Deck design is largely about using your existing brand elements to establish hierarchy
The design of your deck is largely about taking the assets you’ve developed during your brand development phase and using those to establish hierarchy. Almost every design decision you make will be in service of this purpose
The design of the deck can be approached in a number of ways, anywhere from building a completely custom deck with or without the help of a designer, to working from an existing template.
Let’s first discuss your basic slide template, and later how design will factor in.
Average slide:
So lets’s discuss your basic slide. This may seem a bit remedial, but when working on a deck it’s important that you’re considerate of having these elements on just about every page, and if not, you’re doing so intentionally.
Once you have this set up, which is pretty much your standard blank template in powerpoint, you can then start to get creative by incorporating your brand and building upon it visually.
Branding
By the time you're presenting to investors, it’s important to have solidified your brand. The collection of assets provided to you during that process becomes your toolkit, and you’ll put it to use for all your touch points, and especially in your presentation.
These include your logo, your color palette, typography (or fonts), design elements and ideally a brand guideline system.
Let’s discuss how these assets can bring your brand's personality into your presentation.
Typography (fonts)
one of the first and most important things you need to get right are your fonts. This is where the rubber meets the road for your existing branding, and if you have brand guidelines this should be a breeze. You’ll need fonts for these 3 descending levels of hierarchy which are…
Sometimes these will all be different fonts, other times they are the same fonts with different weights (or thicknesses) and color. What’s most important is to use your fonts to establish a sense of hierarchy. This should tell the viewer, both at a glance and subconsciously, what information is most important. It will also determine how the viewer's eye will move through the slide.
Next is…
Colors
Your brand should have at least 3 colors that you can use in the same ways as your fonts to establish hierarchy and add personality to your presentation.
Overall, it’s important to have…
A primary color, usually for your biggest headlines and text. I’m using this for titles and background in this presentation. A Secondary, that contrasts well with the main one. I use this for small elements like numbers and bullets. Then an accent color that provides the highest level of contrast. Which I’ve used in background design elements and subtitles. Finally, you have your neutrals that can be used for things like text or subtle shading.
Overall it’s good to know how you can use your colors strategically, and allow things to pop when and where they need to.It’s also good to remember that colors can help describe and reinforce positive and negative information. Think red bad, green good, in the case of something like a bar graph. Lastly, you’ll need to make sure your palette is flexible, it contrasts highly with your text, and can be easily mixed and overlapped.
Now you can then begin to dress up your slides with your design elements.
Design Elements
While it’s very helpful to have these established during your initial brand development, it’s not always something that’s given the proper time and attention. So this is where your designer can really take things and make your deck interesting.
Some good suggestions include:
In the case of this presentation, I’ve made my own design element that’s evocative of a classic sonar screen, and I use it in various cropped positions throughout.
Outside of providing an outline for the structure and showing you how to include your branding, it’s difficult to say how you should go about actually designing the slides yourself. Like many creative endeavors, a lot of it is equal parts knowing the standards and conventions for the medium as well as having the space and time to ideate and visually explore. Because of this, it’s extremely common to build from an existing template.
Templates
Templates can be an excellent way to jump start the deck building process without design experience. And It’s a great option because there are so many resources now for templates, both free and paid. They can also provide you with visual inspiration if your brand doesn’t provide enough direction.
However, Important to know that not all templates are made equal, and in some cases it’s better to bring a designer into the fold at the beginning of the process and avoid designing yourself. When deciding how you’d like to proceed, it’s handy to see the pros and cons of both options.
Designer vs template
Designer
Pros
- Can tailor the deck design to your specific content
- Provide visual consistency
- Save time in inputting and styling your content
- Provide creativity and professionalism
- Build a deck that can be more easily edited by you later on
- Establish a relationship for future projects, decks or otherwise
Cons
- A considerable expense
- Identifying good, reliable, time-conscious designers can be a challenge
Templates or other ready-made tools
Pros
- Cost-efficient
- Easy to switch content between existing styles
- Good choice for companies without solidified branding
- Easy for less tech and design savvy editors
Cons
- Not necessarily a time saving option
- Rarely covers all the bases needed
- Often needs significant tweaking to match the needs of your content
If you’re trying to decide between either option, I would recommend doing a half-an-half approach. You can do this by:
Using a basic template to place your content and “sketch” out how you’d like to see things developed more generally
Find templates and design examples, either yourself or your designer, that have elements that you’d like incorporated in your own deck
Then work with a designer to take your initial content and template and flesh out a bespoke, well-designed presentation and work with them further to iterate and edit content as it’s developed.
This is commonly how myself and designers I work with approach deck building. However, a good designer should be able to take as little or as much artistic direction from you as you need.
Now, when deciding what program to use, there is a lot more to consider…
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