A skill that makes Claude plan and build a pitch or client deck the way a senior presentation designer does, one stage at a time, with you choosing at each fork. It starts with the room: who decides, the decision you want and how long you have. It writes the argument as slide headlines that tell the story on their own, then sets a grid, a type scale and a colour palette with every contrast ratio worked out. It specifies each slide, writes speaker notes timed to your slot, and builds a PPTX and a PDF you can open and edit.
Inside are five reference files. There are storyline skeletons for five kinds of deck with the timing maths, a slide system with exact grid positions and a library of 15 slide types, build specs checked against Microsoft, Google, Apple and W3C sources on 17 October 2026, a review checklist, and a full worked example for a fictional studio. It keeps to a few firm rules: one idea per slide, and every headline a sentence that states its point. It never invents results, quotes, clients or fees, and leaves a marked gap and asks instead. Contrast is computed, never judged by eye.
It cannot take photographs or make images on its own. For any picture still to be made, it writes a brief and a prompt for your own image tool, and hands over to the product or model photo shoot skills if you have them. Building files needs code execution switched on. A PPTX made this way names its fonts without carrying them, so install them on the presenting machine or embed them in PowerPoint. You will get the most from it by spending your time on the headlines in the second stage and bringing real numbers, real images and your client's own words.
Claude skill · version 1.0
Pitch deck design
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In the download · 7 files
- SKILL.mdThe method Claude follows in seven stages: brief, storyline, system, slides, notes, build and review.
- README.mdHow to install it in claude.ai or Claude Code, how to start, and the licence.
- references/storylines.mdThe deck brief, who is in the room, the timing maths, headline rules and five storyline skeletons.
- references/worked-example.mdA full worked example for a fictional studio pitching a fictional cider brand, stage by stage.
- references/slide-system.mdThe grid, type scale, colour and contrast floors, a 15-type slide library and image direction.
- references/build-specs.mdSlide sizes by app, font and file-size rules with sources checked on 17 October 2026, and tested build code.
Install it and begin
01Install it in Claude CodeTerminal mkdir -p ~/.claude/skillsunzip ~/Downloads/pitch-deck-design.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/# Start it with /pitch-deck-design. If this is your first skill, type /reload-skills once.On claude.ai there is nothing to unzip: upload the zip as it is. Every step is on Install and use a Claude skill.
02Your first message to ClaudeText Use the pitch deck design skill. I'm pitching [WHAT YOU ARE PITCHING] to [WHO DECIDES, BY ROLE] on [MEETING DATE]. The slot is [MINUTES] minutes, [IN PERSON OR ON A CALL], and I present from [APP]. Here are my notes and the client's brief: [PASTE OR ATTACH]. Start with the deck brief and tell me what is missing.Attach the client's brief or email, your notes, any brand guidelines and the images you plan to use. Rough notes are fine, because the first stage turns them into a brief.
Worked example
How the skill builds a deck
- 01Write the decision as a verb and a date before any slide exists."Choose us by 30 October" tells every later choice what it is for. "Get them excited" tells it nothing.
- 02Take talk time as 60 to 70% of the slot, then divide by about 1.5 minutes a slide for a typical pitch.A 45-minute meeting holds about 28 minutes of talk, which is roughly 18 main slides, not 40.
- 03Write every headline as a sentence that states the slide's point, then read the headlines alone as one paragraph.If they read as one case, a decider who only skims the deck still gets the argument.
- 04Set a 12-column grid with 96 px margins on a 1920 x 1080 slide, and an 18 pt floor for anything the room must read.On a video call a slide often shows at about a sixth of its size, and small type goes first.
- 05Compute the contrast of every text colour against its background: at least 4.5:1, aiming for 7:1 for body text on a projector.Projectors and bright rooms wash colour out, so a pair that looks fine on a laptop can vanish on the wall.
- 06Choose fonts for the app the deck will open in, and only Google Fonts if anyone will edit it in Google Slides.Google Slides can replace fonts outside its library with Arial, even ones embedded in the file, so the skill tells you to test one slide first.
- 07Write speaker notes to a budget of 130 words per minute on screen, opening with the point and ending with the line into the next slide.Notes sized to the clock keep the pitch inside the slot and stop the presenter reading the slide aloud.
- 08Build the PPTX and PDF from the slide spec, render a contact sheet, and fix anything that overflows before handing them over.Looking at every slide as a thumbnail and at full size catches jumping headlines and stretched images before the client does.
What to do it with
- ClaudeFree tier, paid above it
A language model that writes, edits, reads long documents and runs tools, including agents that work inside a codebase.
Bad at It is agreeable by default, so it will improve a bad idea instead of telling you it is bad. Ask it to argue against you and the quality of the answer changes.
- Claude CodeSubscription
An agent that reads a whole repository, edits files, runs the tests and explains what it changed.
Bad at It is fast enough to make a large mistake quickly. Work on a branch, read the diff, and never let it push. Watch the starting mode: on Pro, Max and Team plans it opens in auto mode, which Anthropic's own list says may read a .env file and send the key in it to the API that key belongs to. Switch it off.
- Google FontsFree
Open-licensed typefaces, hosted and self-hostable, covering many scripts.
Bad at Quality is uneven across the catalogue, and the defaults are the most-used type on earth.
Tells you whether two colours are legible together, against the published standard.
Bad at The ratio is a floor and not a design. Passing text can still be unpleasant to read.
Why it matters
Ask a chat for a pitch deck and you get twelve slides titled Problem, Solution and Team, each with five bullets in small type, plus a made-up statistic or two. A deck like that rarely wins the room. This skill makes Claude settle what the meeting must achieve first, argue it in headlines a decider can skim, and only then design, with measured contrast, type that reads on a video call and notes sized to the clock.
- Type
- technique
- Period
- ongoing