Beta · v0.1

Welcome to Picasso.

Thanks for being one of the first people to use this. The goal of the beta is simple: find out where it feels magic, where it feels broken, and what we're missing. This guide walks you through every page so you know what to try — and what to ignore for now.

Reading time: about 8 minutes. Try-it time: about 20 minutes from signup to first graphic.

What Picasso is

Picasso is two tools, glued together. First you build a brand system — colors, fonts, shapes, photography, voice. Then you use that brand to make graphics without starting from a blank page every time.

Brand

A 7-step guided builder. The output is a brand kit — schema, assets, and a PDF you can hand off.

Studio

A graphics editor that uses your brand kit to fill templates, suggest layouts, and stay on-brand.

The 90-second tour

This is the path most testers should take on their first session:

Sign up→ Brand Overview→ Intake→ Colors→ Fonts→ Shapes→ Images→ Backgrounds→ Voice→ Export→ Studio

Everything saves automatically. You can leave and come back — your brand will be where you left it.

Creating an account

/auth

One screen. Toggle between Log in and Sign up at the top. If you're signing up for the first time, you'll need an access code (we sent it with your invite).

  1. Email + password.

    Standard. You'll use these to log back in.

  2. Business name + website.

    The business name shows on your brand guidelines. The website is optional but powerful — see the next callout.

  3. Access code.

    Required for the beta. If you don't have one, ping DC.

  4. Sign up.

    Takes you straight to the Brand Overview. If you provided a website, a brand will start importing in the background.

Try this · the magic
Add a website URL when you sign up. Picasso will scrape it and pre-fill your colors, fonts, and photography style before you even land on the dashboard. It's the difference between "I'm building a brand from scratch" and "here's a draft of your brand — what do you want to change?"
Heads up
The access code field only appears on the Sign up tab. If you're stuck on the Log in tab and can't find where to enter the code, click "Sign up" at the top.

Brand Overview

/ · the home dashboard

Mission control for your brand. Seven cards — one per section — show what's done, what's empty, and what was auto-imported. The right side has a live preview that updates as you edit other pages. Bottom right gets you into the Studio.

  1. The seven section cards.

    Click any card to edit that section. Cards show a completion badge and a small preview thumbnail of what's inside.

  2. Card states.

    Empty, importing (if you signed up with a website), or filled. Filled cards get a "complete" badge — and an "Edit this section" button when you hover.

  3. Live preview panel.

    Shows your brand applied to a sample. Updates in real time. Only shows on screens wider than ~1100px — on mobile, tap the floating Preview button.

  4. Progress + Export.

    Track how many sections are complete and jump to the export page.

  5. Make a graphic.

    Sends you to the Studio. You can do this any time, but Studio works better once a few sections are filled in.

Try this · the magic
If you signed up with a website URL, watch the cards fill in by themselves. You may see a "Building from website…" modal — that's normal. When it's done, the page reloads with your imported colors, fonts, and a starter photography set.
Heads up
If you see a banner about "unverified images," that's expected — auto-imported photos need a quick thumbs up/down before export. Click into the Images section to clear them.

1. Intake

/brand/intake

The setup step. Confirm your business name, optionally upload a logo, a brand guidelines PDF, and a business schema (YAML). Everything else is optional — you can move on as soon as the business name is filled.

  1. Business name.

    The only required field. If you signed up with one, it's prefilled.

  2. Schema + guidelines.

    Optional uploads. A YAML schema describes your business (industry, audience, tone) and improves every AI suggestion downstream. The PDF is held on file for export.

  3. Logo.

    Drop an SVG if you have one. PNGs and JPGs work too.

  4. Continue to Colors.

    Enabled as soon as a business name is set.

Try this · the magic
Skip the logo upload entirely and continue. Picasso will generate a clean text wordmark from your business name in the background. Come back later and drop in a real SVG if you have one.
Heads up
The schema must be YAML, and there's no in-app validator yet. If it doesn't import cleanly, the AI suggestions will be less tailored — but nothing breaks.

2. Colors

/brand/colors

Pick a 3-color palette in one of two ways: choose from three suggested palettes (recommended), or build your own through a 5-stage wizard. Live preview updates as you choose.

  1. Mode toggle.

    Suggested = three curated palettes generated from your business schema. Custom = the 5-stage wizard. You can switch any time.

  2. Palette cards.

    Each card has a strategy — Anchor (safe), Against (contrast), Atmosphere (mood). Click to select.

  3. Capture / Next.

    "Capture" saves the selection. After save, the button becomes "Next: Fonts" — same button, different label.

Try this · the magic
Hover or click between the suggested palettes and watch the live preview redraw your full brand in each one. The suggestions are generated from your industry and tone — not random.
Heads up
When you save, "Capture" turns into "Next: Fonts." That's intentional but easy to miss the first time — it can feel like a button disappeared.

3. Fonts

/brand/fonts

Pick a display + body font pairing from three suggestions, build your own, or upload custom fonts. Same shape as the Colors page.

  1. Upload custom fonts.

    Drop TTF or OTF files. Uploaded fonts stay available across sessions and show up as a custom pairing.

  2. Pairing cards.

    Each card shows a display + body combo, ranked by relevance to your brand's personality.

Try this · the magic
Don't upload anything — the three suggested pairings are already filtered to match the tone you implied through Colors and your schema. Pick one and keep moving.
Heads up
If you upload only a display font, the body slot may snap back to a suggested default. We're refining how upload-one-slot behaves — flag it if it surprises you.

4. Shapes

/brand/shapes

Pick an icon style family. The system handles stroke weight and corner radius for you — your job is just to choose the feel.

  1. Style family grid.

    Click any card to open a larger preview showing all icons in that family. Confirm with "Select" inside the modal.

  2. Save & Continue.

    This page auto-saves when you confirm a style — no separate "Capture" button.

Try this · the magic
Open two style families and compare. The modal shows real icons from the set, so you can judge how they'll actually look in your graphics — not just an abstract style label.
Heads up
You can't change stroke weight or corner radius — that's by design, to keep brands internally consistent. If you really need to, tell us why.

5. Images

/brand/images

Pick three or more photos across three categories — Lifestyle, Work, Environment — to define your photography style. Browse the library, upload your own, and like/dislike to refine the suggestions.

  1. Image grids per category.

    Eight library photos per category, ranked by fit. Click to select, click again to deselect. Like/dislike buttons (on hover) train future suggestions.

  2. Upload + Refresh.

    Upload your own photos to bring real brand assets in. Refresh rotates through more library images (it doesn't load extras into the grid — it swaps the eight you see).

  3. Photography direction.

    Auto-written from your selections. You can edit any field; once you edit, that field is pinned and won't change when you tweak selections.

Try this · the magic
Dislike two or three photos that feel off-brand, then click Refresh. The next eight should drift toward your taste. The Photography Direction text below rewrites itself in plain English to match.
Heads up
If you imported a brand from a website, you'll see "unverified" library images that block export until you approve or remove them. Just go through and select/deselect them.

6. Backgrounds

/brand/backgrounds

Layer a base background, a geometric pattern, and a texture. Each has intensity and scale sliders. The previews render against your actual brand colors, not on white — so what you see is what you ship.

  1. Base background.

    Light, dark, gradient, or one of your selected photos. Think backdrop, not pattern.

  2. Pattern + Texture grids.

    Two separate systems that stack. Patterns are geometric (colored in your brand primary); textures add grain and material. Pick one of each — or skip either.

  3. Intensity + Scale sliders.

    One pair per layer. Subtle/Strong, Fine/Coarse. The preview updates live.

Try this · the magic
Pick a gradient base, add a subtle pattern, then add a "paper" texture at low intensity. It's the fastest path from "flat web design" to "feels like printed material."
Heads up
The base background labels can read like categories ("Lifestyle image" is one of the choices) which overlaps with the Images page. They're separate — Base is just the backdrop color or photo for your graphics.

7. Voice

/brand/voice

The longest page, and the one where the AI does the most. Pick personality traits, slide tone dials, choose a perspective, and watch the example copy rewrite itself. Edit anything you don't like — your edits are kept.

  1. Personality traits.

    Click to toggle on/off. Pick two or three that fit — not all of them.

  2. Tone sliders.

    Formality, Energy, Technicality, Humor. Moving any slider quietly triggers a copy regen about a second later.

  3. Example copy.

    Hero headline, body, CTAs — all editable. The moment you edit a field, it pins itself. Regen won't overwrite pinned fields.

Try this · the magic
Pick a preset (top right) like "Playful" and watch every trait, slider, and copy block flip at once. Then nudge a single slider and see only the copy re-write — keeping your traits intact.
Heads up
The auto-regen on slider drag can feel jumpy. If you've edited a field you love, edit it once more so it pins — then you can experiment freely without losing it.

Export

/brand/export

Three things to download: a structured schema (markdown), a polished PDF guidelines doc, and a zip of all your assets. Or grab all three.

  1. Asset summary.

    Quick read on what's complete. A green check means it'll be included in the export.

  2. Three download buttons.

    Guidelines PDF is the pretty version for handoff. Schema is structured markdown (machine-readable). Assets zip is the raw files — SVGs, fonts, images.

  3. Download Both.

    Bundles the schema and the assets zip in one click.

Try this · the magic
Download the PDF first. It's the deliverable you'd hand to a client or contractor — and it shows you, at a glance, that everything you just built came together into one coherent system.
Heads up
The PDF takes a few seconds to render with no progress bar. If a click doesn't seem to do anything, give it 5–10 seconds before retrying. If export is "blocked," that almost always means unverified images on the Images page.

Studio · Make a graphic

/studio/graphics

This is where your brand goes to work. Pick a format (Story, Feed, or Square), start from a template or a blank canvas, and edit. Everything you built in the Brand section — colors, fonts, shapes, photography — is available without ever leaving the editor.

  1. Left rail · tools and layers.

    Templates, text, shapes, images. Click a layer to select; double-click text to edit.

  2. Canvas.

    The graphic. Drag to reposition, resize with handles. Colors and fonts pull from your brand automatically.

  3. Top bar · drafts, save, export.

    Drafts auto-save every few seconds. "Stage" moves a finished draft to Theater (approval view). Export gives you SVG or PNG.

Try this · the magic
Start a new graphic, pick "New from Template," and watch the template auto-populate with your brand's colors, fonts, and headline copy. It's the payoff for everything you did in the Brand section.
Heads up
The Studio is the youngest part of the app — expect rough edges. The Draft Picker order isn't sorted yet, "Stage" needs more explanation, and templates are still being filled out. We want every bit of feedback here.

What we're hoping you'll test

You can use Picasso however feels natural — but if you only have 20 minutes, these are the moments we most want a read on.

The website import

Sign up with a real website URL. How close is the imported brand to what you'd actually want? Where did it get wrong, and where did it surprise you?

The 7-step flow

Did the order make sense? Were any steps confusing, slow, or felt like busywork? Did anything feel surprisingly fast?

The Voice regen

Push the sliders around. Did the copy keep up? Did pinning your edits feel intuitive — or did you lose work you wanted to keep?

The PDF export

Open the guidelines PDF. Would you actually hand this to a designer, a printer, or a client? What's missing?

The first Studio graphic

How long did it take from "I want to make a thing" to "I made a thing"? Where did you get stuck?

The whole feel

Did it ever feel magical? Where? And where did it feel like it was getting in your way?

How to send feedback

We read everything. The faster a piece of feedback gets to us, the more likely it lands in the next build.