Quickstart

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Lolly turns your rules - colours, type, layouts, logic - into tools anyone can use to make finished files: images, PDFs, social cards, video, by filling in a few fields. There's little to learn and nothing to upload: making and exporting runs on your device, online or off.

This is the one page to read first. Two things get you productive: make Lolly yours and bring in what you already have (your design files and tokens). Everything else is a link away.

New to Lolly and just want to make something? Make something in 60 seconds walks you through three, or open the app, pick any tool from the gallery, fill in the blanks and hit Export. Come back here when you want it wearing your brand.

The Utilities view - the on-device workhorses like Strip Hidden Data, Compress PDF and Convert Image, all in one placesigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file134 paths~35k nodes251 groups705 KBThe Utilities view - the on-device workhorses like Strip Hidden Data, Compress PDF and Convert Image, all in one placesigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file134 paths~35k nodes251 groups706 KBTry it in the app

1. Make it yours - configure your Design System

Your brand in Lolly is a small design-tokens document - colours, fonts and a few rules - that every tool renders against. Set it once and everything you make is on-brand by construction, not by review. There are three ways in; pick the one that matches where your brand already lives.

Start from scratch (the design system builder)

First run drops you on the gallery, with a short welcome dialog over it offering three ways in - Make it yours (the Brand Studio at #/start), Bring your design (drop a Figma, Penpot, InDesign or PDF file and it opens as an editable layout - the fastest route to Bring in what you already have below) and Explore the community tools - plus a row of languages if English isn't yours. Take the first card and you land in the Brand Studio. Give it a name and a primary colour and Lolly derives a complete, accessible palette from it - light/dark surfaces, text, accents - using the same colour maths the engine uses everywhere else.

The Brand Studio's Colours room on a fresh install - one live chip, one field, and the whole of the first decisionsigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file61 paths~9.4k nodes77 groups200 KBThe Brand Studio's Colours room on a fresh install - one live chip, one field, and the whole of the first decisionsigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file61 paths~9.4k nodes77 groups200 KB Pick a font, and you have a working brand in under a minute. From there the studio's six rooms - Overview, Colours, Type, Logos, Tokens, Files - let you take it as far as you like, in any order, refining any of it whenever you come back. The dashboard's Design system tab (#/d) shows the result read-only and points back at #/start, which is where the editing happens (unless you're on a brand-locked build of Lolly, where the brand is fixed and there's nothing to change).

Import a brand you already have

If your brand is already captured as design tokens - from Penpot, Tokens Studio (Figma) or any plain DTCG file - bring it in wholesale rather than retyping it. Two routes:

# a monolithic tokens.json, a one-file-per-set directory, or a Penpot project archive
npm run ingest:brand -- ./my-tokens.json --name acme --label "Acme" --activate

ingest:brand accepts all three containers Penpot / Tokens Studio export the same document in - a single tokens.json, a directory ($metadata.json + per-set files) or a project.penpot archive. With --activate it registers the brand as a profile, switches to it and rebuilds the catalog. See Configuration for how brand packs and profiles fit together.

Tune it in the app

Once a brand is active, keep shaping it in the Brand Studio (#/start) - change a colour or a role and every preview across the app updates as you type. (The dashboard's Design system tab at #/d shows the brand read-only; the Studio is where you edit it.)

The Dashboard's Design-system tab - the active brand shown read-onlysigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file280 paths~12k nodes140 groups1 image182 KBThe Dashboard's Design-system tab - the active brand shown read-onlysigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file280 paths~12k nodes140 groups1 image181 KB The same brand is summarised on the Profile → Your brand card. Fonts are real: pick from Google Fonts and Lolly stores the file on your device as a brand asset, so your typography travels offline and nothing is fetched at render time.

When you're happy, export the brand as a LollyBrand pack - a single file a colleague can import to get the exact same palette, fonts and rules. That's how a brand moves between people and machines without a server in the middle.

Brand tokens round-trip both ways. Because Lolly's brand is DTCG tokens - the format Penpot reads and writes natively and Tokens Studio brings to Figma - the palette you design with and the palette Lolly enforces are one document, not two lists you keep in sync by hand. See Design Tokens.

2. Bring in what you already have

You don't start from a blank page. Lolly opens the design work and the open formats you already own.

Open-source design files

Finished work in Figma, Penpot, Illustrator, InDesign or any SVG app doesn't have to stay locked in the app you drew it in. Open Design, click Import a design, and the file opens as a living layout - not a flattened picture. Every layer becomes an editable box: text stays retypable, shapes stay shapes, images land in your library and complex vector art is preserved faithfully. It arrives already conformed to your brand faces and colour rules.

You haveBring it in as
A Figma frameNative .fig (File → Save local copy), or an SVG export
A Penpot designIts .penpot export, or any SVG
An Illustrator fileNative .ai (PDF-compatible) or .pdf - opens directly
An InDesign layout.idml (File → Export → InDesign Markup)
Anything elseAny SVG - the universal door in

The whole import happens on your device - the file is parsed in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Full details, and exactly what carries over, are in Import a design.

Got a PowerPoint deck instead? Drop the .pptx on any upload surface to file its slides as assets, write a new deck from Markdown in Markdown Slides, or run Rebrand to get the same deck back re-themed, charts and animations intact.

From a one-off to a template

Here's the payoff: an imported layout is an ordinary Design session, so once you save it, it lives at a URL. Anyone with Lolly can open that URL, change the words, swap an image and render their own version - no design app, and the locked parts stay locked. A once-off design becomes a reusable tool. That's the whole idea, reached without writing a line of configuration.

Open data and open tools

The community tool set is open source and brand-agnostic - QR codes, street maps, filters, privacy utilities - and it renders against your brand the moment you activate it.

Feed tools your own open data too: paste or drop a CSV or JSON table and a tool's repeating fields fill from it, one finished asset per row.

3. Make something, then share or automate it

With a brand active and your material in hand, every tool produces a finished file:

"A URL is the API" is literal. The chart below was not drawn by anyone: its type, its heading and its whole data table were typed into the address bar, and the same link renders the same chart on any device.

An area chart of monthly signups, every value of which arrived as a query parameter rather than a clicksigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file14 paths~1.1k nodes3 groups19 KBAn area chart of monthly signups, every value of which arrived as a query parameter rather than a clicksigned by Lollyvector SVGCheck it yourselfGet the signed file14 paths~1.1k nodes3 groups19 KB

Where to go next

Three pathways, depending on what you're here to do: