planes-deck

name	planes-deck
description	Use when building or recreating a Planes-style presentation deck: a playback, pitch, demo, strategy or client deck in the studio's house design (the "big playback deck" look people liked). Also use when someone wants an on-brand HTML slide deck with Planes fonts, colours, transitions and layouts, or asks to "make a deck like the Lewis Silkin playback" or "build a deck in the Planes style".
title	Planes HTML Deck Builder
discipline	design
type	skill
tags	["deck","presentation","slides","playback","pitch","brand","design"]
added_by	julian
added_on	"2026-07-07T00:00:00.000Z"
status	stable
source	{"kind":"original"}
spice	medium
pack	true
summary	Build an on-brand Planes presentation deck from a ready-made HTML template: embedded brand fonts, the full colour palette, smooth transitions, keyboard navigation, an overview grid, and a library of slide layouts (cover, divider, statement, two-column, three-up, stats, click-through timeline, questions with ownership chips, live-demo holding slide, and more). Includes the build workflow and PDF export.

Planes HTML Deck Builder

Overview

A single self-contained HTML file that presents like the studio's playback decks: off-white paper background with grain, Mint Grotesk + PP Hatton, the brand accents (sky blue, mint, yellow, coral), soft transitions, and full-screen keyboard navigation. template.html in this skill carries the whole design system, the fonts (base64-embedded, so it works offline), the engine, and one example of each core layout. You duplicate it and replace the slides.

Do not rebuild the CSS or JS. The look people like lives in the template's <style> and <script>. Keep them as-is and only edit the <section class="slide"> blocks.

Example of the kind of deck this builds: the Lewis Silkin playback.

When to use

• A client playback, pitch, demo, strategy readout, or any deck that should look like Planes.
• Someone asks for "a deck like the [X] playback" or "in the Planes style".

Not for: Google Slides / Keynote / PowerPoint decks (this is HTML), or a client's own brand (match theirs).

Before you build: check Roger

A deck is only as good as the facts in it. Before you write a line of copy, check Roger (Planes' org memory) for the client's real details, so the deck starts from truth instead of plausible-sounding invention.

• catch-me-up on the project scope for the standing brief: what it is, where it is, open questions, who owns what.
• search-memory and search-artifacts for the specifics you are about to put on a slide: the numbers, the names, the current status, the decisions already made.
• Pull real client and partner names, live figures, and dates from Roger. Never invent a statistic to fill a stats slide. If Roger does not have a number, say so and leave it out rather than guess. A wrong figure on a client playback is worse than no figure.
• If someone has left or a name has changed, Roger is where you catch it before the client does.

This is the difference between a deck that looks like Planes and one that is right.

Quick start

1. Copy template.html to a new file, for example ~/<project>-deck/index.html.
2. Open it in a browser to see the layouts. Arrow keys / space move, O opens the overview grid, F is full screen.
3. Replace the example slides with your content, one section at a time. Keep the <style>, <script>, and the chrome (progress bar, runhead, overview) untouched.
4. Present straight from the browser, or export a PDF (below).

Brand tokens

Already wired into the template as CSS variables. Listed here for reference; use the variables, not raw hex, when editing.

Token	Hex	Use
--paper	#F4F3F1	Page background, off-white with grain
--ink	#1E1E1E	All headlines and body text
--white	#FFFFFF	White
--blue	#AFEDFF	Accent
--mint	#A7FFD0	Accent
--yellow	#FFE787	Accent
--coral	#FF7780	Accent

Colour rule: ink text on paper, white and the accent panels; white text on ink or black. Never colour the body text. Accents carry dividers, chips, colour panels and the odd emphasis, not paragraphs.

Type: Mint Grotesk for headlines and body (--font-display, --font-body); PP Hatton italic for kickers and big numerals (--font-serif). Sizes are fluid clamp() (headline--md is clamp(2.2rem, 5.2vw, 4.4rem), body is clamp(.95rem, 1.15vw, 1.2rem)). Never hardcode px.

Slide layouts

Each slide is <section class="slide slide--TYPE" data-accent="blue|mint|yellow|coral" data-title="Overview label">. Add data-fill="accent" for a full-colour panel (used on cover, dividers, demo). data-title is the label in the overview grid.

Layout	Class	Use
Cover	slide--cover	Title slide: kicker, big headline, wavy PLANES wordmark, date
Agenda	slide--agenda	Numbered contents with hairline rules
Section divider	slide--divider	Full-colour section break: eyebrow, headline, big serif numeral
Statement	slide--statement	Serif-italic kicker over a bold line, optional body. The "Not just X. Y." beat
Two-column	slide--two-col	Kicker + headline left, body right
Three-up	slide--three	Three items with hairline rules and serif indices
Stats	slide--stats	Giant serif numerals as proof
Timeline	slide--timeline	Click-through milestones; each screenshot is its own step
Questions	slide--questions	Numbered list with ownership chips (chip--you filled, chip--us outline)
Live demo	slide--demo	Holding slide to switch away from to the real product
Achievements	slide--achievements	3-up proof grid: .ach-cell with a .label and .body
Grid	slide--grid	2-up or 4-up cards via .duo-grid / .quad-grid, each a .three-col with .idx, .label, .body
Split	slide--split	Two panes side by side; add .pane--fill to flood one half with the accent (the "on paper / on colour" beat)
Logo wall	slide--logos	Client logos in an even auto-fit grid (.logo-wall > .logo-cell), monochrome. The "trusted by" / proof-by-association slide
Closing	slide--closing	An asks checklist: .ask-list > .ask with an arrow .mark svg. "What we need from you"

The template ships one working example of every layout above.

Accent rhythm: give each section one accent and rotate across sections (blue → mint → yellow → coral) so the deck has momentum. Content slides sit on paper; the accent shows on dividers, chips and colour panels.

Screenshots: drop images into any <figure> slot as a base64 data: URI. Downscale first to keep the file light, for example sips -s format jpeg -s formatOptions 78 -Z 1600 in.png --out out.jpg, then embed data:image/jpeg;base64,<...>. Placeholders use class="... is-empty" with a .ph label.

Logos and the wordmark: client logos go in a slide--logos wall, one per .logo-cell, on an even auto-fit grid. Use a single monochrome treatment (the CSS greyscales them and drops them to a low opacity) so the wall reads as one calm set, not a ransom note of brand colours. Embed each as a base64 SVG or PNG in the .logo-cell img; a text fallback in the cell is fine while you gather assets. The PLANES wordmark is the wavy .wordmark spans on the cover, styled by the template. Leave it as it is. No decorative doodles, illustrations or flight paths anywhere in the deck: the brand is the type, the colour and the space.

Voice and story

Write every line in Planes' voice: confident, plain, honest, no em dashes, sentence case. Use the planes-tone-of-voice skill. One idea per slide; cut hard.

Pairs with presentation-narrative for the deck's arc and story before you build. A playback usually runs 15 to 25 slides: cover, agenda, a divider per section, a live-demo holding slide where relevant, and a closing asks slide.

Export to PDF

Drive the deck with a headless browser (Playwright / chrome-headless-shell), hide the chrome (.hint, .chrome, .progress, .progress-track { display:none }), step through every slide and every timeline stop with the right arrow, screenshot each at 2x, then combine the frames into a PDF (Python PIL: Image.save(..., save_all=True, append_images=[...])). Downscale frames to ~2000px wide, JPEG quality 80. Ask Claude to "export the deck to PDF" and it will run this.

Common mistakes

• Rewriting the CSS or swapping the fonts. The template is the brand; leave it alone.
• Title Case headlines, or em dashes carried in from a draft. Sentence case, and no em/en dashes.
• Cramming a slide. If it needs more than one idea, split it.
• Same accent on every section. Rotate them.
• Full-resolution screenshots bloating the file. Downscale and use JPEG.

Red flags: stop

• You are editing the <style> block to change how a layout looks.
• A headline is in Title Case, or a sentence has an em dash.
• A screenshot is embedded at full retina resolution.