Why ‘designed slide decks’ are the new corporate brochure

A few of my least favourite words these days: ‘let me just share my screen…’, whereupon a set of friendly (albeit virtual) faces disappear, only to be replaced with a green spreadsheet, set of moribund bullet-points or series of pictures of a city skyline somewhere I can’t visit. Usually the low point is the appearance of a dreaded set of Powerpoint slides. These are essentially brochures these days – albeit with the physical object sadly lost. As it happens I am a huge fan of the printed word, a medium dear to my heart, and I’ll come back to that particular topic another day. But when it comes to these sad old slides, I come bearing happy news. Over the past year, I’ve worked with a few visionary clients who have agreed with me that there’s a lot further that the otherwise predictable Powerpoint can go. I speak of something beyond the standard corporate presentation. Let me introduce the designed slide deck.

Yes! It’s true. It’s not just possible but actually pretty nifty work for these things to look fantastic. Here are three clients who decided to go for it, and where we’ve gone all-out…

1: The tech startup

I just love working with a startup business. The team are clear-eyed and ambitious, taking calculated risks for their new enterprise and invariably keen to try something new. We’re always enthusiastic to work on a piece of design that translates across media. In the case of LiNa Energy, a startup based at the University of Lancaster in the north of England, they needed to set out not merely their ideas, but explain the future potential of the technology they were developing. The very look and feel had to be futuristic, modern and bold.

This is the classic case for a designed slide deck – where the end product has to set out key pieces of technical or financial information and look the part. It’s that last part that is so vital here. If the presentation looks sloppy or unconsidered, it could make the difference between getting vital funding and not.

We had been lucky to visit LiNa’s laboratories in the autumn of 2019 and completed a set of custom brand photography, setting up firstly their website but also this vibrant, beautiful slide deck. Throw in the brand pattern based on the new branding design we’d designed for the energy company and the data and project background just leapt off the page.

2: The financial services family office

One of our most recently-completed projects, this fantastic rebranding for Brussels-based investment firm AtlasInvest has been ongoing throughout 2020’s lockdown and beyond. The end result is a beautiful new corporate identity with a highly considered approach to its application. During the website design project, we had expanded the new graphic design to include a range of distinctive gradients and linear patterns inspired by the new ‘Atlas globe’ brand symbol. It made sense that when it came to the slide template deck, we would expand that concept further.

What’s interesting here is that we didn’t actually design a finished presentation. Rather, the brief was for a set of template slides for future use. In this instance we went through a set of recent presentations and discussed ways they could improve their presentations. Based on these conversations we then worked on a set of agreed base slides which they could then build on over time.

Within PowerPoint we had built in these templates, their logos, colours, typefaces and graphics. In addition, we had added regularly-used tables and key graphs. In a template set you can’t anticipate every scenario or point the team want to make. But equally, you can have a damn good try – and offer as much guidance as possible to ensure the finished designed slide deck looks terrific.

3: The global corporate

Finding a one-size fits all approach to company-wide presentations when there are offices from Sydney to San Francisco – and everything in between (the long way around) means responding to a dizzying array of requests. Our work with business change provider MovePlan has run the gamut, but began with their new company website which launched during April 2020’s lockdown. It’s a great combination of design for real estate companies and global business.

Since then, we’ve completed the largest template slide deck we’ve ever worked on. It’s some 80 slides long, covering their global requirements and every kind of presentation they make internally, to clients and during webinars. We even went back this Autumn and added a new set of slides to the work as a sort of phase two, making the design project more graphic, vibrant and less wordy.

Needless to say, that piece of work is full of sensitive information. But what’s quite interesting is that during this process, it become clear that we needed a hybrid piece of work. A blend of both the visual presentation we had worked on and yet acted promotionally, a true hybrid between designed slide deck and company brochure. A glimpse of the end result is below. It consolidates the publicly available information the business provides to potential clients but showcases the best of what they’re about.

Brief us to create a designed slide deck to aid your business development

If you’re planning new wave of marketing, why not get in touch to discuss a wide range of different approaches? We can work on designs from the simple to the sensational, depending on your brief and budget.

Call us on 020 7351 4083 or email us direct.

Please note: none of these slide deck visuals contain confidential information; all content is publicly available online.