About this design
Where the IBM Style style comes from, and what it signals.
IBM publishes its design system, Carbon, in the open, and it ships IBM Plex as a free font family. IBM Style turns that public toolkit into a deck. You get the 2x grid, the gray scale from #161616 to #f4f4f4, Blue 60 #0f62fe as the only accent, and components your audience already knows from IBM software. This is an unofficial homage with no affiliation to IBM.
The slides reuse Carbon components as they are. A program plan becomes a progress indicator, with a blue check for finished phases and a ring for the current one. A status list becomes a data table with a gray header row and colored pill tags. Risks sit in inline notifications, where a 3px left border in red, yellow, blue or green tells the reader how serious each one is. Charts use the Carbon categorical order: Purple 70, Cyan 50, Teal 70, Magenta 70.
Pick it for transformation readouts, enterprise software updates and any deck that goes to people who live in dashboards. The cover draws the 16 grid columns once, and each slide after that lines up with them.
Use it for
- Digital transformation and IT program readouts for a steering committee
- Enterprise software product updates and release reviews
- Consulting status decks that track workstreams, owners and blockers
- Risk and issue reviews where severity has to read at a glance
- Internal platform or data team reviews built on tables and charts
Skip it for
- A dark monitoring dashboard deck; Telemetry fits that screen better
- A startup fundraising pitch; Runway or Midnight Pitch give investors more room to breathe
- Strategy recommendations in the McKinsey register; McKinsey Style carries action titles with a lighter touch
The presentation design prompt
This is the exact text that gets sent to your AI.
Create a presentation in the 'IBM Style' theme, an unofficial homage to the public IBM Carbon design system. Background: white (#ffffff) on content slides; one closing or section slide may switch to the Gray 100 theme (#161616 background, #262626 tiles, #393939 dividers, white and #c6c6c6 text). Typography: 'IBM Plex Sans' (Google Fonts) for everything, weight 400 for headlines (54px on the cover, 28 to 32px on content slides), 400 to 600 for body at 13 to 18px; 'IBM Plex Mono' only for IDs, code and token names, never for labels or headings. Text colors: #161616 primary, #393939 body, #525252 secondary, #6f6f6f helper. Layout: the IBM 2x grid, 16 columns with a 32px margin; every block starts on a column line, text is left-aligned, and every corner is square except tags. On the cover, draw the 16 column lines in #e0e0e0 behind the content and put a small solid Blue 60 (#0f62fe) block top-left; below the title, a 4-column row of label/value pairs (Client, Prepared by, Date, Classification) under a 1px #161616 rule. Headlines are full-sentence takeaways. Blue 60 #0f62fe is the only interactive/accent color, with Blue 10 #edf5ff for info fills. Components to reuse: tiles (#f4f4f4 fill, no border, no shadow); a Carbon progress indicator for any real sequence (2px top bar, blue check for complete, blue ring for current, gray ring for upcoming); Carbon data tables (gray title bar with title and description, #e0e0e0 header row with 600 weight, 1px #e0e0e0 row rules, 44 to 48px rows, numbers right-aligned); pill tags for status (green #defbe6/#0e6027, blue #d0e2ff/#0043ce, red #fff1f1/#a2191f, gray #e0e0e0/#161616); inline notifications for risks (3px left border and round icon: error #da1e28 on #fff1f1, warning #f1c21b on #fcf4d6, info #0f62fe on #edf5ff, success #24a148 on #defbe6). Charts follow the Carbon categorical order: Purple 70 #6929c4, Cyan 50 #1192e8, Teal 70 #005d5d, Magenta 70 #9f1853; square legend swatches above the plot, #e0e0e0 horizontal gridlines, 12px #525252 axis labels, value labels on bars, a source line in 11px #6f6f6f. Footer: a 1px #e0e0e0 rule, the deck name bottom-left and the page number bottom-right in 11px #6f6f6f. Strictly avoid: the IBM logo or eight-bar mark, claiming affiliation with IBM, rounded cards, drop shadows, gradients, stock photos, emoji, icons in every block, centered body text, more than four chart series, bold headlines at 700, monospace headings, and decoration that is not a Carbon component. 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 GitHub
How to use this prompt
From copied text to a finished IBM 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 IBM Style on-style while the content changes.
- 04
Or skip straight to a deck
SlideSpeak turns your topic or document into a finished IBM Style presentation, exportable as PowerPoint or PDF.
Common questions
Working with the IBM Style presentation design prompt in practice.
