Brand Guidelines / Applications
Deck Guidelines
Decks are the primary way Armada communicates externally. They are often the first thing a prospect, partner, or investor sees. These guidelines keep every deck cohesive and on brand — regardless of who built it.
Before you start
Use the template
Always start from the current Armada Deck Template. Never build from a blank slide or copy from a non-template file. The template is the only way to guarantee correct colors, fonts, guides, and footer formatting are in place from slide one.
Install the fonts
The deck requires the Armada Brand Fonts Pack: Helvetica Now Text, Helvetica Now Display, and IBM Plex Mono. Contact Growth to get the pack if you don't have it. Do not substitute with system fonts — they will break the layout and look wrong.
Use the desktop app
Always work in the PowerPoint desktop application, not PowerPoint in a browser. The web version has limited functionality, unpredictable font rendering, and does not reliably reproduce custom typefaces or precise element positioning. What looks right in the browser may look broken when opened on someone else's machine.
Common mistakes
visual example
Enable guides and keep all content inside the defined areas. The template's 3-column system exists for a reason — use it.
Mac: ^ ⌥ ⌘ G · Windows: Alt + F9
Or: right-click on slide → Grid and Guides → Show Drawing Guides
visual example
Don't ignore content boundaries. Content outside the guide areas breaks the layout and can get cut at different screen ratios. Titles must not extend past the right guide.
visual example
Use only the six preset palette colors: Black, White, Light gray, Dark gray, Armada Blue, Dark blue. All are preloaded in the template — if you're opening a color picker, stop.
visual example
Don't use off-brand colors — even "close" blues or grays. One slide with the wrong shade pulls the whole deck off brand. Inconsistency compounds.
visual example
Use Armada Blue for arrows, highlights, and key callouts. It should appear once or twice per slide — where it means something.
visual example
Don't flood slides with blue. When it fills backgrounds, large shapes, or text blocks it becomes noise, not emphasis — and the brand looks washed out.
Use emphasis sparingly — one bolded term per slide at most, only when it genuinely changes how a sentence is read. If everything is bold, nothing is.
Don't bold, italicize, and underline throughout body copy. Stacking emphasis across a slide reads as noise, not priority. It's the most common sign that a deck was thrown together.
AI usage
Using AI in decks
AI tools can be used to draft copy, structure content, and speed up production. There are also specific things AI should never be used for — including generating or modifying the logo and galleon imagery. See the
AI Brand Policy for the full guidelines.
Working with the brand team
Build it yourself
Teams are expected to build their own decks, one-pagers, and whitepapers using the supplied templates. The templates exist precisely so you can do this without needing us involved from the start.
Final design pass
Once you've done a full pass, we're happy to review and apply any final design touches. Bring us a complete draft — not a starting point.
High-impact exceptions
For assets that are high-visibility or high-stakes, Growth can create from scratch. Talk to Taylor or Alex first to discuss whether it qualifies.
AI-built decks
We won't review or polish decks built from scratch with AI. If AI was used to help draft content or structure within the template, that's fine — but a deck that bypasses the template entirely is not something we'll finish for you.