape selected, grab the vector crop tool.

Step 17

Now, grab the left side of the crop frame and move it to the center of the mouse.

Step 18

In the layers panel, select the two ellipses and the smaller rounded rectangle. Press CTRL + G to group them together.

Step 19

Next, in the layers panel, select the group and drag it on top of the cropped group section.

Step 20

Finally, select all the mouse elements and group (CTRL + G) them together.

The mouse is complete. Now let’s move on to the second item of the flat design illustration, the keyboard.

Keyboard

• Uncheck the mouse group in the layers panel.
• Make sure you have your snapping turned on.

Step 1

First, grab the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle.

Step 2

Second, go to the Corner section and select rounded.

Step 3

Third, set the roundness to 15%.

Step 4

With the rectangle tool, draw some squares (straight across) on top of the rectangle.

Step 5

Now, select all the rectangles. Press CTRL + Shift on the keyboard and drag another set of rectangles onto the next row.

Step 6

Next, select all the rectangles on the second row and make them slightly bigger by dragging the bottom of the selection down some.

Step 7

Select all the rectangles on the second row again. Press CTRL + Shift and drag another set of rectangles to the third row.

Step 8

Follow the same steps again and create a fourth row of rectangles.

Step 9

Now, grab the rectangle tool and create a space bar beneath the fourth row of squares.

Step 10

Next, select some of the rectangles on the fourth row. Press CTRL + Shift and drag them down to the left side of the space bar.

Step 11

Follow the same steps to add some rectangles to the right side of the space bar.

Step 12

Draw four smaller rectangles in the bottom right section of the keyboard to imitate the arrows.

Step 13

Now, select all the keyboard elements. Press CTRL + G on the keyboard to group everything together.

Step 14

Press CTRL + J to make a duplicate of the keyboard.

Step 15

Next, press CTRL + Shift + G on the keyboard to ungroup the duplicate.

Step 16

Then, go to the pathfinder panel and select Add.

Step 17

Select the vector crop tool and select the left side of the crop frame. Move it to the halfway part of the keyboard.

Step 18

Make the cropped part a shade darker (R: 216 G: 216 B: 216).

Step 19

Now, go to the Layers panel. Go to the keyboard group and select all the rectangles (the keyboard keys).

• You can do this quickly by selecting the first rectangle in the group. Then, scroll down to the rectangle before the last rectangle and select it. Now all the needed rectangles are selected.

Step 20

Press CTRL + G to group the selected rectangles together. Then label the group Keys.

Step 21

In the layers panel, select the Keys group and drag it on top of the cropped group.

Step 22

Next, select all the keyboard elements and group (CTRL + G) them together and label the group Keyboard.

The keyboard is complete. Now, let’s move on to the final object of this flat design illustration, the monitor.

Monitor

• Uncheck the keyboard group in the layers panel.

Step 1

First, grab the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle.

Step 2

Second, make the corners rounded and set it to 5%.

Step 3

Third, make this rectangle black and place another rectangle below it.

Step 4

Uncheck the single radius and set the TL and TR to 0%.

Step 5

Now, grab the rectangle tool and draw a small rectangle underneath the second rectangle for the neck of the monitor.

Step 6

Next, make another rectangle beneath the neck part of the monitor for the stand.

Step 7

Then, place a small rectangle over the top part of the monitor’s neck and make it a few shades darker.

Step 8

With the rectangle tool, place a rectangle across the upper part of the monitor stand. Make it the same color as the rectangle you put on the monitor’s neck.

Step 9

Select the monitor screen and press CTRL + J to duplicate it.

Step 10

Now, press CTRL + Shift and make this rectangle slightly smaller. Then, make the color of the rectangle a lighter shade of black.

Step 11

Next, grab the ellipse tool to make buttons for the monitor. Place a few ellipses on the lighter rectangle of the monitor.

Step 12

Add an ellipse in the center of the monitor section to act as a logo.

Step 13

Select all the monitor elements and group (CTRL + G) them together.

Step 14

Now, press CTRL + J on the keyboard to make a duplicate of the monitor.

Step 15

Next, press CTRL + Shift + G to ungroup the duplicate. Alternatively, you can right-click on the group and select ungroup.

Step 16

With all the elements still selected, go the pathfinder panel and select Add.

Step 17

Select the vector crop tool. Place the left side of the crop frame in the center of the monitor.

Step 18

Go to the Layers panel and set the opacity to 25%.

Step 19

Now, select all the elements of the monitor and group (CTRL + G) then together. Name the group Monitor.

Step 20

After completing the monitor, turn your keyboard and mouse back on in the Layers panel.

Step 21

Now, rearrange and resize each of the objects to create a computer setup.

• When resizing your objects, hold SHIFT to keep the proportions of the objects the same.

Bonus Steps

• As a creative bonus, add a background design to the illustration.

Step 1

Grab the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle covering the whole artboard. Then, go to the Toolbar and select Move to Back to send the rectangle to the back.

Step 2

With the rectangle selected, go to the Swatches Panel. Double click on the active color to bring up the Color Chooser. Now, fill the rectangle with whatever background color/gradient you want.

Now the PC flat design illustration is complete! For more Affinity Designer tutorials, check out this sliced text effect tutorial.