What Design is for

You'll finish with: You know when to reach for it.

Design is the canvas surface — you describe what you want, it builds it, and you push it around by talking rather than dragging.

What it's for

It is not a replacement for a designer on anything that defines your brand. It's for the fifty documents a year that currently look like a Word file because you didn't have time.

What it's for, and what it isn't

Design
Chat
Slide deck
Prototype
Proposal doc
A written report

The honest limitation

First drafts look generic. Not bad — generic. That's not a flaw you prompt your way out of in one go; it's the starting point you push away from, which is what the next chapters are about.

Do this now
  1. Open the last three things a client actually saw — a proposal, a quote, a deck.
  2. Write one line on each: what let it down. Layout, colours, or just that it was plainly a Word file.
  3. Pick the worst one and write its name at the top of a note. That is your test piece for the rest of this course — you rebuild it once your design system is published.
  4. Check your plan while you are here. Design is in beta on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. On Enterprise it is off until an admin switches it on. Better to find that out now than in the next chapter.
How to know it's the right tool

If the output is something a person looks at, it's Design. If it's something a person reads and then does, it's a document — write it in chat.

If you can't find Design at all, that isn't you doing it wrong. It is in beta on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, and on Enterprise it is switched off until an admin turns it on. That is an account setting — no amount of hunting through the menus will produce it.

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