About this design
Where the Economist Style style comes from, and what it signals.
Economist Style rebuilds chart conventions The Economist has printed for decades and describes in its public chart style guide. A thin red rule carries a small red rectangle at its left end. A short title with a pun sits over a subtitle that names the measure, and the y-axis moves to the right so the latest value sits next to its number. It is an unofficial homage built from those visible conventions, with no affiliation, license or endorsement from The Economist Group.
Colors follow the published guide: white #ffffff with #0d0d0d type, the main series in blue #006ba2, supporting series in cyan #3ebcd2, green #379a8b and yellow #ebb434, and gridlines in #b7c6cf. Red #e3120b marks the tag, the section name and at most one bar, the one the story is about. Fira Sans, a descendant of Erik Spiekermann's FF Meta, sets chart text and sits close to the magazine's humanist sans. Argument slides switch to Merriweather for two short paragraphs, the way a leader reads.
Use it for an audience that reads charts for a living and distrusts decoration: market commentary, investment committee briefings, economics lectures, policy papers turned into slides. The signature slide is a line chart with the axis on the right and a label beside each line. You get one clean exhibit where most decks need a legend, a boxed grid and a paragraph.
Use it for
- Market commentary and macro outlooks built around a few strong charts
- Investment committee briefings where each exhibit needs a source line
- Economics lectures and policy seminars that pair a chart with an argument
- Research teams turning a written report into a chart-led deck
- Weekly or monthly briefings that summarize three to five data points
Skip it for
- Consulting readouts that need full-sentence action titles and 2x2 frameworks; McKinsey Style or Bain Style fit that register
- Formal company results with five-year tables and a CEO letter; Annual Report covers that
- Talks with one idea per slide and almost no data; TED Style or Keynote Minimal suit big statements
The presentation design prompt
This is the exact text that gets sent to your AI.
Create a presentation in the 'Economist Style' theme, an unofficial homage to the chart and leader conventions of the weekly news magazine. Background: white (#ffffff) on every slide, no full-bleed color. Typography: 'Fira Sans' (Google Fonts) for titles, chart titles, axis and data labels; 'Merriweather' 400 for argument prose at 14 to 16px with line-height 1.7. The signature: every chart and the cover carry a 1px red (#e3120b) rule across the full width of the panel with a solid red rectangle, 40px wide and 10px tall, hanging from its left end. Under it: a short, witty chart title in Fira Sans 700 at 20 to 24px in #0d0d0d (two to four words, such as 'Cooling off' or 'Priced out'), then a plain subtitle in Fira Sans 400 at 14px stating the measure and unit ('Consumer prices, % change on a year earlier'). Chart rules: horizontal gridlines only, 1px #b7c6cf, with a darker #0d0d0d baseline at zero; y-axis labels on the right, sitting just above their gridlines, no axis title; x-axis ticks as short dark marks with abbreviated years ('2021', '22', '23'). Series colors in order: #006ba2, #3ebcd2, #379a8b, #ebb434, at most four; the series that proves the point is #006ba2 and the heaviest stroke, the rest are thinner. Label series directly beside the lines in their own color, never in a legend box. Red #e3120b may mark one bar that is the subject of the story, nothing else in a chart. Ranked bar charts are horizontal, sorted, labelled on the left, with values at the bar ends. Every chart ends with an 11px 'Source:' line bottom-left in #595959. Slide types: a cover with a red section name at 14px, a 56 to 64px headline and a one-sentence rubric; chart slides with a 560 to 600px chart panel and a narrow commentary column opening with a bold Fira Sans lead line; leader slides with a red section name, a bold headline at 36 to 40px, a Fira Sans rubric at 17px and two short Merriweather paragraphs held to a 65-character measure; small multiples in a 2x2 grid sharing one color pair and one set of ticks, labelled only in the first panel; a weekly briefing of three rows, each a tiny chart beside a paragraph that opens with a bold phrase. Page numbers are 11px #595959 bottom-right; there is no footer bar. Strictly avoid: The Economist wordmark or its red masthead box with a name in it, claiming affiliation with The Economist Group, pie and donut charts, 3D, vertical gridlines on line or column charts, left-hand y-axes, legend boxes where direct labels fit, gradients, drop shadows, rounded cards, more than four series, rainbow palettes, red used as decoration, topic titles like 'Inflation overview', centered body text, bullet lists.
Use this theme for my slides. Ask me what the presentation is about first, then apply the theme to every slide.View this prompt and its data on GitHubHow to use this prompt
From copied text to a finished Economist Style deck in four moves.
- 01
Copy the prompt
Use the copy button, or open it pre-filled in Claude or ChatGPT with one click from the panel on this page.
- 02
Tell the AI your topic
The prompt instructs the AI to ask what your presentation is about first. A sentence or a pasted outline is enough.
- 03
Generate and iterate
Ask for more slides or swap a layout. The avoid list at the end of the prompt keeps Economist Style on-style while the content changes.
- 04
Or skip straight to a deck
SlideSpeak turns your topic or document into a finished Economist Style presentation, exportable as PowerPoint or PDF.
Common questions
Working with the Economist Style presentation design prompt in practice.
