About this design
Where the Seminar style comes from, and what it signals.
Seminar takes the visual grammar of LaTeX Beamer and rebuilds it for a modern screen. Beamer became the default for academic talks not because anyone loved it, but because it imposed a consistent structure: a persistent header, numbered lecture sections, and color-coded theorem environments. Seminar keeps all three while replacing Computer Modern with Source Serif 4, which holds up at the resolutions academic venues actually use.
The persistent header bar is navy #1C3F6E, carrying the lecture title and institution name in small white text. Below it, Source Serif 4 does everything: semibold headings in the same navy, body text in near-black #2B2B2B, and three theorem box types, each with a 4px left border and a small-caps label. Definition runs blue on #E8EEF7; Example runs green #2F7D4F on #E5F2EA; Remark runs amber #B07D2B on #F8EFDD. A 180px footnote rule with 9px footnotes handles citations the way academic audiences expect.
Use Seminar for the kind of talk where the audience might look up your sources before the next slide appears: conference papers, doctoral defenses, graduate lectures, and technical tutorials where your credibility carries the room.
Use it for
- Graduate lectures and doctoral-level seminars
- Conference paper presentations with theorem-heavy content
- Technical tutorials that need explicit definition and example structure
- Postdoc and faculty job talks
Skip it for
- Executive briefings where the Beamer aesthetic reads as overly academic
- Creative or design-field talks where serif structure feels stiff
The slide design prompt
This is the exact text that gets sent to your AI.
Create a lecture deck in the 'Seminar' theme, an academic LaTeX Beamer style. Background: pure white #FFFFFF. Every slide carries a full-width navy #1C3F6E header bar about 40px tall, lecture title on the left and the institution name on the right in small white text. Typography: 'Source Serif 4' (a Google Font) for everything; body text in #2B2B2B at 13 to 16px; semibold headings in navy #1C3F6E. Signature motif: theorem boxes, light tinted panels with a 4px solid left border and a bold small-caps label. Blue #1C3F6E on #E8EEF7 for Definition, green #2F7D4F on #E5F2EA for Example, amber #B07D2B on #F8EFDD for Remark. Near the bottom of relevant slides, a thin 180px footnote rule with 9px 'Source Serif 4' footnotes, then a footer with the course code and lecture number left and the slide number right in #6B7280. Charts are flat navy bars on one hairline axis, the key bar in green. Strictly avoid: gradients, drop shadows, rounded corners, decorative icons, photography, sans-serif body text. 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 Seminar 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 Seminar on-style while the content changes.
- 04
Or skip straight to a deck
SlideSpeak turns your topic or document into a finished Seminar presentation, exportable as PowerPoint or PDF.
Common questions
Working with the Seminar slide design prompt in practice.
