How to Design a Pitch Deck [A Detailed Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Cathy, one of our clients, asked us a question while we were building her pitch deck:
“What’s the one thing investors care about the most in a presentation?”
Our Creative Director replied instantly,
“Clarity. If they don’t understand it fast, they won’t care about it at all.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many pitch decks throughout the year and in the process we’ve observed one common challenge: founders try to say everything, which ends up saying nothing.
So in this blog we’ll talk about how to design a pitch deck that makes your audience get it, care about it, and remember it.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why Pitch Deck Design Can Make or Break Your Pitch
We’ve seen brilliant ideas crash and burn simply because the pitch deck design was an afterthought.
You might think investors care only about the numbers, but here’s the truth — the numbers are only as convincing as the story that delivers them.
Good design isn’t just about looking polished. It’s about creating a smooth path for your audience to follow your logic without friction. A cluttered slide makes them work harder to understand your point, and if they have to work too hard, they stop listening.
Think about it. If you’re sitting through ten pitches in a row, which one do you remember? The one where the story was clear, the flow was seamless, and the visuals supported the message. That’s what design does. It’s not decoration. It’s persuasion.
When the design is intentional, it helps you:
Control how your story unfolds.
Keep attention locked in from the first slide to the last.
Make complex ideas instantly understandable.
A well-crafted pitch deck can amplify your message. A poorly designed one can bury it before it even has a chance.
How to Design a Pitch Deck That Works
Designing a pitch deck is not about opening PowerPoint and throwing in some slides with your logo on them. It’s about engineering a journey for your audience — every slide is a step forward, and you can’t afford to lose them along the way. If your audience drifts off, it’s not because they lack focus. It’s because the deck didn’t give them a reason to keep paying attention.
Here’s how we approach pitch deck design in a way that consistently gets our clients’ ideas across and keeps the room engaged.
1. Start with the story, not the slides
This is where almost everyone gets it wrong. They start typing bullet points into a blank slide, thinking they’ll figure out the structure later. The result? A jumble of facts that reads more like a product manual than a pitch.
You need to start by building the skeleton of your story outside the design software. We use a simple question framework for this:
What problem are you solving?
Why does it matter right now?
How do you solve it better than anyone else?
What’s the evidence that it works?
What’s the opportunity for your audience?
When Cathy came to us with her startup idea, she had all the data but no story. Her original deck opened with a technical breakdown of her solution. We flipped it around and started with a human story of the exact problem she was solving. That one change kept the investors leaning in instead of zoning out.
2. Keep one idea per slide
Investors don’t process five messages at once. If your slide tries to do too much, they’ll pick one element to focus on and ignore the rest — and it might not be the point you wanted them to remember.
We follow the “one slide, one takeaway” rule. It forces you to strip down your content and be ruthless about what makes it in. Your audience will thank you, because they can actually keep up.
Think of your deck as a guided tour, not a museum where visitors wander in all directions. Each slide should be the only thing they need to think about at that moment.
3. Choose visuals that work as part of the message
Stock photos of people shaking hands won’t win you trust. Every visual needs to serve the narrative.
For example, when we worked on a pitch for a health-tech company, we used a single, sharp image of a patient holding their phone to show the simplicity of their app. It instantly made the tech relatable.
Here’s the visual hierarchy we use in design:
Start with real images from your product or service.
Use data visualizations that make numbers obvious at a glance.
If you use icons, make them consistent in style and meaning.
Use color sparingly to direct attention, not as decoration.
The goal is for your audience to “get it” before you even finish speaking.
4. Nail the first three slides
Your first three slides decide whether your audience stays with you. The opening is where you earn the right to continue talking. We see too many decks start with “About Us” or “Our Mission Statement.” Those belong later, after you’ve hooked them.
A strong start might look like this:
A striking statement of the problem.
A vivid example or story.
The high-level solution you’re about to walk them through.
When we designed a deck for a fintech founder, we opened with a real customer’s experience that summed up the pain point in 15 seconds. That alone set the tone for the entire pitch.
5. Use numbers the right way
Numbers can either make your case bulletproof or make eyes glaze over. The trick is to make them bite-sized and visual. Don’t dump a spreadsheet into a slide. Turn your most important numbers into a clean, simple chart or big bold figure.
For example, instead of writing “Our market is growing at a CAGR of 8.6%,” show a simple upward arrow graphic with “8.6% growth” in bold and a short supporting line below.
When you make data digestible, it sticks. When you overload with numbers, it gets ignored.
6. Design for the back of the room
Whether you’re pitching in a conference hall or on Zoom, you can’t assume everyone will be viewing your slides under perfect conditions. That’s why we design with a “back-row test” in mind.
Here’s what that means in practice:
Minimum 28pt font size for body text.
Contrast strong enough to read even on a dim projector.
No text-heavy slides that require squinting.
The more accessible your deck is visually, the more likely people will actually read it.
7. Control the pacing
Good design isn’t static. It controls rhythm. You can’t hammer your audience with heavy slide after heavy slide without giving them mental breathing room.
We break up dense content with lighter slides — a key quote, a big visual, a quick summary. It keeps the flow moving and prevents fatigue.
When we worked on a pitch for a renewable energy company, we placed a full-slide photo of a wind farm between two heavy market analysis slides. It gave the audience a moment to reset while reinforcing the big picture.
8. Anticipate the questions and objections
A great pitch deck answers doubts before they’re voiced. That’s why we always include slides that preempt the obvious questions. If you know investors will ask about scalability, include a clean, confident slide that addresses it head-on.
This also changes how you design. The slide answering a key objection should be visually stronger and easier to remember than the question itself.
9. Keep your brand consistent
Your pitch deck is an extension of your brand. Fonts, colors, and tone need to be consistent. We’ve seen amazing content undermined by mismatched styles that made the deck look patched together.
We keep a brand kit open when designing so every element matches the company’s identity. Even if your startup is new, having a consistent visual language makes you look established.
10. End with impact, not a whimper
Too many decks fizzle out with a “Thank you” slide. Your last slide should be the most memorable — a powerful summary of your opportunity, product, or vision.
When we designed Cathy’s final slide, we used her strongest customer quote, paired with her funding ask. Investors left remembering exactly what she wanted and why it mattered.
If you treat your pitch deck as a checklist of points to get through, you’ll have something forgettable. If you treat it as a guided experience for your audience, you’ll have something they remember and act on.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.