Open Design Setup Guide: The Plain-English PDF

Get Open Design installed, connected and building real pages in one afternoon. No coding needed.

Open Design is the free, open-source AI design app that turns the AI you already use (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others) into a design studio. It builds landing pages, app screens, slide decks, images and short videos from a plain-English brief. The app is free, but the official docs assume you know your way around. This guide doesn't.

What's inside (15-page PDF):

• What Open Design costs, and the three ways to connect your AI (including the one that costs nothing extra)
• Step-by-step install for Mac and Windows
• The two privacy switches to turn off before you do any client work
• A full walkthrough of your first landing page, from brief to finished design
• A brief-writing formula plus 6 ready-to-use prompts: service landing page, product sales page, pitch deck, screenshot redesign, app screen, social graphics
• How to make changes with Edit, Comment and Mark, without touching code
• Setting up a design system so every project stays on-brand
• Versions, exporting (HTML, PDF, PPTX, ZIP, MP4) and sharing
• Troubleshooting table for the most common problems
• A one-page quick-reference card

Who it's for: business owners, creators and freelancers who want professional-looking designs without paying for a design subscription or learning to code.

Format: instant PDF download, US Letter, 15 pages. Written for Open Design versions 0.25–0.26 (October 2026).

This is an independent guide and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Open Design project.