How I Recreated the Manchester Bee in Affinity Designer (With Free Vector Download)
The Manchester bee means something different to everyone. For me, it’s always been a symbol of creative pride, the graft, the resilience, the real sense of belonging that comes with living and working here. So I set out to recreate it. Not with pen and paper, but using Affinity Designer, one curve at a time.
This post walks through how I redrew the bee as a clean vector, from initial trace to final polished artwork and ends with a free downloadable version you can use. I’ve also had a bit of fun experimenting with AI in Illustrator, pushing the design in some new directions (more on that further down).
🐝 Step-by-Step: Drawing the Manchester Bee in Affinity Designer
1. Tracing the Bee
I started by importing a reference JPG into Affinity Designer and began manually drawing the key shapes using the Pen Tool. Nothing fancy here, just building up clean paths and trying to respect the spirit of the original.
2. Outlining the Structure
Once the shapes were loosely in place, I converted strokes to curves and thickened them to give the bee its bold outline. This was the moment it started to feel more like a proper logo than a sketch.
3. Refining and Tweaking
This stage was mainly about smoothing bezier curves and making sure everything felt consistent — wing angles, stroke widths, and leg positions. Tiny tweaks, but they added up.
4. Adding Colour Layers
Once the basic shapes were solid, I began filling them with colour. The wings went a golden yellow, and I added contrast to the body segments, sticking to the iconic black-and-yellow palette Manchester’s known for.
5. Adding Extra Details
From there I layered in more structure — inner wings, antennae, more precise leg detailing. This is the bit where it felt like the bee started to come alive.
6. Breaking it Up
To create that mosaic-style finish (a subtle nod to the tiled bees around Manchester), I broke down each limb and wing into small rectangular sections. This gave it a more modular, crafted feel.
7. Final Bee Artwork
And here’s the final version. Clean, modular, export-ready but still distinctly Manc.
🎨 Bonus: AI Variations in Adobe Illustrator
Out of curiosity, I took the finished version into Adobe Illustrator and started generating variations using AI prompts. Some were wild. Some were just off. But a few gave me new ideas I’d never have arrived at on my own — especially for texture and abstract layouts.
I’ll probably share those results in a future post — or maybe just turn them into posters…
It’s not perfect, but there’s something refreshing about letting the machine reinterpret your work. Like playing creative table tennis with an algorithm.
I’ll probably share those results in a future post or maybe just turn them into posters…
Final Thoughts
Sometimes, recreating something familiar is more satisfying than inventing something new. You get to study it closely, take it apart, rebuild it… and in the process, you start to see it differently.
Hope this was useful — or at least interesting.
If you do something fun with the vector, send it my way.
Written by
Simon Nolan
Creative Designer & Developer
Hi, I’m Simon, and I run Bamboo Manchester. After more than 25 years working in web design and development, I still get the same buzz from bringing an idea to life on screen. Whether it’s crafting strong visual identities, improving SEO, or building completely bespoke WordPress sites, I care about making things that work beautifully and perform brilliantly.
🐝 Download the Vector
Want to use the Manchester bee in your own project?
Here’s the affinity designer file you can download and use for free:
(Feel free to use it for personal projects, teaching, or just messing around. Not for resale.)