Factronics USA · Design workflow report · Updated Nov 6, 2026

From flat cards to publishable carousels

What changed between the first automated pass on Nov 4 and three Canva MCP carousels on Nov 4 to 6, what Pablo still fixed by hand, and the agent workflow that can take the rest off his plate.

3 carousels

Built inside Canva by the agent from Pablo’s own master layouts: Linx 9830 (4 slides), Linx IJ470 launch (5) and SFMA live from the booth (6).

11 / 6

IJ470 photos imported from linxglobal.com, and background cutouts made in Canva across both sets.

4 → 1

Slides Pablo edited by hand, IJ470 versus SFMA live. On the third carousel only the cover needed work.

Linx IJ470 carousel in Canva Linx 9830 carousel in Canva SFMA live carousel in Canva Nov Event Post master

01What happened, in order

On Nov 4 the first automated pass rendered the SFMA posts with VectorCraft. The facts and fonts were right, but the layouts were flat, so Pablo rebuilt every post by hand in Canva to ship them. That night the Canva connector came online. The agent stopped drawing from scratch and started editing copies of Pablo’s real Canva file.

Two nights, three carousels Timeline from Pablo hand-building the SFMA set on Nov 4 to the agent building the Linx 9830 and IJ470 carousels through Canva on Nov 4 and 5. ~10 H NOV 4 · 12:00 13:00 23:00 NOV 5 · 00:00 01:00 Hand-built SFMA set Pablo, Canva master file Handoff written DESIGN_HANDOFF.md Linx 9830 carousel agent via Canva MCP · 4 slides Linx IJ470 carousel 11 photos in · 5 slides Pablo polish pass saved 00:57 This report 01:25 BOGOTA TIME (UTC-5) · TIMESTAMPS FROM CANVA AND THE PROJECT FOLDER LEGEND Event Carousel built by the agent
Fig. 1 · Honest time scale. The axis breaks across the ten quiet hours on Nov 4.
First pass versus Canva MCP pass Two pipelines: the Nov 4 VectorCraft pass ended in Pablo rebuilding every post by hand; the Canva MCP pass edits a copy of his master file and needs only a short polish. BEFORE · NOV 4, FIRST AUTOMATED PASS GENERATE EXPORT REJECTED IN Brief + facts image_brief.md GEN build.py VectorCraft CLI OUT Flat type cards 9 canvases, no photos FIX Rebuilt by hand all 5 posts in Canva AFTER · NOV 4–5, CANVA MCP PASS BRIEF EDIT + CHECK APPROVE IN Brief + links product pages, photos AI Agent plans facts, rules, base slides MCP Copy of the master edited through Canva MCP OK Pablo polishes scale, chips, logo Same inputs. The difference is the surface: the agent now edits Pablo’s real Canva layouts instead of drawing compositions from scratch, so it starts at his quality bar. LEGEND Input / human Agent step Where the work happens Wasted rework
Fig. 2 · The inputs stayed the same. The surface changed, and the manual step shrank from a full rebuild to a polish.

02How the IJ470 carousel was made

Pablo sent the brief, the two product pages and the master file. The agent read the facts and imported 11 IJ470 photos. It then copied five base slides and cut the photos out in Canva. Every slide got rewritten, re-placed and checked against its rendered thumbnail before anything was shown. Nothing was saved until Pablo said yes.

Who did what on the IJ470 carousel Swimlane across Pablo, the agent, Canva and the source websites, from the brief to the saved design Pablo polished. PABLO CLAUDE (AGENT) CANVA MCP SOURCES SOURCES PREVIEW SAVE OPEN Brief + links IJ470, 5 slides Product pages facts, 11 photos Plan slides pick base layouts Copy + cut out copy, remove-bg Edit + check render, fix, repeat Approve “yes, save it” Saved design commit Polish + post scale, chips, logo LEGEND Pablo Agent Agent loop Canva Source Review handoff
Fig. 3 · Who did what. The agent’s loop sits in the middle lane. Pablo appears at three points: the brief, the approval and the polish.

03What Pablo changed by hand

Comparing the agent’s saved version with Pablo’s polished version shows a clear pattern. The facts and copy held up. Most fixes were about scale and placement, plus one rule the agent should have followed already.

Slide 1 · New case coder

Bigger, branded, anchored

  • Fixed the Factronics logo, which now reads USA,LLC, and enlarged it
  • Scaled the conveyor up so the IJ470 is the hero
  • Added a Linx logo chip, bottom right
Slide 2 · Skip the label

Headline over the case

  • Moved the white plate and headline to the top
  • Scaled the coded case up to fill the frame
  • Added a Linx logo chip, bottom left
Slide 3 · Touchscreen

Screen as the hero

  • Moved the copy block up and widened it
  • Enlarged the touchscreen so it bleeds off the left and bottom
  • Lifted the speech bubble to sit beside the screen
Slide 4 · Both sides

Kept as built

  • Small placement nudges only
Slide 5 · Meet the IJ470

Fewer lines, bigger photo

  • Added a bold “No ink wasted:” lead-in
  • Removed the “Sold and deployed by Factronics USA.” line and the logo
  • Enlarged the conveyor to fill the lower half behind the pill
Where Pablo’s hand edits landed Heatmap of Pablo’s manual edits to the five IJ470 slides by type: mostly photo scale and placement, brand marks on three slides, copy on the last slide only. PHOTO SCALE PLACEMENT BRAND MARKS COPY 1 · New case coder 1 2 2 0 2 · Skip the label 1 1 1 0 3 · Touchscreen 1 2 0 0 4 · Both sides 0 1 0 0 5 · Meet the IJ470 1 1 1 2 Slide 1, brand marks: the logo chip was already a rule in the handoff. The agent skipped it again, and Pablo added Linx chips by hand. Copy changed on one slide only. Every other fix was scale or position: bigger photos, tighter crops. LEGEND LOW HIGH Focal cell (outside the ramp) Distinct edits per slide, counted by comparing the agent’s saved version with Pablo’s saved version. Ramp covers 0 to 2. Focal cell: slide 1 brand marks = 2 (Factronics logo fixed, Linx chip added).
Fig. 4 · Edit types per slide. Copy changed on one slide. The partner chip is the repeat miss from the Nov 4 handoff.

New rules from Pablo’s pass

  • Partner logo chip on every product slide, by default
  • Product photo fills at least half the frame and bleeds off an edge
  • CTA slide carries 2 body lines at most

Already working

  • Every claim traced to the product pages
  • Linx naming rule and no em dashes
  • Halftone, lasso, plates and pills reused from the master

Fixed at the source

  • Pablo’s logo fix (USA,LLC) should become the master logo asset
  • Reuse it so the artifact never comes back

04Round three: SFMA live, from the booth

On event day Pablo sent his own booth photos from the D-day folder and pointed at master pages 14 to 22. The agent proposed a six-slide plan first, and he approved it before anything was built. He added two robot photos for the TT750 and asked for a designer’s choice of layouts. Pages 17 and 21 show the Linx 8000 series, so their images were always swapped for the correct product. The agent then copied the pages, placed the booth photos and rewrote the copy. It deleted a seventh slide on Pablo’s word and saved the design.

IJ470 launch
4 of 5
SFMA live
1 of 6

Slides Pablo edited by hand after the agent saved. The SFMA edits were also smaller in kind.

Slide 1 · Cover

Gradient, crop, logo up

  • Replaced the flat 55% navy wash with a blue gradient and halftone fade from bottom-left
  • Zoomed the photo in on the 9830, which crops out the neighboring exhibitors’ banners
  • Moved the Factronics logo top-left above the headline and enlarged it
  • Lifted the text block
Slides 2 to 6

Kept as built

  • No changes. Copy, photos, layout and CTA all held

New rules from the SFMA pass

  • Never a flat solid overlay on a photo. Use a gradient or the halftone fade
  • Event photos: crop out other exhibitors’ branding
  • Logo is a header anchor, top-left above the headline

What held from round two

  • Partner chips and product-forward crops, so slides 2 to 6 were untouched
  • Plan-first approval caught the slide count before any build
  • 8000-series swap rule applied without a reminder

Process lesson

  • Canva’s upload host is blocked from the agent’s network, so local photos went through Google Drive links
  • That made files public without asking. New rule: ask before any public share. The copies are now trashed

05The design vocabulary

Every Factronics post that works stacks the same six layers. The measurements come from Pablo’s Nov 4 redesigns. The agent now gets the bottom two and the top three by reusing his master slides, so the layer it has to supply is real product photography.

Anatomy of a Factronics post Six paint layers of a Factronics social slide from blue ground to marks and partner chips, with product photography as the layer the first pass was missing. L6 Marks + chips lasso, brush underline, partner logo chip L5 Type white / lime fill / lime outline · Inter L4 Plates + cards white plate, navy card, lime pill L3 Product photography real cutouts, bleed off an edge L2 Halftone navy dots #0757AB · ~4.5 px pitch L1 Blue ground #0D70CC · ~84% of the canvas TOP GROUND The first automated pass had only a flat ground, type and one rule. Without L2 and L3 it read as flat, whatever the copy said.
Fig. 5 · Paint order of a Factronics slide, bottom to top. L3 is where the agent’s work matters most.

06What the Canva connector can carry

The handoff asked one question before building anything: can the connector really read and refill the existing templates? It can. That changes the plan. Pablo’s Canva file becomes the design engine, and the component library from the handoff becomes optional.

What the Canva MCP can carry Quadrant placing nine design tasks by how automatable they are through the Canva MCP and how much they matter to the final post. AUTOMATABLE IMPACT AGENT OWNS IT HUMAN OWNS IT AUTOMATE QUIETLY LEAVE MANUAL Copy rewrite + fact check Photo import from URL Background cutout Move, resize, layer Copy / merge pages Nudge lasso + marks Partner logo chip New text in brand font Final composition taste API adds text in a default font needs a Linx logo asset Positions are this session’s assessment, based on what the Canva MCP did and refused on Nov 4–5.
Fig. 6 · Nine design tasks, placed by how automatable they were through the connector and how much they matter to the post.

Proven on Nov 4 to 6

  • Read all 103 pages of the master, with thumbnails
  • Copy chosen pages into a new design
  • Import photos from a public URL and remove backgrounds
  • Rewrite text, reformat it, move, resize, layer and recolor
  • Add, delete and insert pages from another design

Limits found

  • Text added through the API uses a default font, not Inter. Reuse existing text boxes instead
  • Copying the same page twice in one call failed
  • Page merges take one operation per call and need approval each time
  • Partner chips need the logo uploaded as an asset first
  • Direct uploads to Canva are blocked by the network proxy. Any workaround that makes a file public needs Pablo’s OK first

07The workflow that closes the gap

Two rules carry most of the weight. First, the agent looks at its own render and scores it before Pablo sees anything. Second, it never ships a type-only card just because a photo is missing. Each pass through the loop writes what it learned back to one rules file. The six new rules from sections 03 and 04 go in first.

The render and critique loop Five-station loop the design agent runs per slide: plan, edit in Canva, render, score against the rubric, fix; every pass writes lessons back to a shared design-rules file. RULES LESSONS 01 Plan the slide copy, photo, base layout 02 Edit in Canva MCP transaction 03 Render thumbnail read-design 04 Score the rubric 8 checks, 2 measured 05 Fix and re-place min. 2 passes design-rules.md brand kit + lessons LEGEND Station Gate the agent skipped Work moves Writes back to the rules
Fig. 7 · The per-slide loop. Scoring is the gate the first pass skipped. The hub is the shared rule file every pass improves.
The photo gate Flowchart for every post brief: if approved product photos exist they are imported and cut out, otherwise the agent asks Pablo instead of silently falling back to a flat type-only card. YES NO NEVER PHOTOS ADDED FAILS New post brief List claims + visuals per slide Approved photos exist? Ask Pablo for photos say what is missing Flat type-only card silent fallback Import + cut out upload, remove-bg Compose on master Pablo’s layouts Render + critique rubric, 2 passes Ready for Pablo This branch caused the Nov 4 flat cards. It stays closed. LEGEND Step Ask, do not guess Banned path Happy path Retry
Fig. 8 · The photo gate. When approved photography is missing, the agent asks.

08The proposed agent team

One front door takes every post brief and routes it to four specialists. Each specialist reads its own source of truth. The two dashed boxes are what still needs building: the photo library and the written rubric. Approval stays with people.

Proposed design agent team Org chart of a proposed post-design agent: a director that routes briefs to copy, asset, layout and critic specialists, each reading its own knowledge source, with Pablo as the approval gate. FRONT Design Director /post-design routes every post brief COPY Brief + Facts reads 00_SOURCE_FACTS claims, naming, CTA ASSET Asset import URL, remove-bg photos, chips, cutouts CANVA Layout Canva MCP transactions copy master, place, save QA Critic read-design thumbnails rubric, 2 passes min. Copy rules voice.md + Linx rule Photo library 02_brand_kit (to build) Master template Nov Event Post · 103 pp design-rules.md rubric (to write) APPROVAL GATE Pablo approves every save Jovan approves new claims LEGEND Front door Specialist agent Knowledge it reads Gap: not built yet Approval
Fig. 9 · Responsibility map. Invocation paths are proposals until the skill is packaged.

09Next steps

  1. Build the photo libraryPut the IJ470 cutouts, the SFMA booth photos, a real Linx 9830 photo (not the 9840 badge shot), partner logos in dark and white, and the lasso and underline marks in 02_brand_kit.
  2. Promote Pablo’s fixes into the masterUse the corrected USA,LLC logo and a ready-made Linx logo chip so every copy inherits them.
  3. Write design-rules.mdThe 8-check rubric from the handoff, plus the 6 new rules from the IJ470 and SFMA passes, in _config next to voice.md.
  4. Package the post-design skillTurn this workflow into stages/03_post-design: brief, base slides, photo gate, Canva edit, render and score, approval.
  5. Fix the upload pathGet Canva’s upload host allowlisted, or add photos to Canva Uploads by hand, so local photos never need a public link.
  6. Run it on the next brief coldCount Pablo’s manual edits again. It went from 4 slides to 1. The aim is zero.
Factronics USA · Coordenadas.co · Design workflow reportDiagrams follow the diagram-design skill v2.6, Factronics skin