Old vs. new design of the same slide

9 steps to pimp your pitch deck design

This is a bit embarrassing because it’s 100% real. I’m not a schooled designer, so I learned it the hard way — by iterating, again and again, not twice, not ten times, more like a 1000 times. Reading this might save you about 100 iterations I hope. I initially wrote this guide for internal use, realizing it can be applied by anyone who has Google sheets, the will to make meaningful presentations and just a tiny bit of talent.

Luckily, I have one magic slide, that I have included in some of my presentations over the last two years while iterating and improving the design. Although used in a different context, it describes the Swedish venture capital ecosystem — but you don’t have to focus on that now.

Above you can see the evolution of basically the same slide over nine steps. I’ll go through each new version, exploring the improvement and how you can apply it to your presentations.

Step 1 — Colours, keep it clean

In this case, colors matter. They help recognize your brand and if used well, increase readability. Clearly, I failed on both here. It’s a mess, right?

Using multiple colors is something I’d leave to the pros. Google does it. In 2014, they had 454 designers alone in the US. If you have less, I’d suggest you use one main color that sticks out, e.g. our red, or Spotify's green. In addition to that, you need two heavily contrasting colors, typically black and white and probably one secondary shade, typically gray. If you’d like to play around a bit, instead of black you could use a secondary color to enhance the identity, which in our case is a very dark purple. It basically “acts as black” (not a Netflix show). The white I’d generally leave white though, it’s the easiest way to make it look clean. Replacing it with a light blue or so won’t give much effect other than looking a bit dirty.

Step 2 — Title logic

Obviously logic matters. What I mean is that the visual and the takeaway need to play in harmony. The title says “We fill the early-stage gap with a better model”. Now is that really what this slide shows? Do you see a gap? And I’m sure you see how our model is better… Nah, not so good.

Use the title as the main takeaway of the slide and anything below as support for the point to make.

Regarding the indexes on top, I used them for some long presentations and I don’t anymore for two reasons: One, I have clearer titles, if I’m addressing an opportunity I make sure the word Opportunity is in the title. And two, I just don’t make long presentations anymore. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Step 3 — Positioning and visual order

The pro you are by now you must be pretty upset about the yellow there huh?!

But now let’s look at positioning. How do you feel about this “opportunity”? Can you see it? Of course not. What is the red box doing down there? How does it fit in with the other boxes? Where is the opportunity? Also, the faded boxes are confusing, should they even be there?

No matter the content, be it a team slide with photos, a product slide or a slide with features and benefits. Think really hard about the order of things. What do you want people to see first? How do you make it stick out? Where do you have to position it to make sense?

Step 4 — Avoid new concepts / Simplicity

Now let’s talk about the complexity of new concepts. If you send out a presentation the reader will probably spend 5–15 seconds on your slide if you’re lucky, and if you orally present it you want your listeners to focus on what you are saying — so regardless make sure it’s quickly understandable.

A problem with this and the previous slide versions is that it introduces a new concept which is “explained” in the top corner (once you figured that out) — frankly, it’s not that obvious, or is it?

Try not to introduce “new concepts” if you don’t have to — that means use terminology and visuals that your target group can likely relate to. Always simplify to the maximum.

Step 5 — Multiple take-aways

Frankly, it could be worse but the title has multiple take-aways. There is talk about filling a gap, and about an angel + fund combination. That’s two different points to make. While it might seem like a good idea to condense your arguments and hit two birds with one stone, it’s often rather confusing. Either split it in two slides or omit the less important point altogether.

Of course, many times it’s hard to separate arguments because they are intertwined. But it’s confusing. So don’t. Make it one point per slide, ok?

Step 6 — Background / Branding

Let’s talk about the background. Dark backgrounds can be cool for presentations at times but it can be tricky. Readability often suffers and I would not recommend it. One exception that can work well is picture heavy impression slides. It depends a bit on the picture you are using, but if it’s dark in itself further darkening and putting a few words in white can work well. If the photo is very light, it’s better to further lighten it up (if necessary) and to put dark text on it.

The logo in the background is a nice touch at first but it’s not good design in my opinion (now). It adds a lot of shapes in the background which is visually disturbing. Secondly, it has to be faded out which means it does not come in the brand color (red) which is not optimal for recognition either. So all in all not recommended unless you are a pro.

A lean, empty background has its beauty. Don’t fight it, use it.

Step 7 — Leanness — “know more than your slides”

Better, starting to look more harmonious, don’t you think?

What could be improved is what I call “leanness”. F.ex. in this case, the detailed information in gray is adding noise, opening up new arguments for the reader, distracting from the point the title makes. Why keep it?

Once you’re happy with your slide, try to take away things for as long as your point still upholds. If you’re thinking about delivering some of the additional information while presenting, memorize it, don’t write it down. Remember a simple rule of thumb: “You should always know more than your slides, not the other way around”

Step 8 — Dramatic font sizes and alignment

Thanks to my designer friend Gabriel Follonier who helped me improve my presentation design at that point.

His advice was:

1. Use a small number of different font variations, meaning that every change (size, bold, italic, color, rotation) counts as a different variation. Try to keep it as long as possible.
2. Dare to be dramatic. For example, if you’re title shall stick out, dare to make it big and the other fonts small. The tension in bold variations looks cooler than mixing font size 24, 30 and 18. Use something like 40 and 10.
3. Be consistent about alignment. And because the slide I used as a case study here, is particularly full of boxes and stuff (thanks Maxence Décarre for pointing that out), I’m gonna illustrate this point with the slide here below. I created three text columns, which are aligned with the footer that also comes in three columns. The title is aligned with the footer box to the left. Pretty obvious, but believe me, most people miss this. And regardless of how noisy a slide gets, you can always apply the rule to the level possible.

This is btw a picture of our Annual Charity dinner “Dinner for Difference”

Step 9 — Final touch

Finally, I added some final details:

• The red bar below the “Seed rounds” matches the red bar under the title (which I use on all slides now btw) to visually connect it to the word “Opportunity” and also matches the red box that says “Go-to player” — again, associating them
• I put the logo to the left, aligned with the red bar. Looks a bit less school-boy style and a bit bolder

Finally, to recap:

1. Colors are in harmony
2. Title logic is consistent with visual
3. Positioning makes sense and visual order is given (first title, then “go-to player, then the rest)
4. The “new concept” — e.g. the graph — is relatively simple (observation: The red arrows relate to the red percentage increase, should help the reader)
5. No multiple-take-aways, e.g. there is an opportunity because there is no “go-to player” — nothing more
6. Background feels calm. Brand identity is given
7. It’s pretty lean, feels like the amount a reader can digest
8. Fewer font variations (down to 5 from 10) with increased drama
9. Add a final touch — without compromising steps 1–8