Guide Custom Designs

Custom Designs

Custom Designs let you save a look once and reuse it across every visual generation in Scholarly. Add a few style instructions and reference images, name the design, and from then on you can apply it whenever you create a slide deck, story book, infographic, mind map, or AI video lecture — so the output comes out in your style instead of the default.

Custom Designs are a paid-plan feature. See Plans and Limits.

What a Custom Design Holds

Each Custom Design is a small package the AI consults whenever you apply it:

  • A name -- How it shows up in the design picker.
  • Style instructions -- Free-text guidance the AI follows when laying out the visuals. Talk about colors, mood, typography, layout, illustration style, do's and don'ts — whatever helps the AI match the look you have in mind.
  • Reference images -- Drop in screenshots of your school deck template, a brand guide page, a moodboard, or anything else that shows the look. The AI uses the references to pick up colors, layouts, and visual feel that words alone can miss.

Reference images stay private to your account and are used only to generate your own content.

Creating a Custom Design

The fastest path is from any generation surface that supports designs (slides, story books, infographics, mind maps, video lectures):

  1. Open the create modal for the content you want to make.
  2. In the Design section, click the Manage designs button.
  3. In the manager modal, click New design, give it a name, paste in your style instructions, and add up to a few reference images.
  4. Save. The new design appears in the picker immediately, ready to apply.

You can also create and manage designs from Settings → Scholarly AI → Custom Designs, even when you are not in the middle of a create flow.

Applying a Custom Design

In any create modal that supports designs, open the Design picker and pick your saved design. Scholarly remembers your last-applied design per generation type, so the next slide deck you create can default to the same design you used last time.

Custom Designs work with:

When you apply a Custom Design, the AI uses your instructions and references as guidance — it still respects the source material, the topic, and any custom instructions you typed in for that specific generation. Think of it as a consistent visual director, not a hard template.

Editing and Deleting

Open Settings → Scholarly AI → Custom Designs (or the Manage designs link from any create modal) at any time to:

  • Rename a design.
  • Update its style instructions and reference images.
  • Delete a design you no longer use.

Edits apply to anything you generate from that point onward — previously generated content is not retroactively re-styled.

When to Use a Custom Design

  • You have a school or club brand. Save the brand colors, fonts, and a few slide screenshots and every deck stays on-brand.
  • You teach or tutor. Build one design for your handouts and another for kid-friendly explainers, then switch as needed.
  • You like a consistent personal aesthetic. Save a watercolor look for story books, a minimalist look for slides, a textbook look for study materials.

Tips

  • Keep style instructions specific and concrete: "warm watercolor palette, hand-drawn illustrations, generous white space, no neon colors" beats "make it look nice."
  • A few well-chosen reference images guide the AI better than a dozen mixed ones. Pick examples that are unmistakably the look you want.
  • Save more than one design. A name like Brand Deck or Lecture Kids makes it obvious which to apply later.
  • Designs steer the visuals; they do not override the video mode of an AI Video Lecture. Use both together — pick Math mode for a chemistry lecture and apply your Custom Design on top.
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