| name | deck-system |
| description | Use when designing or writing a slide deck, pitch, strategy presentation, board update, review, or credentials deck with a visual system, slide economy, builds, and presenter notes. Use design-storytelling-and-case-studies for the narrative spine and document skills for paginated output. |
| metadata | {"portable":true,"category":"13-presentations-and-documents","compatible_with":["claude-code","codex"]} |
Deck System
Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com.
Use When
- Building any presentation deck — pitch, strategy, campaign proposal, credentials, investor/board
update, or monthly/quarterly/annual review.
- A slide deck (PPTX / Google Slides / Canva / rendered) is the deliverable or part of it.
Do Not Use When
- The deliverable is a long-form DOCX report or PDF proposal → use
docx-report-and-document-formatting
/ pdf-proposal-and-bankable-document-design (Phase 1).
- The need is the typographic/colour system itself → use groups 01 / 02 (this skill applies them).
Required Inputs
| Input | Source | Required? | Evidence |
|---|
| Audience, decision, venue, duration, and delivery mode | Presenter and sponsor | yes | Approved brief |
| Evidence, narrative, and required sections | Content owners | yes | Source register and outline |
| Brand, template, format, and accessibility constraints | Brand and delivery owners | yes | Asset package and output spec |
- The deck's purpose (pick the matching
examples/variant-*), audience, the single decision or
action you want, the content/evidence, and the brand (or a deliberate type+colour choice).
Workflow
- Pick the variant. Match the purpose to an
examples/variant-*.md (initial-pitch, strategy,
ai-strategy-presentation, campaign-proposal, credentials, monthly-report, quarterly-review,
annual-review) — each carries its slide list, tone, and length.
- State the typography + colour first (anti-slop charter): a distinctive display + refined body
from groups 01/02; never a banned font. State the choice and reason before building slides.
- Build the narrative (
references/presentation-frameworks.md, pitch-psychology.md,
storytelling.md): conclusion-first (Minto/SCQA), one idea per slide, action titles (the title
is the takeaway), evidence beneath, a clear ask.
- Apply slide economy — ruthless cuts, real size/weight extremes for hierarchy, a consistent
grid, builds only where they aid comprehension, no bullet soup.
- Design the data — route exhibits to
chart-selection-and-encoding / data-visualization.
- Write presenter craft — speaker notes, transitions, the spoken arc; rehearse-ready.
- Run the gates — anti-slop (no template look, no stock gradients), accessibility (contrast,
legibility at room distance), and
design-qa-and-pre-launch-review.
Decision Rules
| Condition | Deck choice | Wrong-choice failure |
|---|
| Live presentation | Sparse slides plus presenter notes/builds | Slides become a teleprompter |
| Stand-alone circulation | More explicit evidence and captions | Readers lack spoken context |
| One slide contains two claims | Split or subordinate one claim | Competing messages destroy hierarchy |
Capability Contract
Read, edit, and render capabilities are required for production; analysis defaults read-only. Execution is required to claim font embedding, animation, media, or layout fidelity. External publication requires separate authority.
Degraded Mode
Without rendering, deliver an outline and slide specification marked unverified. Stop release when sources, fonts, aspect ratio, or target-app inspection are missing; recover with a static PDF-ready version and named gaps.
Anti-Patterns
- Paragraph slides: reduce to one claim and move detail into notes.
- Template repetition: vary composition while preserving the system.
- Tiny evidence: enlarge, crop, or split the exhibit.
- Unattributed claims: cite the source on the slide.
- Decorative builds: animate only to control sequence or explain change.
- One template reused unthinkingly for every purpose (the slop the old 8 deck-skills risked).
- Title = topic instead of takeaway; bullet soup; 6 ideas per slide.
- Decorative builds/transitions; stock-gradient title slides; banned fonts.
Outputs
| Artefact | Consumer | Evidence and acceptance condition |
|---|
| Editable deck and narrative map | Presenter and sponsor | Each slide has one role in the argument |
| Presenter notes and source register | Presenter and reviewer | Claims, transitions, and citations are traceable |
| Rendered review package | Release owner | Fonts, overflow, contrast, media, and aspect ratio are inspected |
- A deck spec: chosen variant, stated type+colour, slide-by-slide narrative with action titles,
exhibit plan, and presenter notes — ready to build in PPTX/Slides/Canva.
Examples
examples/variant-*.md — the 8 purpose-specific deck blueprints (slide lists, tone, length).
These ARE the worked examples for this skill.
References
references/presentation-frameworks.md, references/pitch-psychology.md, references/storytelling.md.doctrine/design-doctrine.md (Mission, charter), doctrine/references/ai-slop-banned-fonts.md,
pairing-principles.md, type-scale-and-spacing.md, wcag-2.2-criteria.md (legibility).
