Presentation Designer

VC-backed SaaS design quality for PowerPoint. Think Linear, Attio, Vercel, Raycast — not corporate clip art.

Install

git clone https://github.com/thatrebeccarae/claude-marketing.git && cp -r claude-marketing/skills/pro-deck-builder ~/.claude/skills/

Quick Reference

Before You Start (Required Steps)

Step 1: Ask the User

Before writing any code, ask:

1. Light or dark mode? Dark = premium/keynote feel. Light = reports/data-heavy decks.
2. Palette preference? Show the palette table below, or ask if they have brand colors.
3. Logo? Ask if they have a logo file to include (PNG/SVG path).

Step 2: Discover Fonts

Check what's installed — premium fonts make a massive difference:

# macOS — list all installed font families
fc-list : family | sort -u

# Search for premium fonts first
fc-list : family | grep -iE "inter|dm.sans|poppins|avenir|futura|geist|sf.pro|sf.mono|jetbrains|fira.code|montserrat|playfair|source.sans"

# Check macOS Font Book directories directly
ls ~/Library/Fonts/ /Library/Fonts/ /System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental/ 2>/dev/null

Priority order for font selection:

1. Inter — the gold standard for SaaS UI (if installed, use it for everything)
2. DM Sans — geometric, startup-friendly
3. Poppins — rounded, approachable
4. Avenir / Avenir Next — ships with macOS, Apple-adjacent elegance
5. Calibri — safe fallback, always available

For data/mono: JetBrains Mono > Fira Code > SF Mono > Consolas

Design Language: VC-Backed SaaS

Aesthetic Principles

1. Depth through layering — Surfaces float above backgrounds. Cards and panels have subtle elevation via shadows and fine borders, not flat colored boxes.
2. Bold typography, minimal decoration — Let type hierarchy do the work. No accent lines, no decorative shapes, no clip art.
3. Restrained color — One accent color used sparingly (10%). Mostly neutrals. Color = signal, not decoration.
4. Generous whitespace — Empty space signals confidence. If a slide feels sparse, make the content bigger, don't add more.
5. Every element earns its place — Before adding anything: what does it communicate? If removing it changes nothing, remove it.

Light vs Dark Mode

The user picks one mode for the entire deck. Never mix modes within a deck.

Color System

Dark Mode (Default — Premium/Keynote)

Light Mode (Reports/Data-Heavy)

Palette System

Each palette defines one accent color (used at 10%) plus semantic status colors. The accent is the personality — everything else is neutral.

Built-In Palettes

Custom Palette (User Brand Colors)

If the user provides brand colors, build a custom palette:

const palette = {
  accent: "0055FF",      // primary brand color
  accentMuted: "0055FF" + " at 15% opacity", // for tinted backgrounds
  positive: "10B981",    // good, up, success
  warning: "F59E0B",     // attention, caution
  critical: "EF4444",    // bad, down, error
};

Color Application: 85/10/5 Rule

• 85% — Backgrounds + neutral text (bg + text tokens from mode)
• 10% — Accent (key numbers, chart primary, CTAs, active states)
• 5% — Semantic status (positive/warning/critical in KPIs and data)

Typography

Font Priority

Run font discovery (Step 2 above), then pick:

For editorial/financial decks:

Size Scale

Typography Rules

• Left-align body text and lists — center ONLY titles and KPI values
• Max 2 font families per deck (+1 mono for data)
• ALL CAPS + charSpacing only for small labels (KPI labels, category tags)
• Line height: 1.3x for body, 1.1x for titles
• Never underline for emphasis — use bold or accent color

Text Fitting (Prevents Overflow)

Big numbers and titles WILL overflow if you use a fixed font size without checking content length. Use these rules:

Big KPI Numbers — scale font to character count:

Rule: prefer abbreviated numbers. $5.3M > $5,307,540. Only use full numbers in tables or footnotes where precision matters.

Slide Titles — max characters before wrapping: