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Best Tools for Building Slide Decks Without a Designer

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Hey all, I know this seems slightly outside the ops but I feel like it's ops who always have the answers. My question is: Those who don't use designers to build slide decks, what tools do you use that allow you to build slide deck templates quickly without a ton of design knowledge needed? Full story for anyone interested: We've got no in-house designer, we're trying to build a few branded revenue team decks for pitches, products, investors ect. We hire an outsourced design team who I tasked with building a deck, provided content and slide layouts we liked the idea of for each. They came back with plain slides with headers and the logo, technically branded, but not really hitting the brief. After feedback, including detailed information about why I'd chosen specific slides, what I liked about them eg: 'I chose this slide for this information because I want it to feel like easy broken down steps a prospect can take to solve their problem' they came back with something slightly more designed or, there was more blue on the page based on our brand colours, but the actual layouts were the same as what they'd presented before. Follow up questions based on the story for anyone who read it, I've never managed an outsourced design team, should I be giving them briefs on what I want things to look like, or is that the issue, should I just be saying 'be creative' and letting them get on with it?

5 comments

AHMAD A.
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We’ve settled on Canva and Figma as still the best options (Both have huge libraries of community-built templates you can use as a starting point if needed). They’re also easy for other team members to edit, which helps since decks often need quick content or number changes—and most people on the team are already comfortable using them. There are some newer AI tools like Slidebean and Beautiful.ai, but they’re not very mature yet. They mostly handle the basics—branding, colors, layout—but don’t expect much creativity beyond maybe pulling in a few stock images.
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AHMAD A.
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If the team you're working with isn't showing creative initiative after the first round of feedback, it might be less about your brief and more about the level of designers on the job. In your case, I'd either (a) try to get a more senior designer involved who can interpret goals better, or (b) accept that you’ll have to hand-hold a bit more, or even mock up rough layouts yourself. You can give super detailed notes, and that helps, but let’s be honest—explaining design through slide-by-slide direction isn't sustainable. What usually happens in agencies is that closers are senior designer but the actual work ends up in the hands of juniors. They’ll stick to the SOPs and branding guides, sure—but that’s about it. You’ll get the logo, the right colors, maybe some structure, but Design is rarely just about following a brief—it’s also about interpreting it with taste and originality.
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Ross D.
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We've been using Pitch here. It's pretty quick and easy to build out decks and build out a decent enough template, but may be worth using a designer on something like Fiver or Upwork to build you a foundational template deck that can be used by the teams to drag and drop as they need. An outsourced design team is all well and good for ongoing work but if it's just an initial template then you'll likely find someone that aligns with your styles on there. I would recommend looking at examples of previous work they've done and decide on what you think you'd like yours to look like. If you have all the information, then really you want design led over a professional investment deck building team.
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Chris D.
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Gamma.app
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Laura I.
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Thanks all!! I'll check out your suggested tools/ platforms. Great idea Ross D. I'll take a look on Fiver for a designer to specifically build our pitch deck templates.
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