Cog tool in Affinity Designer tutorial

How to use the cog tool in Affinity designer application to create stunning cogs and gears. The cog tool is found beneath the triangle tool in Affinity Designer. The cog tool creates a vector cog design and is an interactive tool which means the cogs can be changed via the small setting dots on the cog. The cog color can be changed via the fill and strole. You can change the teeth of the cog as well as notch size of the cog in Affinity Designer as well as curvature. You can use the cog tool to create startburst designs. The cog tool can create cogs with holes. You can also modify the cog design using the corner tool in Affinity Designer. You can create one or multiple cogs very rapidly with the cog tool. You can also click the convert to curves to turn the cog path from the cog tool into a regular Affinity designer. This tutorial shows all the features of the powerful cog tool (gear) in Affinity Designer

1. Select the cog tool in the Affinity Designer toolbar

2. click the document

3. drag and create the cog

4. or create multiple cogs using the cog tool

5. Set the color for the cog via the color panel.

Basics of cog tool in Affinity Designer

The cog / gear tool in Affinity Designer can be found beneath the triangle tool in the Affinity Designer toolbar. Use the move tool to shift and scale and rotate the cog shape.

 

You can also do the same via the cog tool.

1. select the cog tool

2. set the color via the fill

3. drag and drop

4. go to the move tool

5. Resize or select top extended indicator and rotate

Cog shape settings via the interactive cog spot settings

When you click the cog tool you will see a number of small dots on the cog. The small dots can be used to interactively change the settings for the cog. You can also change the settings for the shape via the settings along the top of Affinity Designer. The number of teeth can only be changed using the teeth setting. The other settings can be changed via the small dots : notch size and tooth size as well as inner radius and hole radius.

 

There is a curvature setting and it can be used to create some interesting curved designs but it depends on the tooth size and notch size.

 

It is a pity that the cog tool does not have a randomization feature to create random cog shapes.

1. select the cog tool

2. set color

3. draw cog

4. go to the small little red dots on the cog (with the cog tool selected)

5. drag a dot left or right or up and down (it can only go in the direction allowed)

6. You will notice the settings and the cog will change (to the limits of the cog)

Starburst cog and creating many different starburst designs in Affinity Designer

You can set the inner radius to the hole radius and the result will be a starburst design. Many different starbursts can be generated using the teeth settings. Instead of the standard cog, the starburst paths is made of separate paths

 

chunks: teeth 29, inner 83%, hole radius 83%, tooth size 38%, notch size 43%

 

sharp separate triangles: teeth 29, nner 83%, hole radius 83%, tooth size 4%, notch size 43%

 

thin lines: teeth 45, tooth size 4%, nner 83%, hole radius 83%, notch size 100%

 

long thin lines: teeth 45, inner radius 43%, hole radius 43%, tooth size 4%, notch size 100%

 

curved edges: teeth 9, inner radius 84%, hole radius 0%, tooth size 47%, notch size 100%, curvature 100%

Star cog in Affinity Designer

1. select the cog tool

2. draw cog

3. keep selected

4. Set the teeth to 48

5. inner radius 69

6. hole radius 60

7. tooth size 0

8. notch size 0

9. Ellipse tool and create a circle in the center of the cog

This creates a star design. You can change the notch setting to create different star artworks. You can also add other paths to the center of the star and then combine them using the union button.

Affinity Designer and rounding the corners of the cog with the corner tool

You can modify the cog shape by using the corner tool. The corner tool can turn the cog's sharp nodes into smooth, curved path. Once you have used the corner tool, the cog shape can no longer be changed. You can use the different corner types to create many variant cog designs in Affinity Designer.

1. select cog tool

2. draw cog path

3. select corner tool

4. drag and manipulate the sharp nodes with the corner tool - rounding them to smooth paths

Node tool and manipulating the cog's nodes in Affinity Designer

Once you have finished with the cog tool, you can click the convert to curves button or right click and select the convert to curves. After the conversion, you can no longer use the cog tool to edit the artwork but you can use the node tool to move the individual nodes.

1. select the cog tool path

2. right click

3. select the convert to curves command

4. go to the node tool in the Affinity Designer toolbar

5. Modify the nodes of the cog path created by the cog tool

Other resources

1. Gear / cog fonts for Affinity Designer, Photoshop etc

Other tutorials

1. How to use the corner tool to smooth nodes in Affinity Designer tutorial

Sources and references

1. Affinity Designer on Serif

Youtube video tutorials

How to use the cog tool in Affinity Designer tutorial (youtube)