Note
Don’t Dress a Deck That Isn’t Built
Most people start designing slides by making them look pretty. That’s backwards. The structure and content always come first.
Most slide design mistakes don’t come from poor visuals but from starting at the wrong step.
Think about it like this: you don’t paint a house before ensuring the foundation and frame are solid.
No amount of decoration can hide structural flaws. Slides are no different.
The Common Trap
We often jump straight into:
- Choosing colors (to encode meaning as discussed in Colors Are How You Encode Meaning)
- Picking fonts
- Adding icons and charts
It feels productive because the deck starts to look polished. But the underlying argument is still undefined.
You’re just putting lipstick on an unfinished structure.
This habit creates three subtle problems:
1. Formatting Creates Sunk Cost
Once a slide looks polished, people become reluctant to delete it—even if it no longer fits the argument.
2. Visual Polish Hides Structural Issues
A well-designed chart can make weak reasoning appear more convincing than it actually is.
3. Iteration Slows Down
When every change requires reformatting layouts, adjusting alignment, and redesigning visuals, the cost of experimentation increases.
The deck becomes harder to evolve precisely when it should still be flexible.
The Actual First Step
Before you start designing visuals, get the structure right first.
Focus on:
- Identifying the information that matters.
- Deciding how it should be structured.
- Laying it out in a logically coherent way (as discussed in Every Slide Should Tell a Story).
At this stage, the slides can be messy.
You are not designing yet.
You are structuring the argument.
Everything else—visuals, formatting, polish—comes after.
Minimum Viable Presentation (MVP) Mindset
Treat the first draft as a Minimum Viable Presentation (MVP).
It might look like this:
- Plain bullet slides
- Rough placeholder charts
- Incomplete visuals
- Simple titles that clearly state the point of each slide
It may not look impressive—that’s intentional.
The goal of the first version is not to impress your audience. The goal is to verify that the argument itself works.
Why this accelerates iteration:
- You can test ideas quickly without being slowed down by formatting.
- Feedback focuses on substance, not style.
- Structural issues are easier to spot and fix early.
Iteration Becomes Cleaner
Once the structure is solid:
- Each slide earns its place.
- Visual enhancements amplify clarity rather than mask gaps.
- The deck evolves faster, because you’re improving something that already makes sense.
Design now becomes a force multiplier, making it easier to understand—not a distraction.
Before Your Next Deck
With these principles in mind, your next deck can be built efficiently and clearly.
Ask yourself:
- Have I outlined the essential elements first?
- Can someone read the deck and understand the argument without formatting distractions?
- Am I focused on clarity before aesthetics?
If the structure works, design becomes leverage.
If it doesn’t, design becomes decoration.
Strong structure first, style second.