Making beautiful slides for your talks, part 7: Resources and tools list
I’ve already included various links to resources and tools in the previous parts of this blog post series, but I thought it could be helpful to collect them all in one big list. This is my ultimate collection of everything you need to take your slides to the next level, from fonts and image assets to presentation tools and graphic design programs.
- 🎨 Part 1: Design tips for beginners
- ✨ Part 2: All about aesthetics
- 🛠️ Part 3: Technical content
- 🧩 Part 4: Design elements
- 💌 Part 5: Sharing your presentations
- 💜 Part 6: Community showcase
- 📚 Part 7: Resources and tools list
If you work for a larger organization, check with your design team if they already have accounts or subscriptions with any tools and services that you could get in on. I’ve heard from people who were surprised how much their company had already set up. (In general, cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration is great and there might be a lot you can learn from you design colleagues!)
Resources
This is a collection of sites that provide downloadable resources to design your slides. Always keep an eye on the licensing terms and check whether you’re required to attribute the creator. Many sites listed here offer paid plans that include unlimited usage and licensing, which I recommend. Any resources I personally use at the moment are marked with an asterisk .
✍️ Fonts
| Google Fonts | free |
| Dafont | free (note licenses) |
| Font Squirrel | free (note licenses) |
| Fontesk | free (note licenses) |
| Creative Market | $ - $$ |
| Pixelbuddha | from $10/mo. |
| MyFonts | $ - $$$ |
| Adobe Fonts | with Creative Cloud ($69.99/mo.) |
| Fontstore | $$ - $$$ |
| Fontspring | $ - $$$ |
| Etsy | $ |
| individual type foundries | $ - $$$ |
🏭 Type foundries
These are individual and often independent companies that specialize in designing fonts. You can usually purchase their fonts directly from their website, and they’re often also available on marketplaces like the ones listed above. Most type foundries also offer free trial versions so you can test a font before you commit.
Grilli Type · Klim · Tantype · TOMO Fonts · Production Type · Frere Jones · Ludwig Type · Dinamo · House Industries · OH no Type · Hot Type · Superior Type · Setup Type · Suitcase Type · Playtype · b•v-h type · R-Typography · Future Fonts · Type Department · Collletttivo · Type Supply · Mass-Driver · Kontour · Original Type · Type-Ø-Tones · Blackletra · Typotheque · TypeTogether · Just Another Foundry · Pampa Type · Barnbrook · Contrast Foundry · Felicano Type · Nouvelle Noire · Signal
🖼️ Design assets
These sites all offer a large selection of design assets and elements, including illustrations, vectors, textures, patterns, mockups, icons, fonts and more, as well as previews and example designs you can take inspiration from. When browsing the catalogs, make sure to exclude AI-generated content.
| Freepik | from €10/mo. | Graphics and fonts |
| Creative Market | $ - $$ | Graphics and fonts |
| Pixelbuddha | from $10/mo. | Graphics and fonts |
| Craftwork | from $16/mo. | Graphics and fonts |
| Envato | from €14.50/mo. | Graphics and fonts |
| Vecteezy | €13.99/mo. | Graphics and stock photos |
| Adobe Stock | $ - $$$ or €79.99/mo. | Stock photos and illustrations |
| Unsplash | free - €13/mo. | Stock photos and illustrations |
😀 Icons
| The Noun Project | free - $3.33/mo. | Icons for pretty much anything |
| Font Awesome | free - from $75/yr. | Large icon collection and icon font |
| Flaticon | free - €9.99/mo. | Large icon collection |
| Lucide | free | Minimalist SVG icon collection |
| Emojipedia | free (note licenses) | Catalog of emoji in different styles |
| OpenMoji | free | Large emoji icon collection |
🎨 Colors
| Coolors | free | Color palette generator and visualizer |
| Color Hunt | free | Color palette library and generator |
| uiGradients | free | Color gradients |
| GradientHunt | free | Color gradients |
| Color Safe | free | Accessible web color generator |
| Venngage | free | Accessible color palette generator |
| RampenSau | free | Color ramp generator |
✅ Other
| Carbon | free | Code screenshots with syntax highlighting |
| QR Code Monkey | free | Custom QR codes for links |
| QR Code AI Art | free | Custom QR codes based on images |
✨ Design inspiration
These are sites that collect high-quality designs from across the word and web. While many of them focus on UI and web design, they can still be very useful to get ideas for how to implement your slide design aesthetic.
Dribbble · Behance · Awwwards · It’s Nice That · Artvee · Typewolf · Fonts In Use · Codrops · Siteinspire · Designspiration · DoingCoolStuff · Httpster · Visual Journal · typo/graphic posters · Typespiration · Mindsparkle Mag · Design Dispatch · Prettyfolio · Admire The Web · Craftwork Curated Inspiration · Footer · 99designs · Design Spells · THE INDEX · Evernote.Design · Awesome Inspiration
Tools
This is a collection of downloadable or browser-based tools that help you create slides and designs. Any tools I personally use at the moment are marked with an asterisk .
💻 Slides
| Keynote | free with macOS | |
| PowerPoint | free with Windows or $179.99 | |
| Google Slides | free | Browser-based |
| Canva | free - €12/mo. | Browser-based |
| Figma Slides | $5/mo. | Browser-based |
| Slides | from $7/mo. | Browser-based |
👩💻 Developer tools
These are tools that let you create slides from code, instead of WYSIWYG editors. While they can make the process more accessible for developers, they often also come with limited styling possibilities, or require more extensive custom CSS. For more tools using Markdown as the source for slides, also see this overview.
| reveal.js | free (MIT) | Create slides with HTML and CSS |
| Marp | free (MIT) | Create slides with Markdown |
| Beamer | free (GNU GPL v2) | Create slides with LaTeX |
| RISE | free (BSD 3-Clause) | Create slides from Jupyter Notebooks |
| present | free (Apache 2.0) | Present slides in your terminal |
👩🎨 Graphic design
| Adobe Photoshop | $22.99/mo. | Design and photo editing |
| Adobe Illustrator | $22.99/mo. | Vector graphics |
| Figma | free - $20/mo. | Browser-based and app |
| Sketch | €9/mo. or €108 | Vector graphics |
| Canva | free - €12/mo. | Browser-based |
| Inkscape | free | Vector graphics |
| GIMP | free | Design and photo editing |
| Pixelmator Pro | $49.99 | Design and photo editing |
| Affinity Designer | €74.99 | Design and photo editing |
| Affinity Photo | €74.99 | Photo editing and digital painting |
| Procreate | $12.99 | Digital drawing, painting and design |
🤖 AI-assisted design tools
There’s an ongoing and rightful debate around using generative AI models for graphic design, especially considering the work by artists used to train these models, usually without compensation or credit. If you choose to use AI-assisted design tools in your workflow, I recommend using them to try and help you visualize your ideas, rather than to actually create designs for you. You can also utilize them to build skills and learn to use graphic design programs by describing what you’re looking to do, or showing an example, and asking “How can I do this in Photoshop?” or similar.
🗃️ File and asset managers
| RightFont | $59 | Font manager for Mac |
| FontBase | free | Font manager for Mac, Windows and Linux |
| Typeface | €45.99 | Font manager for Mac |
| Eagle | $34.95 | Asset manager for Mac and Windows |
| Pixave | free | Asset manager for Mac (but unmaintained) |
| Lingo | $120/mo. | Asset manager |
📓 Collecting inspiration
| Arc | free | Browser with whiteboards feature |
| Figma FigJam | $5/mo. | Browser-based whiteboards |
| Milanote | free - $9.99/mo. | Browser-based whiteboards |
| free | Browser-based pin board with suggestions | |
| OneNote | free | Full-featured note taking app |
| Evernote | free - €12.99/mo. | Full-featured note taking app |
| Notion | free - €9.50/mo. | Full-featured note taking app |
☁️ Sharing
| Speaker Deck | free - $8/mo. | Upload and share your slides |
| Slideshare | free | Upload and share your slides |
| Issuu | free | Upload and share your slides as a flipbook |
Thanks for following along with this series and all the great feedback 🖤 Let me know if there are any other topics you’d like me to cover and I’ll keep adding to this series in the future. And of course, if you’ve created your own slides using some of my posts for inspiration, feel free to email me – I’d love to check them out!