1. Where to find it

1. Log in to OnePass and open your NexSigns license (click Application and choose your screen).

2. In the left menu, click Design Studio ^Beta — you can see the menu on the left side of the screenshot in section 2 below.

2. The Design Studio page — your designs at a glance

This page lists every design saved for this screen. Each design appears as a card with a live preview (a miniature version of what will show on your TV), its name, and the date it was last changed.

Open

Button	What it does

Button	What it does
Open	Opens the starting-point picker (see section 3).
Open (or clicking the preview)	Opens the design in the editor so you can change it.
Open	Changes the design's name. This does not affect what plays on screen.
Open	Permanently removes the design after a confirmation. This cannot be undone, and if the design is used in a playlist, it will stop displaying there.

3. Starting a new design

Click New Design. A window opens asking how you want to start:

• Blank — an empty canvas. Best when you have a specific idea in mind. The Blank card is always the first card, no matter what you search or filter.

• A template — a professionally pre-made design you can customize. Every text, image, and color in a template can be changed after you pick it. Templates are shown with live previews and labeled with tags (like banking, office, menu).

The template library can be large, so the window gives you three ways to find the right one — the search box and tag buttons sit in a panel on the left, with the templates on the right:

• Search — type part of a template's name or a tag in the search box; the list narrows as you type.

• Tag buttons — the 20 most popular tags are listed down the left side. Click one (for example restaurant) to see only those templates; click All to see everything again. Looking for a less-common tag that is not listed? Just type it in the search box — search matches every tag, not only the listed ones.

• Pages — templates are shown 20 at a time. Use the page buttons under the list to browse more, and the counter (for example "Showing 1-20 of 400") to see where you are. Search and tag filters can be combined, and the pages update automatically.

Open

4. The editor at a glance

The editor has five areas:

1. Top bar — canvas size, zoom, Find, the quality check, and the Save / Play / Preview / ⋯ / Exit buttons.
   
   

2. Left panel — four collapsible sections: Elements (everything you can drag onto the design), Library (icons, stock photos, ready-made presets), Colors (your palette, gradients and brand colors), and Tips. Click a section heading to open or close it, so you only see what you are using.
   
   

3. Canvas (center) — your design, shown exactly as it will appear on the TV.
   
   

4. Right panel — arrange buttons and four tabs: Styles, Settings, Layers, History — plus the Background panel when the background is selected (see section 10).
   
   

5. Bottom — the slide strip (for multi-slide designs), the one-click animation moods, and the animation timeline.
   
   

5. Top bar — buttons and fields

Item	What it means / does

Item	What it means / does
Canvas (dropdown) Open	The shape of your screen: 1920 × 1080 Landscape (a normal TV), 1080 × 1920 Portrait (a TV turned sideways), or 3840 × 2160 (4K). Pick the one that matches your display — items keep their positions if you switch.
Background	Moved! The background color and image are now edited in the right panel: open the Layers tab and click the Background layer at the bottom of the list (or simply click an empty part of the canvas). See section 10.
− / % / + and Fit / 100% Open	Zoom controls for your view only — they never change the actual design. Fit shows the whole canvas; 100% shows true size. You can also hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel to zoom.
Safe Open	Overlays a dashed "safe area" border. Keep important text inside it so nothing gets cut off on TVs that trim the edges. The overlay is a guide only — it never shows on the real screen.
Find	Find and replace text on the current slide (shortcut: Ctrl+F). Handy when a price or a phone number appears in several places.
Quality check (✓ or ⚠ with a number)	A friendly reviewer that watches for things likely to look wrong on a real TV — text too small to read from across the room, items hanging off the edge of the screen, very low contrast, and unfinished elements (a countdown with no date, a feed with no address). Click it to see the list and click any note to jump straight to the item. See section 14.
Name field Open	The name of your design, shown later in the Design Studio list. You must give the design a name before saving.
Save Open	Saves the design to the Design Studio (shortcut: Ctrl+S). A small "Saved" message confirms success.
▶ Play Open	Replays all animations on the canvas so you can preview the motion without leaving the editor.
Preview Open	Opens a full preview at true TV resolution, including slide rotation and transitions — the closest thing to seeing it on the actual screen.
⋯ menu	Extra options. Today it holds Text size — pick Small, Normal, or Large to make the editor's buttons and labels easier to read (Normal is the default; the choice is remembered on this browser and applies to all the studio pages — it never changes your design). More options will appear here over time.
Exit → Open	Returns to the Design Studio. If you have unsaved changes, the browser warns you first.

6. Left panel — Elements

The Elements section holds everything you can drag onto the canvas, grouped so the list stays short. Drag one out, then move and resize it freely.

Basics, shapes and text

Live data

These keep themselves up to date. See section 13 for exactly what happens when the screen loses its internet connection.

Content blocks

7. Left panel — Library

Icons — click Icons to open a searchable library of 345 ready-made symbols: arrows, food and drink, shopping, transport, weather, social-media logos, and more. Type what you are looking for (searching "coffee" finds the mug, for example) or filter by style with the Solid / Regular / Brands buttons. Click an icon to add it to the canvas as its own element — you can resize, rotate, animate, and recolor it (the Icon color field in the Settings tab) like any other item. If you are editing text at that moment, the icon is inserted into the text at your cursor instead — perfect for a menu line like "Latte" with a little cup symbol next to the price. There is also an icon button right in the small toolbar that appears while editing text.

Photos — click Photos to search a library of free, royalty-free photographs (provided by Pixabay). Type what you need, browse the results (the Load more button shows further pages), and click a photo to place it on the canvas. The picture is downloaded into your design and compressed automatically, so it keeps displaying even if the original ever disappears from the web — and you can crop, resize, and animate it like any other image. If the window says the feature is not set up on your server yet, contact your administrator.

Presets — click Presets for a gallery of ready-made content blocks you can drop in and edit: grand-opening and sale countdowns, styled tickers and notices, a departures-style table, a news feed, and more. Each one arrives fully set up, so it is often the quickest way to start a section of a design.

8. Colors, palettes and fonts

The Colors section of the left panel is where the look of the whole design is controlled.

The palette — recolor an entire design in one click

Every design has five named colors, called roles:

• Primary — your main brand color, used for headers and key blocks.

• Secondary — a supporting color.

• Accent — for highlights, prices and calls to action.

• Text — the default text color.

• Background — the canvas behind everything.

You can also add up to five colors of your own and name them, and they behave exactly like the five above.

Click Palettes... to open the palette picker. It offers 42 ready-made palettes in nine groups — Dark & moody, Bright & bold, Warm, Cool, Nature, Food & drink, Retail & sale, Corporate and Light & airy — and clicking one restyles the design instantly. At the top of the same window, This design's colors lets you edit any role by hand. There is an Apply to all slides option and an Undo palette button, so trying a look costs you nothing.

Every color picker in the editor has two tabs: Custom color (choose any color) and Palette (attach it to a role). Swapping between them is how you decide which of the two behaviors above you want.

Gradients and brand colors

Gradients... opens a library of ready-made color blends you can apply to a shape or to the slide background. Brand Colors is a small set of your company's exact colors — click Add to store one and it appears as a one-click swatch wherever you pick colors.

Fonts

Text can use a range of web fonts, chosen in the Typography area of the Styles tab. The fonts you use are packaged into the design when you save, so your screens show the right typeface even when they have no internet connection.

9. Working on the canvas

• Select an item by clicking it. Move it by dragging. As an item gets close to the edge of the canvas or its centerlines, it gently snaps into place and a bright guide line shows exactly what it lined up with — the easiest way to get something perfectly centered or flush with the edge. Hold Ctrl while dragging to place it freely without snapping. Hold Shift while dragging to move in a straight line — the item locks to moving only left-right or only up-down, whichever direction you move furthest. Release Shift to move freely again.

• Resize with the small square handles on the edges and corners. The edge you are stretching also snaps to the canvas edges and centerlines — stretch a box toward the side of the screen and it lands exactly flush. Hold Ctrl to resize without snapping.

• Rotate with the round handle above the item. Hold Shift to rotate in neat 15° steps; it also snaps at 90° positions.

• Edit text by double-clicking it. The small toolbar that appears offers bold, italic, underline, links — and an icon button that inserts a symbol from the icon library right at your cursor (see section 7).

• Crop a picture — select the picture and click Adjust crop in the Settings tab (or right-click it and choose Adjust crop). Drag the corners of the highlighted rectangle to choose the visible region. Match frame shape (on by default) keeps your selection the same shape as the picture's box on the canvas, so the result fits perfectly without squishing. You can come back and re-adjust or Reset the crop at any time — the original picture is always kept.

• Select several items by holding Ctrl and clicking each one, or by dragging a box over them from an empty part of the canvas. You can then move, align, or delete them together.

• Group items to treat them as one: select several, then press Ctrl+G (or the G button in the right panel). Clicking anywhere on a group selects the whole group, and dragging moves it as a single object. Items keep their front/back order when grouped, so text on top of a shape stays on top. To change one item inside a group, select it in the Layers tab — or right-click the group and choose Ungroup.

• Nudge the selected item one pixel at a time with the arrow keys.

• Right-click an item for a quick menu (duplicate, group/ungroup, adjust crop for pictures, lock, delete, and more). Alt+drag or Ctrl+D duplicates.

• Pan the view by holding the space bar and dragging; Ctrl + mouse wheel zooms.

10. Right panel

Quick-arrange rows (always visible)

Styles tab

Appearance of the selected item: Position & Size (exact left/top/width/height in pixels — useful for perfect placement), Typography (font, size, color, alignment for text), and Appearance (fill color, gradient, borders, rounded corners, shadow — options vary by element).

Settings tab

Behavior of the selected item, arranged in labelled groups you can open and close: Element (what this particular item does), Colors & sizing, Transform, Text effect, and the three animation groups described in section 11. The most important fields:

Layers tab

A list of everything on the current slide, working just like layers in Photoshop: the top item in the list is the front-most on screen, and the bottom of the list is the back. Click a layer to select it, and change the stacking with the Order buttons (or the right-click menu) — the list re-orders live as you do. Use the 🔒 icon to lock an item so it cannot be accidentally moved or selected (unlock it from its right-click menu, or use 🔓 Unlock all in the Order row). The Layers tab is also how you select a single item inside a group without ungrouping — canvas clicks always pick the whole group.

The Background layer

At the very bottom of the Layers list sits the Background layer — it represents the canvas itself and always stays at the back; nothing can be placed behind it. Click it (or click an empty part of the canvas) and a small Background panel appears in the right rail with two settings:

• Color — the canvas background color for the current slide.

• Image URL — an optional background picture, filled to cover the whole screen.

Each slide keeps its own background, and the little color swatch on the Background layer always shows the current one. (These settings used to live in the top bar — they moved here so everything about the design is edited in one place.)

History tab

A running log of your recent actions with Undo / Redo buttons (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y also work).

11. Animation

Three kinds of motion per item

Every item can have up to three animations at once, set in the Settings tab: an Animation in (how it arrives), a Pulse / loop (a gentle repeating motion while it sits on screen), and an Animation out (how it leaves). Using all three is what makes a design feel produced rather than static — but a single entrance is often enough.

Moods — animate a whole slide in one click

Below the canvas is a row of mood buttons: SUBTLE ENERGETIC ELEGANT PLAYFUL DRAMATIC. Click one and every unlocked item on the slide is given a matching set of animations, sensibly timed so things appear in order instead of all at once. It is the fastest way to bring a static design to life — try a few and keep the one you like. Clear removes every animation from the slide, and normal Undo (Ctrl+Z) puts things back.

The animation timeline

The panel along the bottom shows every animated item as a horizontal bar on a timeline of seconds — you can see it at the bottom of the screenshot in section 4:

• PURPLE BARS are entrance animations; PINK BARS are exit animations.

• Drag a bar left/right to change when it starts. Drag its right edge to change how long it lasts (times snap to 0.1 s).

• Press ▶ Play to watch the result; a moving line (the playhead) shows the current moment.

• Need more room? Drag the timeline's top edge upward to make the panel taller and see more rows at once. The ▾ button still collapses it out of the way — and your chosen height comes back when you expand it again.

The timeline and the Settings-tab fields control the same thing — use whichever feels more natural.

12. Slides and transitions

A design can have multiple slides that rotate automatically on your TV, like a slideshow. The slide strip above the timeline shows them: