Flexible Artefact

Brain-dump first, structure later

On thinking in shapes

Most decks fail because the author tries to design the slide before knowing what it has to say. The shape comes second. The thought comes first, and the shape is whatever holds the thought without distorting it. A statistic deserves space to breathe; a comparison wants two columns; a sequence wants bullets. The author's job is to recognise the shape and pick the matching layout, not to invent a new container for every thought.

This is why a deck with too many layouts is exhausting. Each new container forces the audience to relearn how to read the slide. The fix is restraint: a small vocabulary of layouts, each one well-rehearsed, used consistently. The audience learns the grammar in the first three slides and spends the rest of the deck reading content rather than parsing form.

The same logic applies to writing. A paragraph is a layout. A bullet list is a layout. A heading is a layout. Choose the one that fits the thought, not the one that fills the space. When in doubt, the prose paragraph is almost always the safer bet, because it forces the author to commit to a sentence rather than hide behind a fragment.

Vertical scroll inside a slide is a small concession to reality. Sometimes a thought is longer than the viewport. Rather than splitting it across two slides — which fractures the argument — let the slide grow. The reader scrolls. The page does not. The deck remains a deck. The thought remains whole.

This particular slide exists to demonstrate that scroll. If you can read this paragraph without scrolling, your viewport is generous. If you had to scroll, the mechanism worked. Either way: the page itself stayed put. Try the arrow keys — you will move to the next slide, not down the page.

One last note. The reading width is capped at roughly 680 pixels. This is not arbitrary. Lines longer than 75 characters become tiring; lines shorter than 45 break the rhythm of prose. The cap keeps every paragraph in the comfortable middle, regardless of how wide the window happens to be.

Seven things, revealed slowly

The first point arrives quietly, almost as if by accident.
The second point gives the first one company and a frame.
The third point starts to suggest a pattern, but only a suggestion.
The fourth point is the one the author cares about most.
The fifth point softens the fourth — a counterweight, deliberately.
The sixth point is almost throwaway, but lands harder than expected.
The seventh point closes the loop and earns the silence after it.

73%

of audiences forget the supporting evidence within an hour, but remember a single number for weeks. Pick the number carefully.

Two sides of the same idea

Before

The deck was built layout-first. Every slide had to look interesting before it had anything to say. Authors spent hours on transitions, gradients, and decorative typography while the argument quietly fell apart underneath. The audience nodded politely and forgot everything by lunch.

After

The deck is built thought-first. Each slide is whatever shape the thought needs. Sometimes that's a paragraph. Sometimes it's a single number on a blank page. The visual restraint is not modesty — it is the same discipline that makes a good sentence: nothing extra, nothing missing.

Three paths from here

Inline SVG composed in place — no external assets, prints cleanly, scales to any window.

That's the kit

Eight slides, seven layouts. Replace the content; keep the shape.