open-kimi-ppt-skill/skills/open-kimi-ppt/reference/design_system/consulting/apricot-white-brief/design.md

Apricot White Brief · Consulting STYLE DESIGN SYSTEM

Create at Full Strength: Bring your full creativity and imagination to the work. Treat every slide as an independent, complete design artifact worthy of close consideration. Structure, composition, charts, imagery, and visual storytelling must all be driven by the content; do not default to preset layouts.

No AI Slop: Do not produce low-judgment, templated, decoration-heavy AI defaults, including unjustified card arrays, evenly divided grids, arbitrary blue-purple gradients or glassmorphism, icon walls, empty oversized text, repetitive skeletons, or visual gimmicks unrelated to the content. Every slide must reflect a clear design decision grounded in the content.

Landscape Delivery: The final presentation must use a consistent 16:9 landscape format. Portrait or non-16:9 source material may be used only as a style reference; it must be recomposed for 16:9 landscape and must not retain the original canvas ratio.

Layout Coordination: style.md is the final authority on style (typography/color palette/components/chart language/prohibited elements); the “Layout/Visual Task” line for each slide in query.md governs that slide’s content structure, primary anchor, and reading order. Both are execution requirements: follow the task line in query.md for layout intent, and style.md for the final visual treatment.

Global Prohibitions

1. Do Not Use Cards by Default: Unless the user explicitly requests them, never use rounded rectangles or rectangular cards to create hierarchy or alignment. Functional containers such as status indicators, assumption boxes, and quotation frames are not considered cards. Lines, whitespace, type size, and weight differences are preferred.
2. Do Not Use Evenly Divided Compositions: Unless no viable alternative exists, do not default to three equal columns, four equal columns, or a 2×2 grid. Equal division must be justified by the content structure (three scenarios naturally support three columns; frameworks explicitly named in the content are exempt).
3. Do Not Use Arbitrary AI Color Schemes: Institution-specific palettes named in the content are exempt. What is prohibited is any generic, familiar, or ungrounded default palette, including blue-purple gradients, cyan-purple neon, rainbow flares, glass cards, and glowing borders.
4. Do Not Introduce Elements That Conflict with the Overall Style: Never use styles outside the system—for example, rounded icons or rounded rectangles within a sharp-edged visual language.
5. Keep Chart Backgrounds Transparent: Use transparency or the page background, except for reversed charts on dark backgrounds.
6. Use Large Areas of Whitespace Carefully: Maintain appropriate density in the body area. Diluting sparse content into an artificially crowded slide is a defect. Whitespace used for breathing room, grouping, and rhythm is permitted; form must follow content, and nothing should be forced in merely to fill space.

PART A — Category Baseline (General Minimum Standard)

A professional, high-density consulting presentation benchmarked against top-tier strategy firms (McKinsey/BCG), with the sensibility of premium editorial publishing.

Content and layout:

1. Rich data visualization: slides are filled with complex, precise charts (stacked columns, waterfalls, and line charts) and detailed data tables with complete rows and columns.
2. Structured frameworks: include strategy maps or 2×2 matrices constructed with fine, crisp lines.
3. High information density: use complex, multi-column layouts that resemble real business-analysis presentations rather than cover slides dominated by whitespace.

Visual style:

1. Aesthetic: balance a technology-forward sensibility with substantial information density. Clean, clear, and authoritative.
2. Typography: use a bold sans serif for primary titles; chart labels and numerical data use the same sans family.
3. Color: pure white background and pure black text; use deep royal blue for charts and graphic elements, with varying gray values to establish hierarchy.
4. Graphics: use fine borders for tables and precise vector lines for charts.

Structure and discipline (distilled from work we consider exemplary):

1. Every body slide title must be a complete assertion—a conclusion sentence—with a one-line scope/methodology subtitle beneath it explaining what the slide covers and how to read it.
2. Every body slide includes a chapter breadcrumb/tab bar with the current chapter highlighted, so any individual slide can be located within the narrative.
3. Use one named analytical framework per slide, never a loose collage: a pressure-convergence bar, a phased timeline with a TODAY marker and stage gates, a three-scenario table (conservative/base/accelerated), a Five Forces diagram, a heat table, a difficulty × impact 2×2 with an observation zone, a three-stage upstream/midstream/downstream value chain, or a multidimensional profile matrix—select the framework according to the content.
4. Present parallel evidence in 2–3 equal-width columns. Number independent judgments (1/2/3), each with a bold assertion line and one concise explanation.
5. Chart annotation discipline: place data labels on marks, add growth/level callouts (for example, “+42% p.a.”), include a TODAY marker, use dashed lines for forecasts, and pair uncertainty with named observable indicators. Never rely on the legend alone to explain a chart.
6. Close most slides with a synthesis strip at the bottom (“How to read this slide” / “Profile interpretation” / a one-sentence so-what) that converts the evidence above into a single takeaway.
7. Fixed three-part page furniture: source/footnote line at bottom left and page number at bottom right. Never omit these elements or use them decoratively. Generated decks must never include watermarks, confidentiality statements/stamps, copyright lines, or logo placeholders.
8. Open with a one-slide executive summary and a numbered, paginated table of contents. Close with numbered conclusions (claims, not summaries) and a implications slide organized by reader type (for example, policymakers/operators/buyers), with each column ending in an action.
9. Every number must include its unit, time range, and basis of calculation. Express uncertainty through monitorable indicators, not hedging language.

Default baseline (distilled from the layout skill; PART B may override): body slides use high-density, multi-column layouts and contain at least one complex chart or one multi-row, multi-column data table. Never use “one oversized sentence + vast whitespace” as a body slide. Build framework diagrams (strategy maps/2×2 matrices/driver trees) with fine, crisp vector lines rather than stacked color blocks. Use fine table borders without heavy fills, and limit the primary hues on any slide to ≤2.

Priority note: This section defines the minimum baseline for consulting use cases. Where it conflicts with the signature system below (PART B), the signature system takes precedence—especially for backgrounds, color, and typography. The typography and color requirements above apply as defaults only where the signature system is silent.

PART B — Signature System (Distinctive Signature of This Template; Overrides PART A in Case of Conflict)

One-sentence style signature: the restrained authority of an editorial report on white paper, with black serif body text carrying long-form content, vivid red marking judgments and focal points, and charts rendered primarily in grayscale—high in information density, yet disciplined in its use of whitespace.

【Color Palette】

Background #FFFFFF: pure white across the full slide, with no separate fills behind charts or body text; primary text #000000: body copy, main titles, and axis text, covering the vast majority of the text area; titles #000000: keep chapter/article titles black, while changing contents/figure numbers and occasional chapter cues to #CC0000; primary accent #CC0000: use only for figure numbers, chapter cues, pull quotes, and fine rules, limited to small areas of text and lines—never as a full-slide fill; secondary #231F20: subtitles, chart notes, and secondary labels, softening the black text; chart series colors use #CC2027 for the focal series, #F16667 for the lighter tier, and #991B1E for the darker tier, while #D1D3D4, #99999A, #808285, and #58595B represent background/historical/secondary series in grayscale. Apply these colors only to bars, ranges, or marks. When a third series is occasionally required, select one set from blue-grays #506E86, #748B9E, #95A6B5 or magenta-reds #B86E9B, #A33D7A, #891D5A. Positive/negative colors: the source does not establish stable dedicated colors; retain #231F20 for positive/negative signs and the zero line, while #CC2027/#991B1E communicate series hierarchy only. By default, each slide should contain only black, gray, and one red focal set; never flood the slide with the accent color.

【Layout Skeleton】

Source facts: the canvas is 612×792, a 0.773:1 portrait format. On non-section pages, a centered running short title sits at the top, followed by a fine gray rule and the centered short report name; left and right body margins are approximately 12%, and the page number is always centered at the bottom. Chart pages begin with a red-and-black caption comprising a “figure number + complete judgment sentence,” followed by a bold chart subtitle, the visualization, and Notes/Source immediately beneath it. The default reading path is judgment sentence → chart → direct labels → methodology. Article-opening pages instead use photography across approximately the upper 1/3, with a white title panel overlapping the lower edge of the image; the title/subtitle/author and “Key Takeaways” are followed by body copy. The cover retains only a large photograph and the red report name below, without the body-page header. 16:9 migration: retain the pure white background, top running short title + fine rule, bottom-centered page number, red-and-black captions, and the “chart—methodology” sequence. Do not stretch the portrait single-column layout horizontally; recompose chart pages as two columns or a 60% primary chart + 40% explanation, and place two charts side by side where appropriate. On article-opening pages, recompose the photograph as a horizontal top band approximately 30–33% high, retain the white title panel overlapping its lower edge, and set long-form copy in two columns to preserve reading density. The final landscape format must be 16:9; do not treat the source portrait ratio as a prohibited characteristic.

【Typography】

Verified source fonts: the PDF embeds the serif TiemposText-Regular (body copy) and the sans-serif Graphik-Regular / Light / Medium / Semibold (titles, charts, and navigation). Body copy supports long-form reading. Section/article titles use Graphik Medium, clearly stronger than the body yet contained by the title panel. Section subtitles and subheads are only slightly stronger than the body. Red pull quotes and KPI numbers may become local focal points, while chart labels, secondary notes, footnotes, sources, and the running short title recede in that order. Use title case for section names and captions, and sentence case for body copy. Captions begin with a red figure number followed by a black complete judgment sentence. Retain units such as %, $, and B; write the first year on the x-axis in full, with later years optionally abbreviated. In 16:9 landscape, do not carry over the source's serif body: follow the reference output and use sans serif throughout (render with {latin: Liter, ea: MiSans}), preserving the weight relationships but not the source’s absolute type sizes or scaling ratios.

【Chart Language】

Observed in actual use: single- and multi-series column charts, stacked columns and 100% stacked columns, line charts, column-line combinations, quantile range/distribution charts, waterfall/driver decompositions, donut proportions, and side-by-side KPIs. No consistent standalone data-table treatment was observed; inherit table requirements from PART A. ⭐Fix the caption format as “red figure number + black complete judgment sentence,” followed by a bold metric name, and repeat this system throughout chart slides; ⭐use #CC2027/#F16667 for the focal period or series, push historical context into grayscale, and directly label line ends, bar tops, quantile points, and key deltas wherever possible rather than hiding meaning in a legend; ⭐a slide often links 2 vertically stacked charts into an evidence chain, with each chart retaining its own title and Notes/Source, and with modules separated by whitespace rather than cards; ⭐a waterfall or distribution chart may be paired with a percentage ring, zero line, or quantile marker to explain “contribution/range”; occasional use: a five-column oversized-number KPI strip, with red numbers above and black descriptions below.

【Signature Components】

Running header framework: on non-section pages, the top contains only one centered short title, one fine gray rule, and the short report name; the footer contains only one centered page number. Caption lead-in: each chart module may use no more than one red figure number, followed by a black assertion sentence; do not repeat an oversized title inside the chart. Pull-quote block: approximately 8 narrative pages use a prominent red, left-aligned statement with one fine light-red #F16667 rule above and below, appearing only once at a turn in the narrative. Takeaway triangle marker: on section-opening pages, each “Key Takeaways” item begins with a small red triangle, typically 3 items; do not carry this device into standard data slides. Photography is a hard constraint: the cover and 6 section-opening pages use landscape photography; on section pages, the image occupies approximately the upper 1/3 and a white title panel overlaps its lower edge, while the cover photograph is inset with whitespace. On chart and long-form pages, never substitute photography for evidence or allow it to overlap body copy. A side-by-side KPI strip may be used occasionally, but it is not a fixed component on every slide.

【Prohibited】

On body/chart slides, do not use full-bleed photography, text over photography, or full-image backgrounds; photography belongs only on the cover and section-opening pages. Do not use centered long-form quotations or black poster-style declarations. For emphasis, use left-aligned red text with two fine rules above and below, while retaining the surrounding context. Use multiple groups of colored series, gradients, and glow effects sparingly in charts. The source prioritizes grayscale comparison with a single red focal color; enable a third color group only when the data truly contains a third dimension.

【Slide Types and Layouts】

Photographic section opener｜Best for a section thesis or case introduction｜Photograph across the upper 30–33%, with a white title panel overlapping the lower edge; subtitle, author, 3 takeaway items, and 3–4 body paragraphs below｜Approximately 8–10 independent blocks｜Photographic title panel, red-triangle takeaways｜Not suitable for dense charts. Multi-chart argument slide｜Best for multiple mutually reinforcing quantitative judgments｜Caption occupies approximately the top 12%; the remainder contains 2 vertically stacked chart areas, each approximately 35–40%, with Notes/Source beneath each chart｜2–5 chart modules｜Red number + black sentence, direct labels, gray-and-red series｜Not suitable for long explanations. Chart + narrative slide｜Best for one primary piece of evidence leading into explanation｜Chart occupies approximately the upper 35–45%; the lower 45–55% contains 3–5 paragraphs of serif body copy｜1 primary chart + 4–6 paragraphs｜Caption and methodology block｜Not suitable for laying out multiple independent conclusions. Long-form narrative slide｜Best for mechanisms, context, and case walkthroughs｜Single-column body copy approximately 76% wide, with an optional red pull quote inserted mid-page｜5–8 paragraph blocks｜Running header, fine rules around the pull quote｜Not suitable for displaying a single isolated number. KPI statistics strip (occasional)｜Best for rapid horizontal comparison｜5 metrics across the top, with 3 explanatory paragraphs below｜7–8 independent blocks｜Oversized red numbers, short underlines｜Not suitable for complex causal relationships.

【Density Baseline】

Source chart pages typically contain 2–5 chart panels. Each panel includes 1 red-and-black judgment sentence, 1 bold metric name, several direct numerical labels, and 1 small Notes/Source block. Label bar tops, line ends, and key quantile points individually wherever possible. Explanatory copy typically comprises 0–2 blocks, each approximately 50–180 characters or an equivalent amount of text. Long-form pages usually contain 5–8 paragraphs of approximately 2–6 lines each; pull-quote pages insert 1 red judgment block of roughly three lines between body paragraphs. Section-opening pages consistently contain 3 takeaway items + 3–4 body paragraphs; occasional KPI pages contain 7–8 short metric blocks plus 3 explanatory paragraphs below. Whitespace should appear primarily between the header and the first chart, between vertically stacked charts, between charts and Notes/Source, and around the footer. It must not create large, contentless holes in the center of the body area. When generating new material, fill these evidence modules first, then use spacing between modules to control breathing room.