If you create elements that you plan on reusing later, it is a good idea to save them. Of course, you can save them to your computer and open them as needed (like scrapbooking kits) but there is a faster way, especially if you plan on using them often enough: saving them as assets.
What Are Assets?
Assets are any element or object that you can save and then drag into your document. They can be vector shapes, pattern tiles, texts, logos, and more. You can even save a group of elements as a single asset. This can be quite convenient if you reuse the same group of elements often. Once you have saved your Assets, they will be available for all your projects.
Mention the types of items you can save (vector shapes, grouped layers, styled elements)
Note that they stay available across documents once saved to your assets library
Why Save Assets?
When you save some elements as Assets, they will be quickly available to you. You won't have to browse through your computer to find the correct shape or text. You won't have to recreate them or re-import them either.
In addition, using the saved Assets will ensure consistency across various projects. This is particularly useful if you want to use branded elements, like a logo, a signature, or a watermark. But it can also be something more generic that you simply plan on using repeatedly, like custom label shapes, or generic seamless textures.
One additional advantages of saving Assets is that you can group them into categories. That way, you can have all the elements related to a particular type of project in one place. For example, you can have a company logo, a signature, a watermark, a styled text, and a button shape all in the same category. You can access them with a single click.
Prepare to Save Assets in Affinity Photo
Before you save Assets, you need to access that panel. If it is not open yet, you can access it through Window > Assets. This will make the Assets panel appear on the left side of your workspace.
Before you can save Assets, you will need to choose a category to save them. You have the Default category from the start, but you probably want something a bit more descriptive. Click on the hamburger (the three horizontal lines) on the top right corner and choose to Create New Category...
And enter the name of the category you want to create.
This will automatically create the Category and a sub-category called Default. If you want to keep it as it, you are done, but if you want to change the name of the sub-category, you can click on the hamburger for that sub-category and choose Rename.
Then, you enter the name you want. It is a good idea to make those categories and sub-categories as logical and descriptive as you can because over time, you will have a lot of them!
And now, you have your Assets panel ready to add assets.
Time to Save your Assets
Now that you have a category and a sub-category ready to use, it is time to save your Assets. The process is extremely simple: with the Move tool active, drag and drop that asset into the sub-category you want to store them in. That's all. Once it is dropped, you will see it appear in the sub-category.
There is another way to add Assets to your library. When you click on the hamburger, you can also choose Add from Selection. It will achieve the same result.
Rearranging your Assets in Affinity Photo
It is important to name your categories and sub-categories in a logical and useful manner. It is easy to move an asset from one sub-category to another one: just click and drag it. However, you can only do that one asset at a time. Furthermore, you cannot directly move an asset to a different category.
If you need to move an asset to a different category, you would have to add it to a project, navigate to the new category, and drag it back in (or use the Add from Selection).
As far as I know, you cannot organize and rearrange your assets from outside of Affinity as they are not handled as individual files.
When to NOT to Save Assets?
Although saving assets will help you access elements quickly, there are some situations when it is not recommended or useful.
If you need a lot of variations for an element, you will end up with a long list of items to srcoll through. If you have a lot of different buttons of different colors and shapes, you might not reuse the same one over and over again. In that case, keep them on your computer and just use the Place command when you need that one blue button.
If an element is very specific to one project, there’s no need to save it as an asset. Just copy and paste between files if you think you’ll need it again.
If you are still new to Affinity Photo and would like a guided start to digital scrapbooking, check our Getting Started with Affinity tutorials.
