Design Presentation

Own the story and the visual system. Preserve the user's native format and editability. Use the client's native presentation capability or authenticated application connector for the selected destination. Load destination-specific skills when available and follow their required write, export, and verification procedures.

Resolve every bundled relative path from the directory containing this SKILL.md; never interpret references/... from the user's project directory.

Route once

Read tool-routing.md, choose the highest-quality viable production route autonomously when the user has not named a destination, and complete the deck there. Do not generate duplicate decks in multiple tools unless requested.

Required workflow

1. Inspect before editing. For an existing deck or reference, inspect the complete file and representative screenshots before planning changes. Inherit its palette, type, spacing, motifs, and structural habits unless the user asks to restyle.
2. Define the argument. State the audience, desired action, single governing message, narrative arc, and evidence. Cut source material that does not serve the argument; keep it in notes or an appendix only when useful.
3. Lock the design contract. Name the direction. Read typography casting, inspect the available font library, and define theme-matched display/body/label type roles rather than defaulting to a technical face. Define dominant/support/accent colors, image treatment, shape language, signature motif, and tonal/density arc. Choose whether the deck should feel architectural, rounded, circular, organic, freehand, or deliberately mixed; do not inherit square geometry by default. Take one defensible creative risk.
4. Plan every slide spatially. For each slide, record its purpose, one-sentence takeaway, layout described in spatial terms, visual asset, background treatment, and role in the sequence. Also record the visual's integration verb and protected text/data zones. Build an image-and-artifact coverage map across the sequence so visual interest is not concentrated only at the opening and close. Do not compute coordinates during planning.
5. Audit variety. Read the plan in order. Replace repeated silhouettes, anchors, and densities before production. Include purposeful pauses between dense passages.
6. Build in batches. Establish the visual system with the first representative batch, inspect it, then continue without re-inventing the design contract.
7. Art-direct assets. Source or generate images for their exact position and crop. Compare legitimate sourced candidates with generation when either route is viable; choose the stronger art-directed, rights-compatible result. Load humanize-image-generation when installed for generated photographs, illustrations, drawings, paintings, renderings, or raster design elements. If it is unavailable, apply provenance, artifact inspection, transparency, and placed-crop verification directly and do not claim the specialist workflow ran. When the direction is handmade, collage-based, prop-led, or uses multiple small raster assets, read material-integration.md. Reject obvious generative artifacts, verify transparency and trimmed alpha bounds when applicable, and inspect the placed crop at slide consumption size. Use data graphics only when they clarify evidence. Keep decorative support subordinate but intentional.
8. Polish. Freeze the element count and refine scale, line breaks, alignment, crop, contrast, spacing, motif repetition, and transitions between slides. Audit all repeated semantic roles for identical font size, weight, line spacing, inset, and vertical alignment. Do not allow independent shrink-to-fit to invent hierarchy. Audit local spacing pairs such as a list to its callout or a footer to the content above it. Require every placed visual to attach, tuck, hang, bridge, frame, point, or reveal; recompose or remove stranded props and pasted-looking rectangles. Read visible copy aloud and remove synthetic repetition or useless recurring chrome. Check circles, strike-throughs, rules, and labels for optical centering after rendering.
9. Verify. Read deck-qa.md and the zero-defect gate. Run native overflow/overlap checks, render the exact final deck, inspect every slide full size and high-risk regions enlarged, review a contact sheet for rhythm, and close every item in the defect ledger before delivery.

Presentation craft

Read deck-craft.md while forming the slide plan. Apply these non-negotiables:

• Land one principal idea per slide. Split content before shrinking it.
• Make titles conclusions or provocations, not generic topic labels.
• Create clear scale contrast. A viewer should find the point from across the room.
• Left-align sustained copy. Reserve centered type for concise display moments.
• Use the full canvas. Let backgrounds and nonessential forms bleed; keep essential text inside safe areas.
• Vary anchor points, occupied area, light/dark tone, and density across the deck.
• Add a meaningful visual or structural non-text element to substantive slides when it improves communication.
• Keep small props outside live text, code, chart, and data lanes. A decorative asset without a clear integration verb should be recomposed or removed.
• Use curves, circles, rounded contours, or freehand forms when they carry the brief's warmth, motion, intimacy, or looseness; use sharp geometry when precision and structure are the point. Avoid both square-card autopilot and decorative blob autopilot.
• Prefer one composed scene over a dashboard of cards.
• Avoid icon rows, nested rounded rectangles, uniform two-column layouts, faint blobs, default gradients, and identical title placement.
• Keep speaker-facing explanations in notes, not visible slide copy.

Delivery contract

Return the editable native deck or link and the requested export. Mention the creative direction and completed QA in one concise note. Keep plans, diagnostics, screenshots, and temporary asset sheets out of the final handoff unless requested.

Resources

• Read tool-routing.md before choosing PowerPoint, Google Slides, Canva, or Figma Slides.
• Read deck-craft.md before planning a new deck or substantive restyle.
• Read material-integration.md for handmade, scrapbook, collage, pinboard, chalkboard, or prop-led directions and for any deck using multiple small raster assets.
• Read deck-qa.md before delivery.
• Read typography-casting.md, production-router.md, and zero-defect-qa.md for the bundled standalone routing and release gates.