A 45-slide presentation, three days, and a moving target
PCI called a few days before its August 2026 Quarterly Business Meeting. There was already a Canva presentation in progress, but the content was still coming in. Drew Clancy, PCI’s President and CEO, described the job as “almost data entry.” If I could “jazz it up a little bit,” that would be fabulous.
I knew Drew well enough to hear the opening in that request. We’d worked together for three years, and I understood what he wanted these meetings to feel like. But first, PCI needed a complete presentation. There was no point creating a beautiful slide if the information it needed was still sitting in an email.
I entered content as it arrived, then used the time left to improve the design. By the end, the 45-slide deck had gone quite a bit further than “jazz it up a little bit.”
Project Snapshot
Company: Publishing Concepts (PCI)
Project: August 2026 Quarterly Business Meeting
Role: Freelance presentation designer and creative production partner
Scope: 45-slide presentation for all PCI Associates
Schedule: Three days; approximately 14 hours of work
Tools: Canva, Illustrator, After Effects, and AI-assisted image development
Delivery: Editable deck completed and presented in PCI’s Canva space
Getting the essentials in place
The deck was already built when I received it, and I hadn’t designed that version. It did reuse a few elements I’d created during my years at PCI. The material covered company updates and employee recognition, with more details still being finalized.
There was another small wrinkle: this was my first full presentation in Canva. I’d used it for flyers and social graphics, but not a 45-slide meeting deck. Fortunately, presentation design wasn’t new to me. I learned my way around Canva while the actual work kept moving.
I started with the required content. As Drew sent names, photographs, and corrections, I put them into the deck. That gave us a usable foundation even if the design improvements had to stop when the clock ran out.
The Values Awards section was the first one complete enough to work on. I adjusted the layout, cleaned up the type, added a little motion, and showed Drew. It was a quick way to demonstrate what was possible without holding up the essential work.
Two days later, Drew sent an updated long-range vision and asked about animating it in the style of a purpose sequence I’d made previously. He expected to use the new piece “again and again.” That was a good reason to build it for reuse, even with the deadline so close.
A presentation should have somewhere to breathe
PCI’s Quarterly Business Meetings weren’t meant to feel like quiet corporate reports. They were events. The presentation needed that sense of energy, particularly when celebrating Associates, but 45 slides of competing visuals would be exhausting.
I gave the title and transition slides room to be bold. When a slide needed to communicate business information, I pulled the design back. Section openers helped create a rhythm through the meeting, so it didn’t feel like one long stream of unrelated slides.
One of the recurring problems was that dramatic backgrounds looked terrific until someone needed to put text on them. I created related versions with more open space, rather than forcing the information to fight the artwork.
Making recognition feel personal
Recognition was a big part of the meeting, and I wanted those slides to feel like a celebration of actual people, not just another name dropped into a template.
I created coordinated treatments for the different recognition levels. The highest level featured larger Associate portraits and slim plaque-style name treatments, giving the person the attention instead of burying them under decoration.
The source photos didn’t come in neatly matched sets. A professional headshot might sit next to a casual snapshot or a screenshot. I adjusted the framing and treatment to help the slides feel related without pretending all those photos were taken in the same studio.
One layout proved too rigid when the content changed. I separated the portrait frame and other design elements so they could be moved independently in Canva. That decision paid off when PCI added a revenue-earner recognition group late in production. The assets were flexible enough that I could make room for it without starting over.
Motion, AI, and the last-minute details
The deck included subtle animation for recognition and a larger animated treatment for the revised long-range vision. Since PCI planned to use that piece again, I built it as an asset the company could keep, rather than an effect that worked only in this meeting.
AI-assisted image development helped me explore visual directions quickly. It still took judgment and hands-on work to get useful assets out of those experiments. The generated options weren’t necessarily finished designs, and the deadline didn’t make them any more cooperative.
Companion case study: The Work Between “Generate” and “Finished” — [COMING SOON]
Meanwhile, new content kept arriving. There were replacement photographs, corrections to names, a revised drawing roster, and the added recognition group. I continued checking the deck for missing updates and awkward animation while keeping the presentation editable for PCI.
It’s not the part anyone applauds, but finding a wrong name or a forgotten slide before the meeting is one of the more useful things a presentation designer can do.
The finished presentation
I completed the 45-slide deck in approximately 14 hours. PCI presented it directly from Canva at the all-Associate Quarterly Business Meeting. I later made PDF and MP4 versions for my portfolio documentation.
I’d been brought in to get the information in place and make the presentation usable. We did that. I also had enough familiarity with the company—and enough room to make judgment calls—to give the meeting a more deliberate visual flow and reusable pieces for future updates.
Drew’s response was wonderfully uncomplicated:
“EVERYTHING LOOKS AMAZING!!”
— Drew Clancy, President & CEO, Publishing Concepts
