Flodesk Studio: the email tool I didn't know I needed
I'm a Designer. I Tested Flodesk Studio Like I Wasn't One.
I sat down to create the first newsletter for my passion project (The Law Abode), and while I could've built it exactly the way I build everything else — from scratch, I decided to test something.
I wanted to see what Flodesk's new AI Studio could actually do for someone who isn't a designer — someone with an idea for a newsletter, no design background, and no brand even set up yet. So that's exactly how I approached it: no brand kit, no assumptions, just a prompt and an idea.
Starting From Nothing (On Purpose)
Since The Law Abode didn't have an official brand kit built out yet, I started with one of Studio's premade brand kits instead of uploading my own. That was the point — to see how it handles someone starting completely from zero.
From there, I just described the email I wanted: an intro newsletter welcoming people to The Law Abode, sharing what the brand is about, and introducing myself as someone with a serious plant obsession. That's it. No design brief, no mockups, just a sentence describing the vibe.
What Came Back Actually Surprised Me
In seconds, I had three finished directions to choose from — each one already on-brand, already usable, no design experience required to get there. As someone who's spent years doing this the long way, that part stood out – it was a real starting point. Don’t get me wrong, I love designing newsletters “the long way”, but I also understand the need for a professional newsletter without the cost of a designer.
From there, I had options: refine it in chat, drag and drop elements around, or adjust things pixel by pixel by hand. I went the hands-on route — moving things, adjusting layout choices, shaping stickers — because I wanted to see how much control was actually there. Turns out, all of it. Nothing about the process took the decisions out of my hands. It just gave me a genuinely strong foundation to make them from.
The Part That Actually Matters
Here's my honest, designer take: the output didn't look generic. It didn't look like a template someone half-filled in. It looked like something a designer would have made — because, in a way, one already had. The layouts are built on real design work (my favorite part), and the AI just speeds up getting from idea to finished email. I still made every final call. I just didn't have to start from a blank canvas to do it.
And when it was ready, sending it was simple — straight out through Flodesk, or exported as HTML for whatever platform someone's already using.
Quick Recap: What Flodesk Studio Actually Does
If you're wondering what's actually going on behind the scenes, here's the short version:
Premade brand kits to start from if you don't have your own brand set up yet — or you can upload one if you do
Prompt to create — describe the email you want, and it generates three directions at once: a visual layout, a banner style, and a plain-text version
Remembers your brand — once it's set, your details stay consistent across every email you make
Three ways to refine — through chat, drag-and-drop, or adjusting things pixel by pixel by hand
Design details built in — movable, rotatable stickers, multiple image shapes, and card styles like solid, grain, and blur
Flexible delivery — send directly through Flodesk, or export the HTML to whatever platform you're already using
Actively evolving — new features are shipping regularly, with things like forms and pages reportedly on the way beyond email
None of this replaces good design instinct. What it does is remove the blank-page problem, which — designer or not — is usually the hardest part of getting a newsletter out the door.
Why I Think This Matters
I went into this expecting to find the gaps — the places where a non-designer would get stuck, or where the result would look "close enough" instead of actually good. To my happy surprise, I didn't find them!
That's really the takeaway: you don't need design skills, and you don't need an established brand, to send something that looks like real, considered design.
You need an idea and a sentence describing it. Whether you start from a template, a prompt, or just a rough idea of what you want to say, Studio takes it from there — and what comes back is something that already looks unmistakably like you, ready to refine as much or as little as you want.
Real human design, accelerated by AI, finished by you — that's genuinely what it felt like on the other side of the screen, even for someone who does this for a living.
If you've got an idea for your first send and nothing else, that might be all you need. Start creating at studio.flodesk.com.
