Blog, Tools, 7 min read
The tools we use to design presentations and pitch decks
PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, Canva, Gamma, Beautiful.ai and Envato Elements: what each is good for, and when a deck needs a designer.
Some links here are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. We only list tools we have used.
People often ask us which software we use, as if there were one secret tool behind a good deck. There is not. We design in whatever tool the deck will live in, and the tool matters far less than the thinking that goes into the story, the structure and the slides.
Still, the choice of tool does change what is easy, what is hard and what breaks when the file changes hands. Here is what we use, what each one is good at, and where we would not use it.
How we pick the tool for a deck
Before we open anything, we ask three questions.
- Where will the deck go? A deck sent to investors or clients needs to open cleanly on their machines. A deck that stays inside your company can live wherever your team works.
- Who will edit it after us? If your sales team will update it every month, it has to be built in the tool they use, with a template they cannot easily break.
- How will it be shown? Presented live on a big screen, sent as a PDF, played as a video at an event, or read on a phone. Each one changes the design.
The answers usually pick the tool for us.
PowerPoint: where most client work ends up
Most of the decks we deliver are PowerPoint files. It is what most investors, clients and partners have, and a .pptx file opens almost anywhere. Its slide masters and layouts are the most capable of any tool, which matters when a team of people will keep making slides from the same template.
PowerPoint is also strong for data. Charts can stay linked to Excel, and Morph makes smooth movement between slides without a long chain of effects. The thing to watch is fonts. A custom brand font has to be installed on every machine or embedded in the file, or PowerPoint will swap it for a default.
Google Slides: for teams that build together
Google Slides is the easiest tool for several people working on one deck at once. There is one version, with comments and full history, and nobody emails files around. For internal updates and decks that change every week, that is worth a lot.
It has fewer design controls. Fonts come from Google's font library, master slides are simpler and animation is basic. We build Google Slides templates carefully around those limits, and we tell clients up front when a design idea will not survive in Slides.
Keynote: beautiful, if everyone is on a Mac
Keynote has lovely typography and smooth animation with very little effort. For a talk given from one Mac, it is a pleasure to design in. The catch is reach. If anyone who edits the deck is on Windows, it gets awkward, and exporting to PowerPoint can shift fonts and animations. We use it when the presenter asks for it and owns the setup.
Canva: fast, friendly and good for marketing teams
Canva is where a lot of marketing teams already make social posts, flyers and one page documents, so it makes sense for simple decks too. Brand kits keep colours, fonts and logos in one place, and non designers can make something clean quickly.
We build Canva templates for clients whose teams live there. For investor decks or complex data, we usually still recommend PowerPoint, because detailed layout control, charts and handover to other tools are stronger there. Canva is a great place to make things fast. It is a less good place to keep a deck that many people outside your team will open and edit.
Gamma and Beautiful.ai: AI first drafts
We have tried both Gamma and Beautiful.ai, and they are genuinely useful for one thing: getting from a blank page to a rough draft quickly. You type an outline or a prompt and get a structured set of slides in minutes. For an internal update, a workshop or a first pass at a story, that can save real time.
Where they fall short is the part that matters most for an important deck. The layouts are built from the same patterns everyone else is using, so decks start to look alike. Brand control is limited compared with a proper template. And the hard thinking, what the deck is actually arguing and which numbers prove it, is still yours to do. If you export to PowerPoint, check the file carefully before you send it, because spacing and fonts do not always carry over as you expect.
Our honest view: use an AI deck tool for drafts. Use a designer for an investor deck, a sales deck that has to close, or anything where your brand is on the line.
Envato Elements: templates, icons and assets
Envato Elements is a subscription library of presentation templates, icons, illustrations, photos, fonts and more. We use it for assets, not finished decks. A good icon set or a well drawn illustration can save hours, and having it all under one licence makes life simpler.
Two notes. First, read the licence terms for anything you download and use it the way the licence allows. Second, a template is a starting point, not a deck. The best templates still need your story, your numbers and your brand before they look like yours.
Figma for the design stage
For complex graphics, diagrams, mood boards and anything that needs precise drawing, we often design in Figma first and bring the finished pieces into PowerPoint, Slides or Keynote. It is also where we agree a visual direction with clients before building a full template. You do not need Figma to make a good deck, but it is part of how we work.
When to do it yourself
You do not always need a studio, and we would rather say so. Doing it yourself makes sense when:
- The deck is for an internal meeting, a team update or a workshop.
- You have a decent template already and just need to fill it with content.
- The audience knows you, and the stakes are low if it looks plain.
- You are still working out the story and the content will change a lot this week.
In those cases, a clean template in PowerPoint, Google Slides or Canva, or a first draft from an AI tool, is often enough. Keep one idea per slide, write headlines that say something, and you will be ahead of most decks.
When to hire a studio
A designer earns their fee when the deck has a job that matters and an audience that does not owe you attention. That usually means:
- An investor deck for a funding round.
- A sales deck your team will use on every call for the next year.
- A company profile or credentials deck that represents your brand to new clients.
- A master template that dozens of people will use.
- Anything presented on a stage, translated into Arabic or another language, or shared widely.
In these cases the cost of a weak deck is far higher than the cost of design. We have been designing decks since 2020, and our clients have raised over $300M with them. The tool is never the reason a deck works. The story and the care in each slide are.
A workflow that gets the best of both
A lot of people now write the first draft themselves, sometimes with an AI tool, and then bring it to a designer. That works well. You do the thinking you are best placed to do, the content and the argument, and we turn it into a clear, on brand deck in the tool your team uses.
If you want a quick read on a deck you already have, try our free deck design check. If you have an AI generated draft that needs to look like your company, see our AI slide redesign package. And for full decks and templates, have a look at our PowerPoint design and pitch deck design pages.