Most inherited decks carry too many layouts, and almost all of the excess is dead. We examined a sixty-slide deck that arrived with nineteen layouts. Seven of them were used zero times. Two were used once. Three were used fewer than three times, and nine survived a rule that a layout must be used at least three times to justify existing.
The three-uses test is arbitrary and useful, in that order. You'll forget what a layout used twice was for, and the next person will pick it by accident. Two uses is a slide you should have built from a general layout and adjusted.
Which eight layouts does a real deck need?
Eight roles cover a working deck. Building them takes about ninety-five minutes from a brand specification, and they'll carry every deck you're asked to make from here on.
| # | Layout | What it is for | Slides in the 60-slide test deck |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title | The cover: deck title, subtitle, date, audience | 1 |
| 2 | Section divider | A one-line claim that opens a section | 14 |
| 3 | Content, one column | A title with a single block of body or one exhibit | 9 |
| 4 | Content, two column | Two blocks side by side, usually exhibit and reasoning | 12 |
| 5 | Chart, full bleed | One exhibit at maximum size, title above, source below | 6 |
| 6 | Table | A grid with a header row that repeats its formatting | 5 |
| 7 | Quote or statement | One sentence at display size, for a finding or a verbatim | 5 |
| 8 | Closing and contacts | The ask, the next step, and who to contact | 5 |
Those eight cover 57 of the 60 slides, a coverage of 95.0 percent, and cut the layout count from nineteen to eight, a reduction of 57.9 percent.
The three slides they don't cover are the interesting ones, and you shouldn't force them. One was a full-page image with a single overlaid figure. One was a timeline that spanned the full width with no title, and one was an appendix index. Each got built as a one-off on the closest layout, with the deviation noted in the style note. A ninth layout for a slide that appears once is the excess the three-uses test exists to prevent. A real one-off gets a slide-level override that you've written down.
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In what order should you build the layouts?
Build them in a fixed order, because the later ones inherit from the earlier ones and rework is avoidable. Content, one column first, since it settles the title position, the body block geometry and the outer margin that everything else obeys. Then two-column, which splits the same body block. Then chart and table, which are two-column with the divider removed and different placeholder types. Then section divider and quote, which are the same shape at display size. Title and closing come last. They're the two that deviate most, and you want the rest settled before you decide how far to let them go.