A Simple Recipe for Pitch Decks
Your company story PLUS brand visuals.
Oh, easy, right? Well, yes and no.
First, why is deck design important?
Often, pitch decks are the first brand visual a potential investor or customer sees from your company.
They might not have gone to your website, or your Instagram, or seen your product UI. The pitch deck is your visual brand.
So, do you want to be seen as sloppy, confusing, and unclear? Or clean, streamlined, and thorough?
OK, deck design is important, but where to start?
So let’s dive in to your story. But…
Start with your audience. What do they want? And what do you want? Where do those desires meet? That is what your deck should focus on.
Part 1: Story Tips
1. Create engagement with a varied path
Think of your deck like a journey. Craft an exciting landscape of peaks and valleys to keep your audience’s interest.
Brainstorm ways to inspire moments of excitement. Think about how your company will change the industry. How will it create a better world. Why there is no other company like yours.
2. Storytelling = emotion + logic
Hooking your audience with key moments of emotion can lead to engagement.
Take opportunities to draw your audience in through a sense of excitement about the future or by creating a feeling of urgency.
3. Make your title WORK
Don’t use weak titles like “The Problem” or “The Solution” — those are a waste of space! Every pixel of your pitch deck should sell your company.
4. TELL your audience what to think
It’s tempting to present a lot of information and let your audience draw their own conclusions. Well, no. That’s FRICTION — you’re forcing your audience to take an extra mental step — even if it’s a split second.
It’s also a risk. They might draw wrong conclusion, or think of questions that are not necessary at this stage.
5. The click-through test
While you’re creating your deck, click through the slides quickly.
Is your story clear as you are clicking through in 10 seconds?
This could also be thought of as a bird’s eye view — if you zoom out of your slides, is the story clear?
Part 2: Visual Tips
1. One key takeaway per slide
When everything is important, nothing is important (that’s what my Mom would tell me when I needed to clean out my room).
It takes guts to hone in on one takeaway per slide—be brave!
2. Make sure the design highlights the takeaway
Your audience’s eye should be led around the slide from most important item to least important. Don’t put the most important information at the bottom, in small type.
3. Make it visual
Your presentation is a visual medium — take advantage of it!
What are your goals for the slide — could they be met with a large photography + one line of text? Or 3 key points represented by icons?
4. Convey your brand identity in the deck
Do you have a visual brand? A logo, typefaces, color palette? A vibe that you’re going for? Youthful, fun, positive? Or traditional, reliable, strong?
5. Know your specs!
If you’re speaking at an event or demo day, always ASK THEM to send you their audio/visual specs. That should include what the presenting setup is, what the display dimensions are, if video is ok, and if they can install fonts for you.
Fonts
If you use installed fonts in the deck (i.e. a font that doesn’t come already installed on Macs/PCs), you MUST install that font on any computer the deck is being presented on. Or create a PDF of your deck, and deliver that.
If you know you’ll need to deliver the Keynote or PowerPoint externally, it’s safest to use fonts that are common across computers.
Aspect Ratio
99.5% of the pitch decks I create are 16:9 (widescreen).
However, there are certainly reasons to use 4:3 (old-school tv ratio).
Reasons to use 16:9 (widescreen)
- Fits most modern displays
- Most common
- More real-estate
Reasons to use 4:3 (“standard”)
- If the goal use is printed ONLY — 4:3 fits a 8.5"x11" paper a little better
- If the goal use is for display on a tablet (for example, at a convention)
- If it is specifically requested by an event organizer
- Some industries (financial, medical) have more of a prevalence of 4:3 than other industries (media, tech)
Overall, I recommend using 16:9 unless there are specific reasons for needing it to be in 4:3.
Ta-da! You’re done with your deck right?
Not quite yet? That’s ok — pitch decks are time-consuming and require a lot of creativity and calculation.
Once you’ve created your pitch deck, it will constantly evolve as your company does. It’s a process!
Resources
Story / Flow
Lessons From A Study of Perfect Pitch Decks
Photos
- Unsplash — Free — Stylish, kind of hip
- iStock — Low-cost — Wide selection, decent-sized medical selection
- PlaceIt — Free and low-cost — If you have a UI screen, it’s nice to integrate it into a device.
Icons
- The Noun Project — Free and low-cost icons
Diagrams
- Diagrammer — Duarte provides free PowerPoint files of pre-built diagrams in these categories. Suggestion: REMOVE the drop shadow on downloaded items for a cleaner look.
Additional Reading & Listening
Interested in learning even more about pitch decks?
Articles
Books
- Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences
- Slideology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations
Podcast
- The Pitch — A show where real entrepreneurs pitch to real investors.
Visual Inspiration
Still here? Need more help? Well, this is exactly what we do over at Duck Brigade! Get in touch with any deck design needs.
