Aamu.app includes a Designs section that opens a team Penpot workspace. Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping tool, and in Aamu it is used as the design surface for teams that want UI mockups, diagrams, wireframes, visual assets, or prototypes close to the rest of their project work.

The integration is intentionally simple: Aamu gives the team a Designs entrypoint and handles the Penpot team/profile authentication flow. The actual design work happens in Penpot.

What Penpot is

Penpot is a browser-based design tool built around open web standards such as SVG. It is often compared with tools like Figma, but it is open source and designed to work well for both designers and developers.

You can use Penpot for:

  • UI mockups,

  • wireframes,

  • prototypes,

  • design systems,

  • icons and visual assets,

  • layout exploration, and

  • developer-friendly design handoff.

Because Penpot uses web-native concepts, it is a good fit for product teams that want design material to stay understandable to developers.

How Aamu integrates it

In Aamu, open the Designs section. From there, Aamu provides a button to open the team's Penpot dashboard.

Behind the scenes, Aamu handles the connection between the Aamu company and the Penpot team. When a user opens Designs, Aamu can create or verify the Penpot profile, join the user to the company Penpot team, and set the authentication token so the user can continue into Penpot.

That means the team does not have to treat design as a completely separate login island. The design workspace is reachable from the same Aamu navigation where the team already uses Tasks, Docs, Databases, Forms, Helpdesk, Emails, and Meetings.

What belongs in Designs

Use Designs for visual work that benefits from a real design canvas:

  • new product screens,

  • landing page layouts,

  • customer-facing UI flows,

  • admin interface plans,

  • mobile app concepts,

  • brand or icon exploration, and

  • visual explanations that are easier to draw than describe.

Use Aamu Docs for written specifications and decisions. Use Tasks for implementation work. Use Penpot when the question is visual: layout, hierarchy, components, flow, affordances, and design detail.

Designs and the rest of Aamu

The best workflow is not to put every product decision into the design file. Keep each kind of work in the right place:

  • Docs hold product requirements, copy, decisions, and design rationale.

  • Tasks hold implementation and review work.

  • Meetings hold design reviews and customer calls.

  • Helpdesk shows customer feedback that can inspire design changes.

  • Penpot holds the visual exploration and prototype.

This keeps the design file lighter and the project history easier to follow. A design can answer "what should it look like?", while Docs and Tasks explain "why are we doing it?" and "who will build it?"

For developers

Penpot is useful for developers because it exposes design information in a web-friendly way. Developers can inspect structure, spacing, colors, typography, and assets without needing a proprietary desktop workflow.

For Aamu teams, this is especially useful when a design becomes implementation work. A Doc can describe the feature, a Penpot file can show the interface, and Tasks can track the actual build.

For non-designers

You do not need a dedicated designer to get value from Designs. Penpot is also useful for rough diagrams, quick wireframes, and "this is what I mean" sketches.

That matters in small teams. Sometimes a rough visual is faster and clearer than a long written explanation. It can also prevent misunderstandings before implementation starts.

What Aamu does not replace

Aamu does not try to reimplement all of Penpot inside the normal Aamu UI. The Designs section is the bridge into Penpot, while Penpot remains the design tool.

That is a useful boundary. Aamu is where the team coordinates work and knowledge. Penpot is where the team creates and reviews design files.

A practical workflow

  1. Create a Doc for the product idea or feature brief.

  2. Open Designs and create the related Penpot design.

  3. Use Penpot for wireframes, screens, or prototypes.

  4. Review the design in a Meeting or in project discussion.

  5. Create Tasks for implementation and follow-up.

  6. Update the Doc when decisions change.

This keeps design connected to the work without forcing every detail into one tool.

When Designs works best

Use Aamu Designs when the team needs a shared design space but still wants the rest of the product work in Aamu. It is especially useful for small teams that do not want design, tasks, docs, meetings, and support feedback scattered across unrelated systems.

Penpot remains the specialized design tool. Aamu gives it a home in the workspace.