How to Curve Text in Affinity Designer

Curving text in Affinity Designer looks great for logos and insignias. You also can use it to improve the visual effect of any design. Personalized project such as shirts can be creatively enhanced with curved text. In this tutorial we will show you how to curve text on a wavy line, but the steps would work for any shape.

Step 1 - Set up a new document

Open Affinity designer and click New Document. I try to keep most documents at 12 x 12 inches and 300dpi. This way it's easier to rescale the images later. For help with creating new documents, have a look at Document and Artboard Creation In Affinity Designer.

Step 2 - Create and edit the curve for your text

Curving text is similar to putting text on a path. Select the Pencil icon tool from the left hand menu and draw your curve. The same effect can be achieved when using the Pen tool if you prefer.

To edit the curve further you can select the Node editing tool. This is shown as a small white arrow on the left hand side.

Step 3 - Use the Artistic Text tool

Click on the Artistic Text tool in the lower left tool bar. It is represented by the letter A. Click and hold down the mouse button to bring up the options then select Artistic Text.

We will be using the Archoke font for this tutorial but you can use any vintage font. You will want to make sure you have installed your font to your device before opening Affinity Designer. Follow our tutorial on how to install fonts for windows and mac if you need more guidance.

Click a point on the line where you would like to start your text then begin typing. This can always be adjusted later.

Step 4 - Adjust the text

As you can see the text is not perfectly spaced. There are a few ways to adjust this to get the look you want.

Step 1 - Spacing

Click on the Character button in the top toolbar. A second window will pop up with options to adjust the text. Highlight the letter that needs a little more space and click on the tracking. It is shown as the letter A and letter V with a double ended arrow under them. Adjust the space as needed between the letters.

Step 2 - Adjusting nodes of the Curve

You can adjust further by clicking on the Node editing tool again. You can then adjust the nodes to make the text appear more cohesive. Notice that the text will move with the line as you adjust the nodes.

Step 5 - Convert the text to a curve

Once your text is ready you need to convert it to a curve. This will prevent further text editing so be certain before doing this step. Click on the Layers menu and then select Convert to curves. The text will become a curve and retain the line shape.

You have successfully curved text to a shape in Affinity Designer. If you enjoyed this tutorial we also have tutorials on outlining text and putting text in shapes in Affinity Designer.