What is Deck making and Why is it Important for a Designer

I’ve made more than 100 custom decks in the past 10 years, and mind you, these don’t include your run-of-the-mill powerpoints designed using in-built templates. 

As designers and design students, you will be called upon to make multiple presentations in your career. Whether it is to present your concept to a jury in college, to pitch your brand to an investor as an aspiring entrepreneur, or to simply structure your company’s ideas for a client meeting as an employee.

Steve Jobs popularly dismissed deck-making. And therefore many professionals are only too happy to follow. Unfortunately, hating presentations doesn't make them go away. Finding them slowly only makes you look smart in your head. 

The reality is, you may need to make many decks before you can delegate them. And while there are enough terrible deck-makers in the universe for you to be judged poorly for your lack of ability, making stellar presentations gives you a competitive advantage.

So what really is a deck

A deck is a presentation or a collection of slides, colloquially called a ppt, owing to PowerPoint’s popularity back in the day. Today, Google Slides and Canva are used more often in the workplace, due to their technological prowess and the ease of sharing editable links.

Decks or slides are used to present ideas, concept notes, reports, business updates and company credentials amongst other things. They’re widely used in the creative industry for pitching to brands for mandates. As a creative professional, you might be roped in to write a deck, source images for a deck or to actually design it, at some point in your career.

Recently, we did a post on Kool Kanya (a women’s only learning led community) asking our users what age they were when they found out that presentations were called decks. Interestingly, many commented saying our post educated them.

Therefore, it’s a skill that will help you, until a new software is developed. Until then, put aside your (imaginary) black turtleneck and learn to make smart slides,

Types of decks

Not all decks are the same.Therefore, the way you structure and approach them will differ depending on the type. Broadly, there are 4 kinds of decks - 

1. Creds deck
2. Pitch deck
3. Concept deck 
4. Data deck. 

Creds is short for credentials and therefore a creds deck introduces your brand or product to an audience by highlighting its offerings, features, target group, USP and prices. 

A pitch deck also  includes your brand’s credentials but is structured for the purpose of getting funding or acquiring a new client. 

 A concept deck may or may not include your brand’s creds in detail, focusing on creative ideas. Concept decks are widely used in the advertising and branded content industries, and are often created by graphic designers and art directors along with copywriters.

Lastly, a data deck is a collection of slides that is used to report on numbers. It could be a survey that you’ve run or a weekly report to your manager.

As designers, you have the upper hand as you already know the principles of good design. So, unlike many professionals, you won’t struggle as much to create a good deck.

How to start making your Decks

Do not open PowerPoint (or your chosen software) and stare at the first slide for 15 minutes flat, deciding the font. In fact, don’t open the software at all. 

• Understanding the brief: Spend the first few hours understanding the brief, what you need to achieve from your presentation, who you’ll be presenting to, their likes and dislikes, and the type of deck you need to make. For instance, if it’s a concept deck, you need to understand whether your client is in the luxury or premium space, whether they want a 1 crore concept or a 1 lakh one, and whether you need to come up with something 100% original, or simply think of original ways of promoting an existing idea. It’s imperative to have your thoughts clear otherwise you’re going to be fiddling around with PowerPoint for hours without result.

• Visualise your deck: The next step is to visualise your deck. Is it numbers or text based? Will it need a lot of video references? Does it need to have case studies? Will it be a mix of both?

• Mode of presentation: It’s important to consider the mode of presentation. If you’re going to be emailing the deck beforehand, then avoid large or heavy file sizes. High resolution images and videos make decks heavy. Google Slides is a good option for heavy decks as you simply need to share a link as opposed to attaching an entire file. If you’re presenting, then you have some leeway, and can use PowerPoint.

• Pro-tip: Always convert your deck into a pdf before emailing it to the client to preserve your fonts and reduce chances of tamper. However, if the client requests you for the open files, take a calculated decision with your internal team.

Identify the core message

This is perhaps the most important piece of the ppt puzzle. You need to be able to define the objective you want to achieve from this presentation before starting work. Ask yourself questions like after viewing your presentation, what action do you want your audience to take. Do you want them to invest, buy or register for something, or is it simply an awareness deck intended to educate? What emotion do you want to leave  them with? Should they feel impressed, awed, inspired, motivated, driven, empowered or satisfied? Or is the purpose of your presentation a tool to alert them of an impending crisis? 

If the objective of your deck isn’t clear, it’s important to seek clarity as soon as possible, to avoid what the average millennial would call - “an epic fail.”

Plan the structure

Once you’re crystal clear as to what the objective of the deck is, it’s time to plan the structure. Below, there’s a rough flow of how you could plan it. If you observe the figure, you will see that in each deck type, there’s a part that I’ve made bold and large. That is the core of the deck or the solution. However, before getting to the core, sometimes it’s important to hook the audience with a bit of build-up. Think of it like a movie. For instance, your deck should highlight the problem your market is facing with various facts almost like you’re building the plot of a film. So that when you get to the actual part of the deck–the climax–the audience is gripped, and can’t wait to see what your solution is.

The trailer of this film is your opening slide, where you sort of sum up what the audience can expect. Of course, there are managers, bosses and investors who like to get to the point asap, in which case, you must tailor-make your presentation according to their brief. 

Generally though, it’s best practice to grip the audience with a story or else they will zone out.

Write and source the content

Once the structure is set, you can start sourcing, writing and planning your content. Draw out the flow on a notebook. Make scribbles, notes and charts first on paper so that you know what you’re going for, when you open your software of choice.

Think of the software as a support-tool to your core thought, instead of a brainstorming tool.

Represent your text visually

• Depict information pictorially: It’s critical to represent text visually as much as possible. As designers, you must work with the writers in your team to crack the strongest way to depict the information pictorially. Often a sentence or a paragraph can be represented better with pictures and short copies.

• Graphs, Charts & Images: Play around with graphs, charts, shapes, images and bold typography to make your presentation stand out. While doing so, remember not to lose sight of the story you’re telling and the audience you’re intent on convincing. At no point, should the viewer be bombarded with slide after slide of randomly accumulated data, without a solid story.

• Text to image ratio: If you’re presenting in-person, avoid paragraphs or more than three sentences per slide. On the other hand, if the deck is being mailed to the client, then paragraphs might be necessary especially if it has scripts, instagram captions and article ideas.

Decide the look

This is my favourite part, and also where most of my colleagues go wrong. They place too much emphasis on the content without realising that bad presentation or packaging can ruin their hard work. (And good decks can sell a mediocre concept).

6 Tips to Design your Slide Moodboard

1. The ‘look and feel’ of the deck involves typefaces, colours, alignments and the image style. Work on a slide moodboard once you have an idea of what the structure and content of your deck will roughly be. 
2. Freeze on the typeface and font size for headlines, subheads, body copy, data points and other key information categories, and then don’t change them. Sticking to a set of common sizes ensures your deck looks visually consistent. 
3. Same goes for alignments. For example, if you decide that all slides will have body copy as left aligned and slide breakers as centre aligned, then you must stick to the rules.
4. Another tip is to use imagery to create a mood. Choose an image style that connotes a certain aesthetic or emotion. Spend time choosing these images instead of picking the first 10 images that pop up on Google search. The quality and relevance of an image or collection of images make or break a deck. 
5. For instance, if you’re creating a deck for a beauty brand, decide whether you want to go for a luxe, high fashion, ultra polished vibe, or if you want something raw, authentic and natural. Based on this decision, every single element of your deck must be determined - from font style to background colour, image lighting and so on.
6. For in-person presentations, full-bleed imagery with bold font is something I highly recommend. Feel free to create and use GIFs to put forward your point, and to not lose out on the attention span of your audience.

But what about the number of slides?

I firmly believe that the number of slides doesn't matter if you have your story down pat. However, there are plenty who disagree with me particularly those in the venture capitalist space. It seems investors have low attention spans. So, if you’re seeking funding for your start-up it’s important to keep the slides crisp. The goal of such investor pitch decks is to showcase ROI and therefore 15-20 slides should be sharpened to depict the same.

Meanwhile, I have worked for a decade in the creative space, where I’ve witnessed decks with more than 50 slides bearing fruitful results. So,I speak from experience when I say that sharply-structured, narrative-focussed decks can afford to go beyond 20 slides in the creative field. 

I would rather focus on the duration of my presentation. If 50 slides can be presented in 15 minutes, it’s as good as a 10 slider demanding the same duration. Avoid multiple slides crammed with text. Space it out. Try to be creative with images and typography to communicate the concept effectively.

Conclusion

While it’s tempting to pass on all deck design work to your juniors and interns, it’s a skill that will give you an edge because it’s “uncool.” Nobody wants to make decks or be known for it. This creates a situation where the demand for strong decks is high and supply is low. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to stand out and make your presence known. Hone your ability and get set for promotions by leveraging a flex others don’t want to possess.