How to Design a Modern Style Pitch Deck [A Practical Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
While we were building a modern pitch deck for one of our clients, Matt asked a question.
He said,
“How do you make a pitch deck look modern without trying too hard?”
Our Creative Director answered without blinking:
“You remove everything it doesn’t need.”
That one sentence just about sums it up.
As a presentation design agency, we work on dozens of modern pitch decks every year. And in the process, we’ve observed one challenge that never seems to go away—people over-designing or under-designing their decks, missing the balance modern design demands.
So, in this blog, we’ll talk about what actually makes a pitch deck feel modern and how to design one that doesn’t try too hard—but works just right.
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 Designing a Modern Pitch Deck Is Harder Than It Looks
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the (board)room: modern design is misunderstood.
Most people think a modern pitch deck just means sleek fonts, minimal slides, and a monochrome color palette. Sounds easy, right? Except it’s not. Because what looks modern on Dribbble or Pinterest doesn’t always translate to real business presentations. And here’s the problem—when people try to mimic “modern,” they either make the slides look lifeless or go so bold they distract from the actual pitch.
We’ve seen founders come in with decks that feel like museum pieces. All style, no story. We've also seen the opposite—slides that are cluttered with text, charts, buzzwords, and icons, but labeled "modern" just because they used Helvetica and a few muted tones.
So here’s what’s really happening.
Modern pitch decks are expected to do a lot. They need to:
Feel clean and contemporary
Match the brand
Hold attention in a distracted world
Communicate fast, with clarity
And still make a strong business case
That’s a tough combination. Especially when everyone has their own definition of what “modern” even means. In design, minimalism isn’t just about removing things—it’s about knowing what to remove and what to leave in. That’s where most people trip up.
So if you’ve ever sat in front of a blank Keynote or PowerPoint screen wondering how to make your slides “look modern,” this guide is for you.
Let’s get into how to actually design a modern style pitch deck that gets attention—and keeps it.
How to Design a Modern Style Pitch Deck
Let’s be clear about one thing—modern doesn’t mean trendy. A modern pitch deck isn’t about riding design fads or slapping on some gradients because a SaaS company did it once in 2022. It’s about designing with intent.
You’re not building a piece of art. You’re building a tool that’s meant to move someone—an investor, a customer, a stakeholder—from confusion to clarity, from interest to action.
And a modern pitch deck? That’s the sharpest version of that tool. So here’s how you build one.
1. Start with the real story (not just the “deck flow”)
Before you even think about slides, you need a story. Not a slogan. Not a one-liner. A story. One that has stakes, conflict, tension, resolution, and ideally, a future worth betting on.
Most pitch decks fail not because of bad design—but because they have no story. Or worse, they have five stories crammed into one deck.
So, first question: What’s the one thing you want your audience to walk away with?
If it’s an investor deck, it’s usually this: “This team knows what they’re doing, and this business is going to make serious returns.”
If it’s a sales deck, it’s more like: “This solution solves my problem, and this is the team I want to work with.”
Everything else flows from that.
Once you’ve nailed the core message, break your story into slides. A solid modern pitch deck follows a clean arc:
Problem
Market
Solution
Product
Traction
Business model
Team
Ask
Each of those should be one clear slide. Two if absolutely needed. But this isn’t the place to go wild with subsections and bonus slides. Modern design thrives on clarity.
2. Ditch the filler slides
“Thank You” and “Questions?” slides need to stop happening by default. In a modern pitch deck, every slide must work hard. If it’s not adding something—cut it.
You don’t need a company timeline unless your milestones actually tell a compelling story. You don’t need a slide full of client logos unless it drives credibility in that context. A modern deck respects the viewer’s time. If you can say something in 5 slides, you don’t use 15.
Restraint is part of modern design. It's not just clean fonts and white space—it’s knowing when to shut up visually.
3. Make space your best friend
White space isn’t empty. It’s breathing room. A modern pitch deck uses space like a pause in a great speech—it lets the message land.
When we design decks, we often spend more time removing than adding. Because the modern aesthetic isn’t about more polish. It’s about removing the noise so the signal gets through.
You’ll be surprised what happens when you remove that extra icon, shrink the text, and let the slide breathe.
Less text, more clarity. Fewer visuals, more focus.
4. Use typography to set the tone
In a modern pitch deck, typography is everything. It sets the rhythm, the vibe, the mood of the deck. And it’s one of the fastest ways to make your deck look either incredibly current—or dated.
We recommend choosing one strong, contemporary typeface. Think: clean sans-serifs with great readability—like Inter, Söhne, or even modernized classics like Neue Haas Grotesk.
Stick to a clear hierarchy:
Headline (big and bold)
Subheadline (smaller, secondary tone)
Body (smallest, readable across devices)
Don’t use five font sizes in one slide. Don’t bold and underline at the same time. And for the love of all things design, don’t center-align everything.
Left-align your text. Create visual anchors. Keep the eye flowing naturally from slide to slide.
5. Choose colors with purpose
Modern pitch decks often lean toward neutral palettes—blacks, whites, grays, off-whites—accented with one strong brand color.
But don’t pick colors because they’re trendy. Choose them to support your tone. For example:
Are you a fintech startup looking to convey trust? Go with cool tones—blues, navies, silvers.
A design-led consumer brand? You can push into warmer tones, subtle gradients, or bolder contrast.
An enterprise solution? Stick to structured, conservative tones with occasional color punches for key messages.
Modern doesn’t mean colorless. It means intentional.
Also, avoid over-saturating. If every slide is drenched in color, none of them stand out. Use color to highlight, not overwhelm.
6. Visuals should support, not steal
Icons. Photos. Charts. Graphs. All necessary. All easily abused.
In a modern pitch deck, visuals should support your message. Not hijack it. That means:
Use custom or high-quality icons, not the free ones that look like clipart.
Choose imagery that feels authentic. No generic handshake stock photos. Ever.
Simplify your charts. If it takes more than 5 seconds to read, it’s not working.
And don’t try to make every slide visually impressive. Some slides can—and should—be quiet. Let contrast and pacing do their job.
If every slide screams, none of them are heard.
7. Design for skimming
Here’s the truth no one likes to admit: most people will skim your pitch deck first. If the headlines grab them, they’ll go deeper.
Modern decks are designed with that behavior in mind.
That means:
Clear slide titles that say something, not just label sections. (“Problem” is lazy. “Why 72% of teams still rely on spreadsheets” is better.)
Limited bullet points. Max 3 per slide. Preferably none.
Visual cues like arrows, highlighted text, or layout framing that guide the eye.
Don’t bury your value in a paragraph. Surface it in a single, well-written line.
8. Use consistent structure, but break patterns strategically
Modern decks use consistency to build rhythm. But great decks break that rhythm at the right time to highlight something important.
Here’s how we do it:
Keep most slides aligned in grid
Use a full-bleed image slide or single-word slide when you want to hit pause and reset attention
Vary pacing—some slides fly by, some stay longer
Use silence (yes, blank space counts) when you want the viewer to feel something shift
Modern design doesn’t mean boring repetition. It means controlled variation.
9. Match your tone to your audience
Design isn’t neutral. It speaks.
A deck for early-stage investors shouldn’t look like a corporate white paper. A sales deck for enterprise clients shouldn’t look like a college pitch.
We always ask our clients: “How do you want them to feel after slide 1?”
Reassured? Excited? Curious? Confident?
Then we build toward that. That’s modern thinking—using design as part of the pitch, not a wrapper for it.
If you're pitching to a technical audience, maybe your deck leans more structured and data-driven. If you're targeting creatives, maybe it's more expressive, with subtle animations and storytelling-driven layouts.
But never design in a vacuum. Design with your audience in mind.
10. Don’t forget mobile viewing
More and more investors and decision-makers are viewing decks on their phones. Sad but true.
So here’s the rule: if your slide is unreadable on a phone, it’s too dense.
Modern pitch decks aren’t designed for A3 printouts anymore. They’re made to work across screens. So keep your font sizes reasonable. Test the deck on smaller devices. And stop cramming 12-point font into every corner.
11. Use animations (sparingly, and only when they serve the message)
Animations aren’t evil. But they’re not decoration either.
Modern decks sometimes use subtle builds or transitions—not to look cool, but to guide attention.
For example:
Reveal one point at a time to avoid info overload
Animate a chart to show growth over time
Use a fade to soften a shift in tone
But do not animate every element just because PowerPoint lets you. Animation is seasoning, not the main course.
Example of a Modern Pitch Deck Design
Take a look at this example of a Series B pitch deck. The design is minimal, with illustrations and data visualizations used thoughtfully, not just thrown in for effect. This is what real modern pitch deck design looks like. Unlike online templates, which rely on dummy text and placeholder content, this deck is built around actual messaging. And that’s the difference. It's easy to make a template look good when there’s no real story to tell.
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.