Cog Tool In Affinity Designer Tutorial Beginner's Guide

By Andrew Buckle, Video Tutorial Creator / Designer

Updated : 2021

How to use the cog tool in Affinity Designer application to create stunning cogs and gears. The basics of the cog / gear tool. How to create a star cog. How to create star designs. How to use the node tool to modify the nodes of the cog and more. Check out our video tutorial and guide to the cog tool in Affinity Designer

1. Location of the Cog Tool in Affinity Designer

cog tool in affinity designer tutorial shapes The cog tool is found beneath the triangle tool in Affinity Designer.

2. Cog Tool is an interactive vector shape creator

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.

3. Scaling and Rotation of the Cog design

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.

select the cog tool
set the color via the fill
drag and drop
go to the move tool
Resize or select top extended indicator and rotate

4. Cog shape can be interactively changed via the cog Tool

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.

select the cog tool
set color
draw cog
go to the small little red dots on the cog (with the cog tool selected)
drag a dot left or right or up and down (it can only go in the direction allowed)
You will notice the settings and the cog will change (to the limits of the cog)

5. Cog Tool and Star creation

starburst design created using the cog tool

You can set the inner radius to the hole radius and the result will be a starburst design. Many different star designs 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%, inner 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%

6. Creating a star burst in Affinity Designer

select the cog tool
draw cog
keep selected
Set the teeth to 48
inner radius 69
hole radius 60
tooth size 0
notch size 0
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.

7.How to round the corners of the cog design

corner tool and the cog tool in Affinity Designer

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.

select cog tool
draw cog path
select corner tool
drag and manipulate the sharp nodes with the corner tool - rounding them to smooth paths

8. using the cog with the node tool

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.

select the cog tool path
right click
select the convert to curves command
go to the node tool in the Affinity Designer toolbar
Modify the nodes of the cog path created by the cog tool