How to Repeat Objects Around a Circle in Affinity Designer

The Transform Tool in Affinity Designer is a quick way to repeat objects. Affinity Designer calculates the amount of shapes required. These shapes are then evenly space around an origin point. In this tutorial you will learn how to easily repeat objects around a circle.

Open Affinity Designer and click on New Document. Choose your page settings and click Create.

Step 1 - Use the Shape Tools

We need an origin point for the repeated shape. On the left side panel click on the Ellipse Tool and draw the shape. To keep the circle uniform hold Shift and Click + Drag. You can fill the shape with any color from the Color Palette top right.

To place the next design more accurately with guides we need to activate the Snapping Tool. At the top of the screen click on the red horseshoe magnet. Now select a second shape from the shape tools.

We chose the Donut Tool by clicking on the white arrow for the shape tools. Click and Drag the shape out then position above the Ellipse. The Snapping Tool provides red and green guidelines when moving an object.

Step 2 - Change origin point for rotation

The Transform Tool appears at the bottom right corner of the screen. Here you can do quick calculations for accurate rotation. If the Transform Tool is not visible, click on the View menu top of the screen, select Studio and click on Transform. A tick will be visible next to Transform to show it is active.

The origin point of the Donut needs to be moved over the Ellipse. With the Donut selected, click on Enable Transform Origin top of the screen. A small circle with crosshairs will be visible. Click and drag this circle into the middle of the Ellipse. The Donut will use this as the rotation point.

Step 3 - Duplicate and rotate objects around the Ellipse

For the rotation we need a duplicate of the Donut. Select the Donut and press Ctrl + J.A little bit of mathematics is needed to get an evenly spaced rotation. But don't worry, Affinity Designer does the work for us.

A circle is a full 360° and this needs to be divided by the amount of shapes needed. For this example we want eight Donuts. Under the Transform Tool panel bottom right, next to the letter R (Rotation) type 360/8 and press Enter.

Affinity Designer calculates the distance between each Donut and places the duplicate to the left of the original. Rotation shows as 45°.

The next part is super easy and fast. With the duplicate Donut still selected, press Ctrl + J and the next Donut is placed. Repeat this another five times until there are eight Donuts around the Ellipse.

You can delete the Ellipse if you choose or keep it as part of the design. The Donut shapes will not be affected. The shapes can be grouped for easier resizing and repositioning. Select all Donut shapes, right click and Group.

By using this method you could make a fun design that can be edited further.

The contour tool was applied to this design to create a frame within the shapes.

For more Affinity Designer Tutorials, make sure to check out using the preferences panel, text basics in Affinity Designer, and how to type on path.