Design vs Docs & Writing · both proven

canvas-design vs writing-plans

Both skills were run through Claude twice: once on a fixed brief without the skill, once with it. The briefs differ because each is written for the job the skill claims to do, so compare each skill against its own baseline, then decide which difference matters for your work. They are in different categories, so this is a choice of job, not a head-to-head on the same job.

canvas-design

Create beautiful visual art in .png and .pdf documents using design philosophy. You should use this skill when the user asks to create a poster, piece of art, design, or other static piece. Create original visual designs, never copying existing artists' work to avoid copyright violations.

Category: Design
Source: anthropics/skills · 182,156 stars
License: Not stated
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “Build the one-page site for Blue Hour, a monthly jazz night at a small club: a poster-style hero with a drawn inline SVG illustration, the lineup with short bios, the schedule, a photo-strip section drawn with SVG, ticket tiers, and a footer with the address. Make it feel like a printed poster brought to the web, with motion.”
Skill commit: dbd4588

writing-plans

Use when you have a spec or requirements for a multi-step task, before touching code

Category: Docs & Writing
Source: obra/superpowers · 301,959 stars
License: MIT
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “Write the implementation plan for adding team accounts to a solo-user invoicing SaaS (Next.js, Postgres, Stripe): users must be able to create a team, invite members by email, assign owner or member roles, and share clients and invoices within the team, with billing moving from the user to the team. Present the plan as a single HTML page.”
Skill commit: bb92a77

We don’t pick a winner for you: the pages are the evidence. Both proofs can be repeated with the brief, model and commit shown above. See alternatives to canvas-design or alternatives to writing-plans.