Two Designers Explore Free Tools for Posters and Animation

A design project can start with a feeling rather than a fixed result. For Free Form, Melina K and Rob Farmer explored creative freedom. Each designer made a poster about somewhere they felt free to create. The project was a partnership with Affinity and Cavalry. Both designers also shared files for other people to use and change.

The two tools support different kinds of work for designers. Affinity brings vector design, photo editing and page layout into one app. Vector design uses shapes that stay clear when their size changes. Cavalry is for 2D animation, which makes flat images move. Canva offers both tools for free. Rob said this removes financial pressure and lets people learn at their own pace.

Melina looked to the sky for her poster's hopeful feeling. She used floating letters and a light, welcoming set of colours. Printing, scanning and cutting helped her add texture and imperfect details. In Affinity, she could switch between Vector and Pixel studios. Live Filters let her return to earlier blur and noise adjustments. This meant she could keep making changes as the design developed.

Rob found ideas in the spring flowers around Melbourne. His poster uses moving flowers made from letters and words. In Cavalry, he worked with deformers, tools that change shapes or values. He also used an oscillator to move a value between settings. Changing these values helped him explore movement and colour without keyframing. Keyframing means setting specific points to control an animation over time.

Their shared design kits make the process easier to explore. Melina supplied textures, patterns, bird shapes and editable letters in Affinity files. Rob provided Affinity assets and a Cavalry animation file. Both designers encourage people to try things without expecting perfect results immediately. Their examples connect useful software features with the freedom to experiment.