Somewhere between packing my life into two suitcases and starting my MBA at Oxford, my newsletter went quiet. I didn’t plan for it to happen that way. I had a rhythm before, a cadence I was proud of, letters that showed up on time and found their way into inboxes like a familiar voice. Then the schedule shifted underneath me. Lectures, case studies, new friendships, a new city, a new version of myself I was still getting used to. Something had to give, and it turned out to be the writing.
I want to be honest about what that felt like. It wasn’t just a missed deadline here and there. It was the quiet ache of knowing I had a community waiting and nothing to give them. Writing has always been how I process my life, so when I stopped writing, I also stopped making sense of things in the way I needed to. I missed it more than I let myself admit.
Then an email landed in my inbox about flodesk launching flodesk studio, their new AI powered design tool. I almost scrolled past it. I’ve seen enough AI tools promise to save my life and deliver something generic and lifeless instead. But something about the way flodesk introduced it made me pause. So I opened it properly, and I am so glad I did.
Let me be clear about what changed for me. The words in my newsletter are still mine. Every sentence, every story, every attempt at saying something true is still coming from me. What flodesk studio gave me was the design. And somehow that was exactly the permission I needed to come back.
There’s no AI slop here. I want to say that plainly because I know how loaded that phrase has become. What flodesk studio gave me instead was clean, fresh design that felt considered rather than generated. It didn’t feel like a shortcut. It felt like a refreshed pair of eyes on something I had been avoiding, without adding to the pile of things I had to think about.
What struck me most is how they built it. They didn’t wake up one day and decide to bolt AI onto their product because everyone else was doing it. They built flodesk studio with their community, slowly and with intention. You can feel that in the outcome. It doesn’t feel rushed. It doesn’t feel like it was made to chase a trend. It feels like it was made by people who actually use the tool they built, for people who actually need it.
Here’s how it works, as best as I understand it. Every design starts with real work from world class designers. Actual craft, actual taste, actual human decisions made first. Then AI comes in to apply your brand to that foundation and speed up the parts that used to slow me down. And through every single edit, I’m still the one in control. Nothing gets published without passing through me first. The result looks designed. Not generated. There’s a difference, and once you’ve seen enough of both, you can’t unsee it.
I think about time differently now. The hours I used to spend fiddling with layouts, second guessing colours, trying to make something look intentional instead of thrown together, those hours are back in my hands. And the parts of my newsletter that make it mine, the tone, the voice, the small idiosyncrasies that come from being an actual person and not a template, none of that got lost in the process. I can still customise. I can still edit. I can still make it feel like me, because it is me.
What I appreciate most is restraint. Flodesk studio doesn’t try to drown out my words. It doesn’t overtake the message I’m trying to bring to my community. So much design, especially AI generated design, forgets that the point is to serve the words, not compete with them. Flodesk studio seems to understand that the design is the frame, not the painting. They describe it as a human created design system, accelerated by AI, perfected by you. And honestly, that description holds up. You can feel it in the tone they use, in the way the product behaves, in every small decision that clearly didn’t happen by accident.
A little birdie told me this is only the beginning, that forms, pages, and more are coming. I cannot wait. If this is what they’ve done with newsletter design, I’m genuinely curious what else they’ll bring this same care to.
The part that makes me want to shout about this from the rooftops is that it’s free. If any of this sounds like something you’ve been needing, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can go experience it yourself, and if you have thoughts, they actually want your feedback. Not as a formality, but as part of how they keep building.
I think a lot about what it means for brands to be intentional, especially when it comes to how they use AI. So much of what we’re being sold right now is fast without being thoughtful, efficient without being human. Flodesk is proof that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. They’ve managed to use AI in a way that still centres craft, still centres community, still centres the person on the other end of the tool.
I guess more than ever, Flodesk has given me more reason to stay. I’m grateful to be somewhere in their orbit as they keep making this kind of magic. And I’m even more grateful that because of them, my newsletter is no longer quiet. I’m back. And it feels like coming home to a part of myself I thought I had misplaced.
If you want to get on the Flodesk train, sign up using this link or this code (W4MBU5) and get a discount off your first year.
With love,
Blessing Abeng
