Howdy wizards,
Today I'll teach you something simple, but powerful.
I have a long, carefully designed PDF. It's this newsletter's media kit, where I show the options I have for sponsorships, and statistics about performance and audience.
Many media kits, including mine, are PDFs because they began as printed brochures, and buyers still expect one.
I designed mine using Figma, exported it as PDF and put it on my website.
Shoutout to Rectangle 162
It consists of hundreds of bravely arranged (and badly named) shapes, boxes, text fields, icons and whathaveyous.
Every quarter, I update it with the latest audience statistics and prices. That means gathering data, making charts, editing Figma, exporting to PDF, uploading to my hosting, and hitting publish.
A lot of the process is manual precisely because PDF is an old file format and the design happens in Figma.
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A few weeks ago I had the realisation that I could ask Claude to create my media kit PDF in code, so that it can do the whole process of editing and updating it for me, as well as publishing it on my site.
The idea was most alluring to me. If this worked, I'd never have to go into Figma again.
I shot my shot.
Claude rebuilt the Figma file into code in one pass.
Everything looked the same as in my old Figma file.
Happy about the result, I then asked Claude to update the media kit for this quarter.
I knew what I wanted: updated charts with the latest data about my audience, my latest pricing, as well as the text that shows which period it's valid for.
Claude was able to do the whole update end to end based on my instructions.
No more wrestling with boxes and alignment in Figma!
EXCELLENT
My next instinct was to have Claude go over the design itself.
After all, that design was made by me, an amateur, wrestling boxes in Figma.
It mapped out and planned a bunch of small improvements: inconsistent borders, text alignment, element sizes, random gaps.
For example, I have a grid of company logos, a section showcasing which companies my readers work at.
To me, it looked perfect. But Claude saw that the alignment of logos was off, and fixed it.
Me vs robotic precision
After Claude's little design overhaul improvements, my media kit looks way more professional.
Updating my PDF now is a prompt to Claude Code.
I don't even have to type it, I just use voice (shout out to Paraspeech).
Instead of trying to figure out how to center the text within rectangle 274, I can now spend my time making better content for you.
The small lesson is this: if you have an unruly PDF you keep having to update, Claude can code it so you can update it agentically.
The bigger lesson is this: even if you find yourself having to work with outdated systems, there's a good chance you can still modernise your workflow around it, and make things way more effective.
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PS if you want to check out my media kit which now has excellently aligned boxes (and sponsorship options), you can find it at advertise.whatplugin.ai
The boxes are boxing, thanks to Claude
PSPS I thought about using the Figma MCP for this, but then realised I need their professional plan for that which also comes with usage limits. Also, having this thing in code means it updates faster, and with better version control, compared to an MCP talking to a Figma file.
What's your verdict on today's email?
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Disclosure: To cover the cost of my email software and the time I spend writing this newsletter, I sometimes work with sponsors and may earn a commission if you buy something through a link in here. If you choose to click, subscribe, or buy through any of them, THANK YOU – it will make it possible for me to continue to do this.
