Every Wednesday, one essay on what's actually working in Marketing with AI - tools, workflows, and mindset shifts you can apply immediately.
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A few weeks ago, I opened Claude Design for the first time, and asked it to redesign a deck I’d been working on.
I gave it the brand colours I wanted, gave it the deck, and waited to see what came back.
The output was poor. Shocking actually.
Pretty generic typography, off-brand colours, and a look that felt like someone else’s product rather than mine.
I was SO dissapointed as I had pinned so much hope on the concept of Claude for Design.
I closed the tab and decided Claude Design probably wasn’t for me just yet, given it had only just been released in beta.
SoI left it alone for a week.
That was my mistake. And a big one at that.
Turns out, Claude Design wasn’t the problem. I had skipped the most important step that turns out to be the whole game when it comes to working successfuly with Claude Design.
Once I went back and did that one step properly, every single asset I have produced in Claude Design since has come out on-brand, first time, with almost no iteration. The shift was that dramatic.
And the good news? Getting started is surprisingly simple once you know the right order to do things in.
This week I want to walk you through what Claude Design actually is, the one step you cannot skip, and the real marketing assets I have built with it once I got the foundation right.
What Claude Design Actually Is
Claude Design is Anthropic’s new AI design tool, launched in April under the Anthropic Labs banner.
That in itself is interesting, but also for another day.
You describe what you want in plain English, Claude generates a working design on a canvas, and you refine it through chat, inline comments, direct edits, or live sliders.
It is included in your existing Claude subscription on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. But you can only access it at claude.ai/design in your browser. It is not on the desktop app yet.
It’s also worth noting it is currently a research preview, which means features will move and limits will shift. But the core idea is stable, and for marketers, it is the most useful design tool I have used in years.
What you can build with it:
Landing pages, pitch decks, social carousels, animated explainers, one-pagers, email mockups, dashboards, internal hubs, mobile app concepts. Basically anything where the output is a polished visual asset that needs to look on-brand.
Anthropic actually calls out marketers by name in the launch post:
“Marketers can create landing pages, social media assets, and campaign visuals, then loop in designers to polish.”
That is the use case as they see it. And in my experience so far, they are not over-selling it.
Why Claude Design Matters - Specifically for Marketers
Most marketers, I speak to spend a disproportionate amount of time on design tasks they were never trained for. Me included.
Slide decks, carousels, landing page mockups, one-pagers, animated clips for social, quick visual concepts to brief an agency or designer.
Claude Design compresses that work in two ways:
First, speed. A campaign landing page that previously took half a day comes back in five minutes. A pitch deck that previously needed a dedicated afternoon comes back in fifteen.
Second, and more importantly, brand consistency. Once you have set up your design system properly, every output, whether that’s the landing page, the deck, the social card, or the email mockup, comes out using the same colours, fonts and components. Everything looks like it belongs to the same campaign because, at the token level, it does.
That cross-asset consistency is the bit that has been hard to achieve when you are stitching together Canva, Figma, Google Slides and whatever else you have open.
Claude Design solves it natively.
A quick note on what this means for designers
I had a conversation with a marketing leader last week who immediately assumed Claude Design was about replacing her designer. For the record, it’s not.
In her case, the smartest setup turned out to be this: the designer uses Claude Design to build out the design system, plus a library of reusable templates (carousels, decks, one-pagers, social graphics, email designs).
The marketing team then jumps into Claude Design and works inside those templates, producing day-to-day, on-brand assets without having to queue up against the designer’s backlog. The designer stays focused on the higher-craft work where their judgement actually moves the needle.
And on the other side of the coin, plenty of marketing teams have no designer at all, or a designer with a six-week backlog. For those teams, Claude Design is genuinely closer to a step-change. You finally have a way to produce consistent, on-brand assets at speed without waiting for someone else’s calendar to clear.
Either way, it is not a replacement. I would position this as leverage.
The One Step You Cannot Skip (like I did)
Here is the thing I learned the hard way.
If you do not set up a design system before you start prompting, your output will be generic.
Default fonts, predictable gradients, and a look that feels like every other Claude Design output on the internet.
I spent a week thinking Claude Design wasn’t good enough for me. It was. I just hadn’t given it any anchor for what my brand looks like.
Back to Anthropic, whom actually flags this in its own documentation:
“Turning on Claude Design without a design system in place means your team will get functional but generic output.”
Every creator I have watched cover Claude Design makes the same point. The single biggest predictor of whether you get good output is whether you have built the design system first.
So before you do anything else, you must build your design system.
How to Build a Design System in Claude Design (Step by Step)
This is the section most introductions to Claude Design skip past too quickly.
Given it is the bedrock of everything that comes after, I want to slow down and walk you through it properly.
Step 1: Gather your inputs first
Before you open Claude Design, get a folder together with as many of the following as you can:
1. Brand assets, like logo files (SVG ideal, PNG fine), your brand fonts (TTF or OTF files), and your colour palette as hex codes.
2. Real, finished examples of your brand in action. That could be a screenshot of your live website, an existing sales deck, a landing page, a social asset, an existing PDF brochure. Anthropic is very direct on this point: “Include real examples, not just specs. A finished landing page or marketing site tells Claude more about your brand’s feel than a colour palette alone.”
3. A short written description of what your brand stands for, the feel you are going for, and any visual rules you live by (e.g. “we always use rounded corners,” “no drop shadows,” “buttons are pill-shaped”).
4. Optional but powerful: a Figma file, a link to your live website, or a GitHub repo with your front-end code. The more direct the source, the cleaner the extraction.
If you have one good reference plus a few lines of context, you have enough to start. I will prove this in the next section.
Step 2: Open Claude Design and pick your organisation
Head to claude.ai/design in your browser.
(Skip the rest of step 2 if you are on a personal plan)
In the lower-left corner of the project picker, click your current organisation name and either select an existing one or create a new one. Most marketers are best off creating one organisation per brand they manage.
You’ll then be walked through a short onboarding flow, including picking your role. Choose Marketing.
Step 3: Click “Design systems” then “Create”
In the top navigation, you’ll see a Design systems tab. Click in, then click Create.
Give your design system a sensible name (e.g. “Marketing with AI Brand”). If you run multiple brands or clients, create one per brand and set the most-used one as default.
Step 4: Add your inputs
Drag and drop everything you gathered in Step 1 into the upload area. Logos, fonts, screenshots, PDFs, slide decks, the lot. Paste your written brand notes into the text box.
If you have a Figma file, upload it. If you have a live site URL, paste it. If you have a code repository, link it.
Hit “Continue to generate” when you have added your inputs.
Step 5: Walk away for five to ten minutes
The first pass at your design system typically takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
Claude reads everything you’ve uploaded and extracts your colour palette, typography, components, spacing, and layout patterns into a structured design system.
You’ll see it stream out section by section in real time. Get a coffee and come back when it’s done.
Step 6: Review the draft, section by section
Claude returns the draft in clear sections, typically:
5. Colour palette (primary, secondary, accent)
6. Typography (font families, sizes, weights)
7. Components (buttons, cards, navigation, badges)
8. Layout patterns (spacing, grid, page structures)
9. Hero section and example mockups showing the system in action
For each section, mark it as “Looks good” or “Needs work.”
If something needs work, tell Claude in plain English what is wrong. For example, “the accent colour should be more like #F39C12, not what you’ve used,” or “tighten the spacing between buttons,” or “the display font is too spaced out.” Claude queues the change and re-runs that section.
A common watchout: fonts. If you haven’t uploaded the actual font files, Claude will substitute with the closest web font it can find. That can leave your output looking subtly off-brand without you noticing. If you have the brand font as a TTF or OTF, upload it now.
Step 7: Validate with a test project
Before you publish, run one quick test. Inside the design system view, generate a sample asset using a prompt like:
“Create a landing page for my product using this design system. Hero, three feature blocks, social proof, and a CTA section.”
Look at the output. Does it feel like your brand? Are the colours right? Is the type behaving correctly? Are the buttons doing what your buttons normally do?
If the answer is yes, you are ready. If something is still off, go back to Step 6 and upload more or different assets. Real, finished pages tend to fix the most issues quickly.
Step 8: Publish it
Flip the “Published” toggle.
From this point on, every new project you create inside Claude Design will automatically inherit this design system. No re-uploading, no re-explaining.
Step 9: Update it as your brand evolves
Brands move. When yours does, head back into your design system, click Open then Remix in the top-right corner. You’ll get a chat interface where you can instruct Claude on changes (a new accent colour, an updated logo, a new component pattern), and it updates the system without you having to start from scratch.
How I Built My Design System (Proof That You Don’t Need Much to Get Started)
This is where I want to be honest about how simple this can be in practice.
I did not have a Figma file. I did not have a brand guidelines PDF. I did not have a codebase Claude could read.
What I had was a single product box image I had designed in ChatGPT Image 2.0 a week earlier. It had my brand colours on it, it had my preferred fonts, and it had the general feel I wanted my visuals to have.
If you want to get some inspiration for your own ideas very quickly, you could just go to a site like dribble.com.
I dropped the image above into Claude Design, added a few lines of commentary in the notes field about what my brand stands for, and asked Claude to generate the design system.
That was it.
Here’s a short walkthrough of how I created and published my design system inside Claude Design.
Five minutes of generation, a quick review of the colour palette, the typography, the buttons, and the spacing scale, a tweak or two where something didn’t feel right, and I had a published design system that every future project would automatically inherit.
The takeaway: if you have one well-designed image of your brand, you have enough to start.
You do not need a brand guidelines book, you do not need a Figma library, and you do not need a designer. You need one good reference and a couple of paragraphs explaining what you are going for.
What I’ve Built Since With Claude Design
Once the design system was in place, the work compounded fast.
A whole campaign’s worth of assets, all on-brand, in a single afternoon.
1/ The Claude for Marketers Workshop Brochure (10 pages).
A full brochure for my in-person workshop. Cover, agenda, modules, outcomes, social proof, pricing, booking details, the lot. Ten pages, all on-brand from the first generation.
2/ The Claude for Marketers Workshop Slide Deck.
A branded slide deck for the workshop itself. Section dividers, hero slides, content layouts, the works. All consistent with the brochure and the landing page because they all came from the same design system.
3/ The ‘Claude for Marketers Online Masterclass’ Waitlist Landing Page + Thank You Page.
A full landing page for the masterclass, including the hero section, agenda, FAQs, and CTAs. You can see the live page here
And if you want to know how I get these designs into a live environment, I will be sharing that process in the Claude for Marketers Online Masterclass. You can sign up to join the interest list at the link above.
4/ The ‘Claude for Marketers Online Masterclass’ Promotional LinkedIn Banner.
A campaign banner for the Claude for Marketers Online Masterclass, sized correctly for LinkedIn and using the same colour and type system as the brochure.
Once the design system was in place, building each new asset felt less like designing and more like briefing.
I would write a short prompt, Claude would produce a first version, I would refine it with comments and tweaks, and the asset would be done. The visual identity took care of itself.
That is the shift. You stop thinking about design tools and start thinking about briefs.
Here’s a short walkthrough of the above designs inside Claude Design
The Bonus Tip: Bring Your Design System Into Cowork
Here is one move that turns Claude Design from a useful tool into part of a system.
Your design system inside Claude Design is actually a Claude skill.
You can download it from your Claude Design organisation as a zip file, install it as a skill inside Cowork, and now every Cowork session you run has your brand visuals available natively.
The importance here is significant.
Anywhere Cowork is building you an asset, a brochure, a one-pager, a slide deck, an HTML page, it can now reference your design system the same way Claude Design does.
There’s no need to re-upload, re-explain, or copy-paste of hex codes. The visual identity is baked into the workspace.
I actually tested this by rebuilding my Claude for Marketers workshop brochure inside Cowork using the imported design system skill. The result was almost as good as the original Claude Design version. Honestly, some of you would argue it was better.
This is the bridge most marketers will miss.
Claude Design is the canvas. Cowork is the operating layer. Connecting them via an exported skill means your design system follows your work everywhere.
Five Claude Design Use Cases Worth Trying This Week
I have walked through my own campaign workflow.
But Claude Design is far broader than what I have personally built.
Here are five use cases worth exploring next, each with a concrete prompt you can adapt, plus a quick note on why it matters.
1. The ABM Microsite
What you build: A one-page site for a single target account, with their logo, their use case in the hero, their internal language in the body copy, and a tailored exec-targeted deck behind a “read more” link.
The prompt: “Using my design system, create a one-page microsite for [Target Account]. The hero should feature their logo alongside ours, with the headline: ‘[Specific outcome] for [Target Account]’. Include three sections: a personalised problem statement using their internal language [paste 2-3 lines from their recent earnings call or job ads], three relevant case studies from similar companies, and a tailored CTA inviting their CMO to a 30-minute conversation. Add a ‘read more’ link to a 6-slide exec deck variant of the same content.”
Why it matters: Personalised ABM creative used to require a designer, a couple of hours of agency time, and a half-day brief. Now it is a 15-minute prompt. The economics of personalised outbound suddenly work for accounts you would never have justified before.
2. The Sales Enablement Collateral Set
What you build: A one-pager for a specific vertical, a battle card against a named competitor, and a custom slide deck for a strategic deal. All on-brand because they all come from the same design system.
The prompt: “Using my design system, generate three pieces of sales enablement collateral for the [Vertical] sector. First, a one-pager covering the three key buyer concerns in [Vertical] and how we address each one. Second, a battle card comparing us to [Named Competitor] across pricing, time-to-value, integrations, and support. Third, a 10-slide sales deck for [Specific Deal Name], pulling forward the strongest case study in [Vertical] and ending with a clear 30-60-90 day implementation plan. Keep the tone confident but not boastful.”
Why it matters: Sales enablement is one of those areas where most teams produce a generic deck once a quarter and hope it works for every deal. The Claude Design unlock is producing deal-specific or vertical-specific collateral on demand, without breaking the visual identity.
3. The Competitor Comparison Page Bundle
What you build: A “we vs them” comparison page, a feature matrix, and a “[Competitor] alternatives” page. The bottom-of-funnel SEO assets that traditionally take weeks to ship.
The prompt: “Using my design system, create three competitor comparison pages for SEO. First, a head-to-head comparison page titled ‘[Our Product] vs [Competitor]’ with a hero summary, a feature matrix with green ticks and red crosses, three switcher testimonials, and a closing CTA. Second, a longer feature matrix page covering all 12 capabilities side-by-side. Third, a ‘[Competitor] alternatives’ page positioning us as the top alternative, including a ‘switching is easy’ section with a three-step process. Use my brand voice throughout: direct, specific, no marketing-speak.”
Why it matters: Comparison pages are the highest-intent SEO assets you can ship. Most teams know they need them and never get round to producing them. With a design system in place, you can ship a full set in an afternoon and then optimise the copy from there.
4. The Pricing Layout Test Set
What you build: Three different visual treatments of the same pricing structure, so you can A/B test the design itself, not just the price points.
The prompt: “Using my design system, create three variants of my pricing page with the same plans (Starter, Growth, Scale) and prices ([£X], [£Y], [£Z]), but with different visual treatments. Variant A: classic three-column layout with the middle plan highlighted as ‘Most Popular’. Variant B: a comparison-table-first layout where the full feature matrix is the hero and the plans sit below. Variant C: a single recommended plan as the hero, with the other two plans positioned as ‘simpler’ and ‘more powerful’ alternatives. For each, include an FAQ section addressing the three most common objections [list them].”
Why it matters: Pricing pages are usually treated as a one-and-done. The truth is that the design of a pricing page (anchoring, defaults, where the eye lands) often moves conversion more than the prices themselves. Claude Design makes testing the layout cheap.
5. The Newsletter and Email Mockup Pack
What you build: Visual concepts for a newsletter design and a campaign email, including the HTML you can paste straight into your email service provider.
The prompt: “Using my design system, design two email layouts I can use in [Mailchimp / Beehiiv / Kit / your ESP]. First, a weekly newsletter layout with a branded header, a featured story block, three secondary story blocks, and a footer with social links. Second, a campaign-style promotional email with a hero image area, two text blocks, a single primary CTA button, and a P.S. line. Export both as standalone HTML I can paste into my ESP, mobile responsive, with inline CSS for maximum compatibility.”
Why it matters: Most marketers either pay for an ESP template they don’t love or fight with the drag-and-drop builder every week. Claude Design lets you spec the design once, paste the HTML in, and then live in the comfort of your existing ESP for everything that follows.
The pattern across all five: one design system, many assets, all on-brand, all shipped in an afternoon.
The Honest Caveats: What You Need to Know Before Getting Started
A few things you should know before you build your week around this.
Weekly limits are real. Claude Design has its own weekly usage allowance, separate from your normal Claude chat and Claude Code limits. On the Pro plan, expect to produce one or two substantial outputs before you hit the cap. Max plans give you more room. Either way, plan your sessions before you open the tool, and try not to explore aimlessly.
Head over to Settings > Usage and you will see your Claude Design weekly usage limits. I was on holiday last week, so I’ve not used it in over a week, so I’ve got a nice, full limit!
Setting up the design system itself burns credits. Get it as right as you can the first time, ideally in one session. Iterating ten times in a week will eat your allowance before you produce a single asset.
Exports are improving but not perfect yet. HTML is the cleanest export today. PDF works. PowerPoint is patchy because fonts do not always carry across. The Canva export works, but has thrown the occasional error.
It is still a research preview. Features will move. Limits will shift. Do not build a production-critical pipeline on top of behaviour that might not exist in six months.
You still need taste. Claude Design is fast and on-brand, but it is not yet a substitute for design judgement. Treat it like a junior collaborator with strong technical skills. You bring the taste, the references, and the specific feedback. Claude makes the mechanical parts of design fast.
The Bigger Picture
Last year was the year of better prompting. This year is the year of better systems and context.
Claude Design on its own is a useful tool. Claude Design plus a published design system is the foundation of an on-brand asset engine.
And Claude Design plus a design system plus a Cowork skill is the start of a genuine marketing operating system, where every asset you produce, in any tool, looks like it belongs to the same brand.
The marketers who will get the most out of Claude Design will not be the ones with the cleverest prompts. They will be the ones who spent an hour setting up their design system properly before they tried to build anything else.
One step. One afternoon. Then everything downstream gets easier.
This week’s challenge: open Claude Design, find one image, one screenshot, or one page that genuinely represents what your brand looks like, drop it in, add a few lines of commentary, and let Claude generate your first design system. Don’t skip ahead and try to build an asset first. Build the foundation. Once it’s published, try one small project. A landing page hero, a one-pager, or a single slide. See how different it feels when the output is already on-brand. Reply and let me know what you built, I would love to see your first on-brand asset.
One more thing on the Claude for Marketers Online Masterclass before you go.
This newsletter will always be free and weekly.
Claude for Marketers Masterclass is the deeper, hands-on version: the same content I’m teaching in the room out here in Vegas, restructured into a self-paced format with lifetime updates as Claude evolves.
The early-bird price is exclusive to Substack readers. No hard sell, no commitment, just a waitlist so I know you’re interested and so you get first access when cart opens in June. Join the waitlist here if it sounds like it could be useful. You’ve nothing to lose :)