Design

Make the Number Do the Talking

Infographics, decks and reports where the structure of the argument is fixed before the styling starts — so complex material is understood, not just admired.

  • Narrative structured first
  • Charts that don't distort
  • Editable templates handed over
  • Print and screen ready

Is this you?

Four Signs Your Material Isn't Landing

The content is usually right. What's missing is a structure that makes the point survive a skim.

  • Your deck gets you the meeting but not the decision

    People sit through it politely and can't repeat the argument afterwards, so nothing moves.

  • You have good data nobody engages with

    Research and results sitting in spreadsheets and PDFs that get downloaded, opened once and closed.

  • Every slide is a wall of bullets

    The audience is reading instead of listening, and the presenter is competing with their own slides.

  • Your charts are whatever the spreadsheet produced

    Default colours, unlabelled axes, three legends — technically accurate, practically unreadable.

Overview

Structure First, Then Design

The work that makes complex material legible is editorial before it's visual.

Most decks and infographics fail for the same reason: they were styled rather than structured. Somebody put the content into a template and made it look tidy, without first deciding what the argument is, what order it has to be made in, and which single point each page or slide exists to deliver. Design can't rescue material that hasn't been through that.

So we start editorially. What is the claim, what evidence carries it, what does the audience already believe, and what do they have to accept first for the rest to work? Out of that comes a narrative structure — for a pitch deck, the sequence investors actually need; for an infographic, one governing idea rather than eleven competing facts; for a report, a hierarchy that lets someone take the finding from a two-minute skim.

Then it gets designed, and the data gets treated honestly. Chart types chosen for the comparison being made rather than for novelty, axes that start where they should, labels that remove the need for a legend, and colour used to carry meaning rather than decoration. What you get back is the finished artefact plus, in most cases, an editable template — so the next quarter's version doesn't come back to us.

Capabilities

What's Included

Nine areas of information design. Most engagements use two or three of them properly.

  • Statistical Infographics

    Research, survey and performance data turned into a single visual argument, sized for the channels it actually has to travel through.

  • Process & Timeline Graphics

    Workflows, methodologies, roadmaps and histories drawn so the sequence and the dependencies are obvious at a glance.

  • Comparison & Decision Graphics

    Option comparisons and buyer's-guide visuals that help an audience choose, structured so they don't have to hold four things in their head.

  • Data Visualisation & Chart Design

    Chart types selected for the comparison being made, with honest axes and labelling — including custom forms where a standard chart won't carry it.

  • Investor Pitch Decks

    The narrative investors expect — problem, insight, model, traction, ask — structured and designed to survive being read without you in the room.

  • Sales & Capability Decks

    Pitch and capability material built as a modular system, so a team can assemble a tailored deck without redesigning it each time.

  • Report & Whitepaper Layout

    Long-form research and annual reports laid out with a hierarchy that lets a skimmer and a close reader both get what they came for.

  • Presentation Templates

    Master templates in PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote or Figma with real layouts and chart styles — not three slides and a colour swatch.

  • Interactive & Animated Graphics

    Scroll-driven and animated data stories for web, plus animated chart builds for presentations that reveal a point in stages.

Deliverables

What You Receive

  • Narrative structure and content outline agreed before design begins
  • Final designed artefact — deck, infographic or report
  • Editable source files — you own everything we make
  • Editable template in PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote or Figma
  • Chart style library with correct colour and labelling conventions
  • Print-ready PDF with bleed and correct colour profile where relevant
  • Web and social exports at the right dimensions and file weights
  • Presenter notes or usage guidance where the deck will be delivered live

Stack

Tools We Work In

Including the presentation tools your team already uses, so the template is one they can genuinely maintain.

Design

  • Figma
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe InDesign

Presentation

  • PowerPoint
  • Google Slides
  • Keynote
  • Pitch

Data & Charting

  • D3.js
  • Flourish
  • Datawrapper
  • Excel

Motion & Web

  • After Effects
  • Lottie
  • GSAP

Our Process

How We Build the Story

Six phases. Nothing gets styled until the argument is agreed.

  • 01

    Content & Audience Review

    We work through the material and the data, establish who the audience is and what they already believe, and identify the point that has to land.

    Deliverables: Content review, audience definition, key message

    2–4 days
  • 02

    Narrative Structure

    The argument sequenced and reduced to one idea per page or slide, agreed in outline form before any design happens — this is where most of the value is created.

    Deliverables: Narrative outline, page or slide-by-slide structure

    3–5 days
  • 03

    Data Interrogation & Chart Selection

    Figures checked and prepared, then chart forms chosen for the comparison each one is actually making — and anything that would mislead is flagged rather than styled around.

    Deliverables: Prepared data, chart selection rationale, data queries

    2–5 days
  • 04

    Design Development

    The structure brought to full visual design in your brand, with type hierarchy, chart styling and colour rules established once and applied consistently throughout.

    Deliverables: Designed pages or slides, chart style library

    1–2 weeks
  • 05

    Review & Refinement

    Structured revision rounds with consolidated feedback, plus a rehearsal read where the material will be presented live rather than only read.

    Deliverables: Revised designs, feedback log, presenter notes

    3–5 days
  • 06

    Production & Template Handover

    Final files produced for each destination, and the editable template set up and walked through so the next version is made in-house.

    Deliverables: Final files, editable template, handover session

    2–4 days

Engagement

How We Work Together

Three shapes, depending on whether this is one artefact, a system or a standing need.

  • One deck, infographic or report designed end to end at a fixed price. Best for a raise, a launch or a specific piece of research.

Fit

Who This Is For

And, just as usefully, who it isn't for.

Ideal for

  • Founders raising and needing a deck that works without them present
  • Sales teams pitching from material that undersells the offer
  • Research and consulting firms publishing reports they want read
  • B2B marketers using data as the substance of their content programme
  • Organisations with a standing need for on-brand decks across many teams
  • Anyone with genuinely complex material that keeps being misunderstood

Not the right fit if

  • You need campaign graphics, collateral or print rather than data storytelling — that's Creative Design
  • You need a live analytics dashboard inside a product — see User Interface and Experience Design
  • You need the content researched and written from scratch — Strategic Content Marketing owns that
  • The underlying claim isn't supported by the data — we'll tell you rather than design around it

Why DM Solutions

What You Get Beyond the Slides

Four commitments aimed at whether the point actually lands.

  • We Fix the Argument First

    The narrative is structured and signed off before anything is styled. A well-designed deck making a muddled case is still a muddled case.

  • Charts That Don't Mislead

    Truncated axes, mismatched scales and chart types that flatter a number get flagged, not applied. Credibility is the whole point of showing data.

  • One Idea Per Page

    Each page or slide earns its place by delivering a single point. It's the discipline that turns a document people skim into one they remember.

  • Templates, Not Dependency

    Real editable masters in the tool your team uses, with working chart styles — so next quarter's version doesn't need a new project.

Proof of work

Material That Changed the Answer

Decks and reports where the audience acted rather than admired.

Testimonials

What Clients Say About Working With Us

  • The rebrand and UI overhaul completely changed how customers perceive us. We went from looking like a scrappy startup to a company enterprise buyers take seriously — without losing our personality.

    Kwame Asante

    Founder, Beacon Analytics

  • They didn't just hand us pretty mockups — they built a design system our whole team can run with. New screens that took weeks now ship in days, and everything finally looks like one product.

    Marcus Bell

    Head of Product, Northwind SaaS

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

The six that come up before every deck or report.

  • We do the structural and editorial work — sequencing the argument, cutting what doesn't serve it, and rewriting headlines so each page makes a single point. What we don't do is originate the substance: the data, the claims and the underlying material come from you. If you need the content researched and written from scratch, that's a content marketing engagement and we'll say so.

Ready to Make Your Numbers Land?

Send us the material and tell us who has to act on it. We'll come back with a structure, a timeline and a fixed-price proposal.

Detailed proposal within 48 hours. No commitment required.