Paper: The new AI design app everyone's talking about

EElie Steinbock
컴퓨터/소프트웨어마케팅/광고창업/스타트업AI/미래기술

Transcript

00:00:00Hey, today's video is about paper. Paper is basically Figma but for Claude code or
00:00:05cursor. Here you can see an example. We have paper desktop running but then you can
00:00:10control everything via Claude code which is what you're seeing over here and it's
00:00:14also really nice because you can very easily convert between your components
00:00:19and your code. You can see companies like Vercel use it, Z, Dub. So a lot of really
00:00:24cool products are using it. This is what the app looks like when you get started.
00:00:28This is the demo project you'll get for the first time. You will be able to
00:00:31download the app from paper.design/downloads and then the next step
00:00:35what you need to do is install an MCP server. If you want to install this in
00:00:40cursor you just click this button which I actually did already but now we're
00:00:43actually going to try it out in Claude code. So we're gonna copy this over. This
00:00:47is going to add the paper MCP server scope user which means it's for every
00:00:53project on a computer can access it. Usually it's scoped to the project when
00:00:57you add an MCP server and here you can see the transport is actually local. This
00:01:01is going to go and connect to the paper desktop app. So I'm gonna go and install
00:01:06it here and now that we have it installed we're gonna open up Claude. I've opened up
00:01:11four windows over here in Cmux. It's basically ghosty running in the Tmux
00:01:17style where we have four different windows so we're gonna do a few
00:01:19different demos. I figured why not have a few different windows. So what we're gonna
00:01:22do next is we're going to go and copy this prompt over to a terminal. So we're
00:01:28gonna do an expense tracking app in paper. Let's see what that looks like. You can
00:01:33see a demo like this is gonna come out but we'll see what that looks like for
00:01:36real. In the meantime I'm actually gonna run another few tasks running. So create
00:01:40a demo landing page for me in paper and make it wow me. Let's see if it does a
00:01:44good job. Create a dashboard for me for a finance app. So let's go and do that and
00:01:48create the design system for me for a social Twitter like app. So I'm gonna run
00:01:53all of these in parallel. I actually don't know what they're gonna come out as so
00:01:56let's see how that works. Over here you can see the previous run that we have
00:02:00going. We have a design brief, a palette. This is Claude code thinking through
00:02:04things adding it to the welcome to paper app that we have but let's go to the
00:02:08bottom. Okay it's finished. Let's see what this looks like. So we're gonna zoom out
00:02:13and see if we have it somewhere here. Oh so we can see our other apps are
00:02:17actually being built and here you can see our expense entry app which is really
00:02:22cool. The design is pretty solid for that and actually when I ran it before I think
00:02:25it came out with a slightly different app. Here you can see these others actually
00:02:30all working in parallel and the cool thing about this this paper app is
00:02:34basically its figma. So everything you might be used to from figma you can see
00:02:39it looks very similar. Here I can go and change things and I can actually go back
00:02:43and make some edits. Remove the upload section put something else there instead.
00:02:53Let's see what happens when we do that and you can see all of these are still
00:02:56running in the background. If we go back here so hopefully that upload section
00:03:00will be removed. You can see our landing page it's looking quite decent. Design
00:03:04with intention create without limits. By the way here we can see all our other
00:03:09components are coming together. The design system looks really cool and professional.
00:03:12I feel like you could have paid a design of thousands of dollars to give you this
00:03:16exact same thing. Pretty cool and nice and of course it can be completely edited
00:03:20just like in figma. This is what the landing page ended up looking like and
00:03:24we're gonna go and put this into react in a second with tailwind. Here's the
00:03:28dashboard and the other task is also complete. Here you can see split width so
00:03:33that was gone and adjusted as well. So you have these really professional looking
00:03:36designs and all we did was prompt it into existence and for all of this we can use
00:03:42the existing ecosystem of skills that Claude code or cursor already provide us
00:03:46with so we could use the front-end design skill to go and design all of this if we
00:03:50wanted as well. So I'm gonna ask for an HTML page with this design now in my
00:03:54browser so let's see how that works and going back to paper I'm gonna show you a
00:03:58few other things. So over here I have this component and what I can actually do is I
00:04:03can do copy as tailwind or copy as react CSS so I can usually just copy and paste
00:04:08it in but I think what we'll also see in a second is that Claude code can go and
00:04:13load this up for us as well so we'll be able to open it in a browser and wow
00:04:17there you can see it's actually gone and done it this is actually pretty amazing
00:04:20here you can see the button I mean yeah this is just great honestly if we go and
00:04:24inspect the page let's see what actually came out so you here you can see this
00:04:29just went and used HTML and CSS but we could also have made it do it with react
00:04:35and tailwind you can go and build things like you can in figma it's the exact
00:04:40same thing here you can see on the side we can go and change things we can change
00:04:44the color this is exactly the same as figma basically but I went and put
00:04:48together this component as well because I wanted to see what it would look like if
00:04:51I just copy and paste it into a regular app and here you can see this is exactly
00:04:55what it went and did it came out exactly as I wanted basically and here you can
00:05:00see what was copied and pasted in this is the background component I'll just show
00:05:05you again as I did this before so I'm gonna do copy as tailwind I'm gonna go
00:05:10into cursor and I'm just gonna paste it in and you can see this is what it gave
00:05:14me now I'm gonna undo some of this and this is actually a component that I had
00:05:20pasted in before for the expense tracking app you can see a top bar amount hero and
00:05:26so on so this is actually react and tailwind for basically the same thing as
00:05:29we just did and here you can see this is the actual react code in our app this is
00:05:34another variant this is when I prompted it 20 minutes ago and so this is version
00:05:40one this is the other version where we did it with regular HTML and CSS and
00:05:44both came out very well I actually want to see how the other apps come out if we
00:05:49go and do that in Claude code so I'm asking for an HTML version of all the
00:05:53screens that we designed just now and I also just went and did is I did right
00:05:58click copy as react CSS I went to cursor I pasted it in and this is a real app you
00:06:04can see it's running at localhost 3001 this is part of inbox zero just a demo
00:06:09page I added and you can see this is working perfectly as well which is really
00:06:13nice first time it's not actually responsive but other than it's pretty
00:06:18solid here you can see it needs some work to be responsive but I think the concept
00:06:22at least is really cool and this is actually the HTML version that just
00:06:26loaded up that we also prompted and this is somewhat more responsive it starts to
00:06:33struggle a bit over here but it's at least it's better than the other version
00:06:36so yeah that's pretty cool now I want to show you is that you can also get it to
00:06:41generate images so if you do command I let's see if we can do that and we're
00:06:46gonna ask it to generate an image for us so the prompt I've written is to create
00:06:50a beautiful ad for inbox zero and AI email assistant it helps you reach inbox
00:06:54zero fast you can see here there are different models you can use nano banana
00:06:59Pro let's do a variety pack for this first hopefully I'll be able to do it and
00:07:05yeah you can see it's gone and started creating four images and I want to
00:07:10actually try again because I'm curious what happens if we can do nano banana Pro
00:07:14let's do create image so there's another image being created and I hope soon
00:07:19they'll come out oh here you can see the ads are starting which yeah I mean they
00:07:25look decent obviously they need some work but as sort of a first attempt that's
00:07:29pretty cool let's see this one inbox zero you know you could find designers that
00:07:35do worse designs than that and then this one probably of the four I like this one
00:07:39the best but yeah you can see obviously that was one-shotted you could iterate on
00:07:43that quite a lot let's see what nano banana Pro comes up with that one might
00:07:47be the most impressive yeah you're fast track to calm the AI email assistant I
00:07:51think that's pretty solid honestly as a one-shot that's not a bad graphic I also
00:07:55find it interesting like it knows the logo like that has AI picked up on the
00:08:00logo for inbox zero or it's just random that it happens to look quite like our
00:08:04logo text now before we round off I want to show you two more things if I click on
00:08:09this image and I hit s so I can give different effects so here you can see
00:08:13this water effect of this image if I hit s again there is this liquid metal I'm
00:08:18actually not sure how this works is I'm not sure it's related to our image at all
00:08:21but you can see you can create these really cool effects and you can actually
00:08:24use them in your landing page here's like another version of that image that we
00:08:27created and then one more thing which is nice is that the colors supposedly are
00:08:33consistent and accurate paper has the world's first uniform color picker that
00:08:37makes colors easy and so if people aren't familiar with this you can have one color
00:08:41in figma and then another color on your website and it's not one-to-one it's
00:08:45actually quite annoying we had this with the blues on our website where figma was
00:08:48showing one thing and website was showing something else even though it was
00:08:52supposedly one-to-one on the hex code of what the color was supposed to be and so
00:08:56if you're someone that's run into this issue like we did that's quite a nice
00:08:59feature to have as well and the very last thing I want to show you this create a
00:09:04design system in paper from our existing code base and you can see it started to
00:09:08analyze the code bases is just regular clawed code you can see it's grabbed our
00:09:12fonts now we actually struggled because apparently we've hit the weekly MCP tool
00:09:17limit in this video for paper Pro so we can't actually see what that would have
00:09:20looked like but in short like we would have been able to say our existing code
00:09:23base and then see what that looks like in paper and then we could have edited it in
00:09:28paper and then put the code back into our project so that's a really really nice
00:09:32feature I think one place where this comes up a lot where it would have been
00:09:35really helpful for us when we're doing these demo design components like we're
00:09:39doing a screenshot for a landing page typically what we'll do is what's easier
00:09:43is to just take a screenshot but what I often want to do is edit that a bit edit
00:09:47the text that's on the page hide some of the real emails which are there and having
00:09:50it in fig more papers just so much easier because I can just type and edit exactly
00:09:55as needed and then it's not a screenshot I can actually export it as a real image
00:09:58a PNG or JPEG or whatever it is here's that Twitter social app that we were
00:10:03building and these also really cool designs but anyway hope you enjoyed the
00:10:07video hope it wasn't too much jumping about we were running a few different
00:10:10things in parallel this is how I'm coding a lot these days and so maybe that
00:10:14leaked into the video a bit but yeah I hope you found it helpful let me know
00:10:17what you decide to build with paper I think is a really useful tool I could see
00:10:20myself upgrading to the pre version of it quite soon as well and be sure to
00:10:24subscribe for future videos

Key Takeaway

Paper is a revolutionary AI-powered design application that bridges the gap between UI design and development by allowing engineers to generate, edit, and export production-ready code through natural language prompting and MCP integration.

Highlights

Paper is an AI design tool described as "Figma for Claude code or Cursor," enabling seamless transitions between design components and code.

The application integrates with Claude code via an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, allowing users to prompt designs into existence from the terminal.

Users can generate complex UI elements, design systems, and landing pages in parallel using terminal multiplexers like Tmux.

Paper features a unique uniform color picker that solves the common discrepancy between Figma hex codes and actual browser rendering.

The tool allows for high-fidelity exports, including React with Tailwind CSS, standard HTML/CSS, and AI-generated marketing imagery.

A key feature is the ability to import existing codebases into Paper to visualize and edit design systems before pushing changes back to code.

Timeline

Introduction to Paper and Setup

The speaker introduces Paper as a design tool specifically built for the era of AI coding assistants like Claude code and Cursor. He demonstrates the core value proposition: the ability to control a desktop design environment through a terminal-based AI. To get started, users must download the app from paper.design and install a local MCP server to establish a communication bridge. This setup allows the AI to have a 'scope' over the computer's projects, enabling it to write directly to the design canvas. The speaker highlights that top-tier companies like Vercel and Dub are already utilizing this technology for their workflows.

Parallel AI Design Generation

Using a Tmux-style terminal setup within the Ghosty terminal emulator, the speaker demonstrates the power of running multiple design tasks in parallel. He issues four distinct prompts simultaneously: an expense tracking app, a 'wow' factor landing page, a finance dashboard, and a Twitter-like design system. This section illustrates the efficiency of AI design, where Claude code 'thinks' through a design brief and selects color palettes automatically. The speaker emphasizes that this parallel workflow represents his modern approach to coding and design. It showcases how a single developer can orchestrate multiple complex design projects at once without manual drawing.

Analyzing Generated UI and Design Systems

As the parallel tasks complete, the speaker reviews the output within the Paper desktop application, noting the professional quality of the UI. He examines the expense tracking app and a comprehensive design system, remarking that the quality rivals what a professional designer might charge thousands of dollars for. The interface is intentionally similar to Figma, making it intuitive for those familiar with industry-standard design tools. A key interaction shown is the ability to provide feedback to the AI, such as requesting the removal of a specific 'upload' section. This iterative process demonstrates that the designs are not static images but fully editable vector components.

Code Export: React, Tailwind, and HTML

The speaker focuses on the technical translation of designs into functional code using built-in 'copy as Tailwind' or 'copy as React CSS' features. He demonstrates how Claude code can automatically generate an HTML/CSS version of the designs and open them directly in a web browser for immediate inspection. When testing the code in a real React application running on localhost, the speaker finds that the components look almost identical to the design. Although he notes some issues with responsiveness in the initial output, he remains impressed by the high fidelity of the one-shot generation. This section proves Paper's utility as a bridge that eliminates the manual work of translating CSS properties from a design tool to a code editor.

AI Image Generation and Special Effects

Beyond layout design, Paper includes integrated AI image generation capabilities using models like 'Nano Banana Pro.' The speaker prompts the tool to create a marketing ad for his project, 'Inbox Zero,' and observes how the AI generates several variations including logos and thematic graphics. He explores the 'Variety Pack' feature, which provides different creative directions in a single request. One specific model produces a particularly impressive graphic that captures the brand's aesthetic as a 'fast track to calm.' This functionality suggests that Paper is intended to be a complete creative suite, handling both structural UI and illustrative marketing assets within the same workspace.

Uniform Color Space and Codebase Analysis

The final section covers advanced features like the world's first uniform color picker, which ensures that colors appear identical in the design tool and the final website. The speaker explains the frustration of hex codes shifting appearance between Figma and the browser, a problem Paper claims to have solved. He also attempts to generate a design system based on an existing codebase, though he hits a weekly MCP tool limit for Paper Pro during the demo. Despite the limit, he explains the immense value of being able to edit live code visually and export it back without taking manual screenshots. The video concludes with a showcase of a Twitter-style social app UI and a call to action for viewers to explore AI-driven design.

Community Posts

View all posts