What’s inside

One SKILL.md (the playbook) + one starter template. A preview:

Pastel Cutout Deck

When to use

• A pitch, lesson, or team update that should feel warm and human, not corporate
• A talk for a creative, education, nonprofit, or community audience where a standard template reads as cold
• You have a deck full of bullet walls and need to rebuild it as one idea per slide
• A keynote or workshop deck where the slides are a backdrop, not the script
• You need a repeatable deck style: same cut-paper system, new content each time

Workflow

1. Reduce to one idea per slide (input: raw content → output: slide outline)
   Turn the source material into an outline of 8–15 slides, each with a single sentence stating its one idea. A slide that needs two sentences is two slides. Order the outline as a story — problem, tension, turn, resolution — not as a table of contents. Cut anything that does not move the story: if a fact is nice but not necessary, it goes in the speaker notes or the handout, not on a slide. The outline is the deck; everything after this step is dressing.
2. Set the cut-paper system (input: slide outline → output: style sheet)
   Define a small system and write it down: a palette of 4–5 pastels (soft pink, mint, butter, sky, lilac) plus ink for text, all on a warm off-white ground; two typefaces (a bold display face for the one idea, a plain sans for the small supporting line); and the cut-paper rules — shapes look cut, not drawn (slightly irregular edges, visible layering, a soft offset shadow as if one paper layer sits above another), no gradients, no stock-photo rectangles. Specify the shapes' vocabulary: blobs, torn strips, circles, and arcs. Every slide is built from this vocabulary and nothing else.
3. Build the slide patterns (input: style sheet → output: 4–5 slide patterns)
   Design a handful of reusable patterns before building the deck: the title slide (big idea + one large layered shape), the statement slide (one sentence, huge, with a single accent shape), the comparison slide (two pastel panels side by side), the list slide (three torn strips, one idea each, no bullets), and the number slide (one giant figure + one supporting line). Build each pattern once, then every content slide is an instance of a pattern. This is what keeps a 15-slide deck visually consistent — and what makes the next deck fast.

Template preview

Pastel Cutout Deck — Template

One idea per slide. Fill in the outline before touching any shapes.

Slide outline (8–15 slides, story order)

Cut to notes/handout: {facts that are nice but not necessary}

Style sheet

• Pastels (4–5): {soft pink} · {mint} · {butter} · {sky} · {lilac}
• Ground: {warm off-white}
• Ink: {hex, for all text}
• Display type: {bold display face — the one idea}
• Body type: {plain sans — the supporting line}
• Cut-paper rules: slightly irregular edges · visible layering · soft offset shadow · no gradients · no stock-photo rectangles
• Shape vocabulary: blobs · torn strips · circles · arcs — nothing else

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