TemplaitHow it works
Design the structure, describe each part, export it, hand it over
Templait is the step before the assistant. You build the composition visually, write what belongs in each part of it, and export the result as a document an assistant can follow.
The four steps
- Start from a canvas. Pick a preset or give it your own size. The canvas is the frame everything else is measured against.
- Put a zone on it for each part of the design. A headline is a zone. A photograph is a zone. The row of specifications is a zone.
- Say what each zone is for, and what belongs in it. This is the part that does the work: an instruction per zone, in your words.
- Export it and hand it to your assistant. One paste, one artifact, the layout you designed.
1. Start from a canvas
Print presets come at 300 DPI so a poster is a real poster: A2, A3 and A4. Social sizes are there for the shapes people post in, and you can set the width and height yourself. The background is yours too - a colour, or the paper white a poster is printed on.
Everything on the canvas is placed in the canvas's own units, so changing the size later moves what has to move and leaves the rest where it is rather than rescaling the design behind your back.
2. Put a zone on it for each part
A zone is one part of the composition, and the kind you choose only decides what it can hold - the frame, the fill and the border are yours to set either way.
| Zone | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Text Copy | Headings, paragraphs, captions - anything the reader reads. |
| Quote Copy | A pull quote or a testimonial, with the attribution beside it. |
| List Copy | Bulleted or numbered points, with the item count you expect. |
| Button Copy | A call to action, in one of three styles. |
| Table Data | Rows and columns, with the column headings you want. |
| Chart Data | Bars, lines or slices, with the series named. |
| Metric Data | One number that matters, with its label and trend. |
| Progress Data | A value against a maximum, as a bar or a ring. |
| Timeline Data | Steps or stages in order. |
| Image Media | A place for a picture, with a description of what belongs there. |
| Icon Media | A single glyph from the icon set. |
| Logo Media | A brand mark, with the company name beside it. |
| QR code Media | An encoded link, drawn from the payload you give it. |
| Diagram Media | A simple arrangement of parts and the relationships between them. |
| Divider Layout | A rule between two parts of the design. |
| Panel Layout | A background plate that groups what sits on it. |
| Shape Drawing | A rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, triangle, quad, polygon or line. |
Zones can overlap, be locked so a stray drag cannot move them, and be hidden without being deleted. Alignment guides, snapping and a grid are there for the hand work.
3. Say what each zone is for, and what belongs in it
Two things are asked of every zone, and they are different questions. The instruction is what you would say out loud: "one sentence, under twelve words, no exclamation marks." The semantic role is what the zone is for in the composition, which is the part no amount of styling can express.
The role matters because the same photograph can be the hero of a layout or the evidence for a claim, and a line of text can be the brand's own words or a legal footnote - identical kinds, identical sizes, entirely different jobs.
| Role | What it tells the assistant |
|---|---|
| Brand identity | Carries who this is: the wordmark, the brand line, the signature. |
| Hero | Carries the main message - the thing a reader takes away. |
| Supporting content | The default: it fills a place in the layout and claims nothing more. |
| Product showcase | Shows the thing being sold or explained. |
| Call to action | Asks the reader to do something. |
| Informational | States a fact the reader needs. |
| Evidence | Supports a claim: a figure, a quote, a source. |
| Legal disclaimer | The small print that has to be there. |
| Decoration | Adds visual interest and carries no content. |
4. Export it and hand it over
Export to JSON, Markdown or XML, copy the whole document, and paste it into the assistant you already use. The export carries the canvas, every zone in order, what each one is for, and the instruction you wrote for it - plus a block of reading instructions addressed to the assistant, so it treats the document as one composition rather than as a list of unrelated requests.
The artwork itself exports as SVG or PNG, with the print presets rendered at 300 DPI.
What Templait does not do
- It contains no model. Nothing is generated here. Templait writes the brief; the assistant you paste it into writes the content.
- It is not a design editor. It is a way to specify a design precisely enough for somebody else to fill it, and it is deliberately narrower than the tools that do layout for a living.
- It does not promise a result. Assistants differ in how closely they follow a structure, and no template changes that.
- It does not charge for any of it. Every account can use everything - there is no export limit and nothing locked. There is a voluntary one-time payment for people who want to support the work, and the app shows the amount when they ask.
Start one
An account is free, and a template takes about as long as sketching the layout on paper - except the paper turns into a document you can reuse.