I provide recruitment support for corporations as a sole proprietor. I have many opportunities to create proposal slides, but I am neither a designer nor an engineer. Still, I always wanted to create "good-looking slides as easily as possible."
Among the several generative AIs I tried, the one that felt most right was Anthropic's Claude Design. I will introduce the 3 steps that even I, a non-designer and non-engineer, was able to replicate, while showing you the slides I actually created.
What is Claude Design in the first place?
Claude Design is a design-specific tool using Anthropic's Claude. Released in April 2026, it is currently positioned as a beta version. It is available to paid users of Claude Pro / Max / Team / Enterprise (not available on the free plan).
Roughly speaking, here is what it can do:
- Generate a whole set of slides when given a subject
- Create a look that matches your own brand (colors, fonts)
- Modify through dialogue or direct editing while looking at the screen
- Export to PowerPoint (PPTX), PDF, HTML, etc.
Why Design, and not Chat or Code?
Claude has several entry points. Roughly speaking, Chat is for consulting on anything, Code is for code, and Design is for the look of materials. You can make slides with regular chat, but the difference with Design is that a polished look comes out consistently. Because the backend is all built with code, color schemes and text alignment are less likely to break, preventing strange results.
3 Steps for Slide Creation
- Create a Design System: Prepare one look (format) that you like
- Refine the Structure and Generate: Finalize the content to be conveyed, then have the set created
- Finish and Export: Adjust with instructions while looking at the screen, and export in the required format
Step 1: Create a Design System
Interaction screen during implementation in Claude Design
A "Design System" is a collection of visual rules such as colors, fonts, and spacing. Once registered, it will load this every time you create materials, so you don't have to explain the look in detail every time.
First, open claude.ai/design (if it's your first time, the browser version—Chrome—is recommended as you can use automatic translation).
Setup Procedure
- Top tab "Design Systems" → "Create" → "Create Here"
- Give it a name in "Company name" (your own name is fine if you're an individual)
- You only need to touch "Add fonts, logos and assets" and "Any other notes". After that, just answer Claude's questions to complete it.
Two Patterns for Adding Assets
① If you have favorite materials on hand
This is the easiest. Just put past slides or proposal materials into "Add fonts, logos and assets" and write the purpose in the notes section. In addition to images, it supports DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX, so you can use materials made with other tools as a reference by exporting them to PDF or PPTX.
② If you have nothing on hand / don't like what you have
Screen of getdesign.md
getdesign.md is very useful. Design systems that analyze the looks of famous companies like Apple and Stripe are published as copyable text. Just choose a brand you like, copy it, and paste it into the notes section along with the "purpose of use." It's like giving a reference image to a designer.
Finishing and Publishing
It's okay to be rough at first. Layer feedback in the chat like "make the headings larger," "don't use this color," or "widen the margins" to bring it closer to your preference.
By the way, for this slide generation, I loaded the following as a "diagram template" into Claude Design and utilized it.
Once finished, check the typography and color scheme in the table of contents on the left, and if you have your own company logo, send it to the chat to replace it. Finally, click "Publish" to complete.
Step 2: Refine the Structure and Generate
The brush-up process until the subject is created
If Step 1 is the process of deciding the "format (look)," Step 2 is the process of deciding the "content." And I believe the trick is not to paste the subject and generate immediately.
I first brainstormed the structure in regular Claude (chat). "What is the most important thing to convey in this document?" "In what order will it be conveyed to the other party?" "Is this slide necessary?"—after refining the content that way, I bring it into Claude Design.
If you skip this and just pass a messy subject, you tend to get materials that look pretty but don't convey the message. The feeling is that the format is decided in Step 1, and the content is decided in this Step 2.
Once the structure is solid, select "Slides" at the top of Claude Design and check the design system you just made in the bottom left. Tell it "I want to create presentation materials" and then paste the refined structure.
At this time, since the design system takes care of the look, it's enough for you to provide the structure. I always write "one message per slide" and "the conclusion should be one line at the top of each page." If you wait a while, the set will be ready, so let's first project it on the screen and take a quick look.
Step 3: Finish and Export
Finishing is basically just instructions to the chat. If you find a part you're concerned about and repeat "fix this like this," it usually completes. There are three ways to fix it:
- Comment: Click the part you want to fix and give pinpoint instructions to that spot
- Tweak: Use the "adjustment knobs" Claude creates to move layout or color switches yourself like a slider. Once attached, no regeneration is required no matter how many times you move it
- Edit (Manual Editing): Change text, size, color, or delete elements yourself. With the June 2026 update, you can now also move and resize by dragging
Once the shape is set, export from "Export" in the upper right.
Actually, slides like this were made
I like that the tone of color schemes, fonts, and margins is consistent across pages.
▼ The slides created this time are scheduled to be distributed later via the official LINE
Conclusion
Even though I am neither a designer nor an engineer, I was able to create materials of this quality using only Claude Design.
The effect of this is when making the second or third set; if you solidify the look first, then just by pasting the subject, materials with a consistent tone will come out. The initial effort pays off more for those who repeatedly create similar materials for each client.
Note that the "look" solidified here can be carried around as a rule when combined with Claude Code. I plan to write about this advanced usage in another article.
I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways, but this is my current tentative optimal solution. If I have any realizations or learnings, I will continue to post them on X, so I would appreciate it if you would follow me. Thank you for reading to the end. @mmmsumo
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