How to Design a Set of Retro Kitchen Items in Affinity Designer

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

Retro design is one of the top trends and is never out of style. Why is it so popular? Follow this tutorial and find out why people love this style throughout the smooth forms and pastel colors of old-fashioned items!

We’ll be using various geometric shapes, tools, and functions of the Draw Persona of Affinity Designer to create a set of flat kitchen devices that remind us of the past.

You can get this Retro Kitchen Items Set on Envato Elements in different color variations and formats to see how every element was made. Feel free to use them for your own projects and designs, both personal and commercial!

Let’s start!

1. How to Create a Retro Mixer

Step 1

We’ll be working in the Draw Persona of Affinity Designer, creating scalable vector assets. We can toggle three different Personas on the top of the control toolbar.

Let’s start creating our retro mixer from its top part. Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 120 x 40 px. We can adjust the size either manually (using the Move Tool (V)) or by setting the desired value in the Transform panel, which is located right under the Layers panel by default.

Fill it with pastel turquoise color using the wheel of the Colour panel.

Step 2

Now we need to make both corners on the left and the top corner on the right rounded. Let’s go to the control toolbar on top and uncheck the Single radius box. Now we can adjust the Radius of each corner individually! Let’s set both left corners to 50% and the top right corner to 65%.

Step 3

Add another rectangle of 130 x 10 px size, fill it with grey color, and place it as shown in the image below.

Now we need to attach a narrow vertical line perpendicular to the created rectangle. We can turn on the Snapping in order to see the Guide Lines and hints, which will help us to position the objects in a proper way, making them stick to each other.

Create a narrow rectangle of the same height as the turquoise shape (40 px) and attach it to the left edge of the grey shape.

Let’s change the color of the vertical element. We can pick the color from any shape by clicking on the Color Picker pictogram in the Colour panel and dragging it over the object. Then select the element that you want to recolor and click the tiny colored circle next to the Color Picker to apply the color. Make the turquoise tint of the shape a bit darker.

Step 4

Add a tiny vertical rectangle by the right edge of the grey shape.

Now let’s Duplicate (Command-J) the grey line and place it at the very bottom of the Layers panel. Fill the copy with dark-turquoise color and make the top grey copy shorter so that the shapes don’t overlap.

Tip: Instead of making the grey shape shorter, we can also hide its overlapping part inside the big rounded rectangle. Just select it in the Layers panel and drag and drop it over the rounded element until you see a blue selection. This way the big turquoise shape serves as a container, making the unwanted parts invisible.

Step 5

Now let’s make a simple highlight on the surface.

Duplicate the turquoise part of the mixer twice (Command-J > Command-J) and drag the copy to the very top (Shift-Command-]). Use the Down Arrow key to move the shape down a bit. Select the top copy and the one beneath it, and use the Subtract Operation to cut the shapes.

Step 6

Now we have only a thin stripe at the top edge. Let’s fill it with grey color and make it semi-transparent by setting the Blend Mode to Screen in the Layers panel.

Hold down Command-Shift and shrink the shape a bit, making it a bit smaller.

Step 7

Create a 45 x 14 px dark-turquoise rectangle, attaching it to the bottom edge of the mixer. Make its bottom corners 40% Rounded by adjusting their Radius in the control toolbar on top (don’t forget to uncheck the Single radius box).

Take the Move Tool (V), select the shape, and drag it to the right while holding Option-Shift to make a copy.

Step 8

Now let’s make a bowl. Start with a 100 x 5 px grey rectangle. This time we want all the corners to be rounded, so we can either use the Rounded Rectangle Tool (M) to create this shape or we can keep the Single radius box checked and set the Corners to 100% Rounded.

Step 9

Make a 90 x 70 px light-grey rectangle for the bowl. Select both shapes and click the Align Centre button the Align panel on top to center both shapes.

Make the bottom corners of the rectangle 50% Rounded.

Step 10

Let’s duplicate (Command-J) the bowl, hold down the Command key and shrink the shape, making a narrow element in the center. Fill it with darker grey color, imitating a reflection on the steel surface.

Place the bowl under the front part of the mixer and connect it by adding a narrow vertical rectangle. Make it look like a steel part as well by adding a darker and narrower stripe in the center.

Step 11

Let’s move on and create a stand. Use the Rectangle Tool (M) to make a 170 x 25 px turquoise shape under the bowl. Uncheck the Single radius box and make the top left and right corners 80% Rounded.

Step 12

Now we need to connect the stand with the top part of the mixer. Create a tall turquoise rectangle between the stand and the top part (I’ve made a 30 x 90.5 px shape, but the height of your shape may be different).

Select both the vertical part and the stand and use the Add Operation to merge these elements into a single object.

Step 13

Now let’s smoothen the stand with the help of the Corner Tool (C). Use it to click and drag the nodes, making the corners rounded. You will see a red circle, showing the radius or the roundness of the corners.

Step 14

Let’s finish up by adding a grey rounded rectangle at the bottom of the stand, and there we have it! Our mixer is finished! Let’s move to the next retro object.