Presentation Patterns — Master Index

Structured reference taxonomy primarily based on Presentation Patterns: Techniques for Crafting Better Presentations (Neal Ford, Matthew McCullough, Nathaniel Schutta, 2013), with supplementary patterns and reinforcements from Presentation Zen (Garr Reynolds, 2nd ed., 2012) and Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences (Nancy Duarte, 2010). Contains 77 named patterns and 25 antipatterns organized by presentation lifecycle phase. See the Sources section at the end of this file for full citations.

This is the primary entry point. The agent reads this file first, then drills into individual pattern files only when detailed descriptions, scoring criteria, or combinatorics are needed.

How to Use This Index

1. During creator Phase 2 (Architecture): Read the phase-grouped lookup table below to find which patterns are relevant at the current phase, then read the pattern files for the ones you want to present as options.
2. During vault Step 3 (Analysis): Scan against observable patterns only — skip patterns marked observable: false (pre-event logistics, physical stage behaviors, and external systems that leave no trace in transcripts or slides).
3. During creator Phase 4 (Guardrails): Read all antipatterns and compare against the outline. Flag matches as [RECURRING] (from speaker profile) or [CONTEXTUAL] (new detection). Skip unobservable antipatterns.
4. During creator Phase 6 (Publishing / Go-Live): Surface unobservable patterns as a go-live preparation checklist — these are actions to take before and during delivery that the vault cannot score retroactively.

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Pattern Catalog

Prepare Phase (19 patterns + 3 antipatterns)

Build Phase (37 patterns + 10 antipatterns)

Deliver Phase (21 patterns + 12 antipatterns)

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Phase-Grouped Lookup Table

Which patterns to surface at each creator phase:

Phase 0: Intake

Audience/context patterns — shown as context-setting reminders.

• know-your-audience
• required
• the-big-why
• proposed
• emotional-state

Phase 1: Intent

Planning patterns — inform spec construction.

• narrative-arc
• fourthought
• triad
• required
• proposed
• mentor
• opening-punch
• abstract-attorney (antipattern — warn about abstract drift)

Phase 2: Architecture

All structural patterns — the main Pattern Strategy selection moment.

Full 4-tier recommendation using pattern_profile:

• Signature tier: Speaker's high-usage patterns from profile
• Contextual tier: Patterns matching spec context with occasional speaker usage
• New to You tier: From never_used_patterns, filtered by spec relevance
• Shake It Up tier: Random picks from never_used_patterns

Structural patterns relevant here:

• narrative-arc, triad, talklet, expansion-joints, lightning-talk, takahashi, cave-painting
• a-la-carte-content, context-keeper, bookends, intermezzi
• unifying-visual-theme, vacation-photos, infodeck
• brain-breaks, greek-chorus
• live-demo (if demo-driven mode)
• sparkline (if persuasive mode — alternative to narrative-arc)
• call-to-adventure (architectural placement of sparkline turning point 1)

Phase 3: Content

Build patterns — applied during outline writing.

• foreshadowing, backtracking, brain-breaks, bookends, intermezzi, coda
• breadcrumbs, context-keeper, a-la-carte-content
• live-demo, lipsync, emergence
• leet-grammars, entertainment, breathing-room
• display-of-high-value, mentor, seeding-the-first-question
• make-it-rain, lightsaber, echo-chamber
• opening-punch, screen-blackout
• call-to-adventure, call-to-action, new-bliss, star-moment, inoculation, master-story

Phase 4: Guardrails

Antipatterns as warnings — scanned against the outline.

All 25 antipatterns, with two flag types:

• [RECURRING] — from pattern_profile.antipattern_frequency (speaker-specific)
• [CONTEXTUAL] — detected in the current outline (new detection)

Phase 5: Slides

Visual/construction patterns — applied during slide generation.

• defy-defaults, composite-animation, vacation-photos, analog-noise
• takahashi, cave-painting, charred-trail, gradual-consistency
• exuberant-title-top, invisibility, soft-transitions
• traveling-highlights, crawling-code, emergence
• preroll, crawling-credits, bookends, intermezzi, breadcrumbs
• screen-blackout
• cookie-cutter, ant-fonts, fontaholic, floodmarks, photomaniac, laser-weapons (antipatterns)

Phase 6: Publishing

Delivery prep patterns — final checklist before the talk.

• preparation, carnegie-hall, seeding-satisfaction, seeding-the-first-question
• posse, shoeless, emotional-state, weatherman, stakeout
• echo-chamber, red-yellow-green
• social-media-advertising, preroll, live-on-tape
• call-to-action (go-live preparation — confirm asks are concrete and immediately executable)

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Vault Dimension → Pattern Mapping

Reverse lookup: which patterns relate to each of the 14 rhetoric analysis dimensions.

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Unobservable Patterns — Go-Live Checklist

These patterns involve pre-event logistics, physical stage behaviors, or external systems that leave no trace in transcripts or slides. The vault cannot score them. Instead, they surface during creator Phase 6 (Publishing / Go-Live) as a preparation checklist.

Do not include these in vault scoring or the speaker profile's pattern_profile.

Pre-Event Preparation

During Delivery

Antipatterns to Avoid (unobservable)

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Summary Statistics

• Total entries: 102 (77 patterns + 25 antipatterns)
• Observable (vault-scorable): 91 (69 patterns + 22 antipatterns)
• Unobservable (go-live checklist): 11 (8 patterns + 3 antipatterns)
• Prepare phase: 22 (19 patterns + 3 antipatterns)
• Build phase: 47 (37 patterns + 10 antipatterns)
• Deliver phase: 33 (21 patterns + 12 antipatterns)

Sources

• Ford, N., McCullough, M., & Schutta, N. (2013). Presentation Patterns: Techniques for Crafting Better Presentations. Addison-Wesley. — primary taxonomy source.
• Reynolds, G. (2012). Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (2nd ed.). New Riders. — supplementary source; reinforces ~17 existing patterns and contributes the opening-punch and screen-blackout patterns plus three refinement subsections folded into existing patterns: "Hara Hachi Bu — The 90–95% Finish Line" (in breathing-room.md), "Plan Analog Before Going Digital" (in concurrent-creation.md), and "The Elevator Test" (in the-big-why.md).
• Duarte, N. (2010). Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. Wiley. — supplementary source; reinforces ~20 existing patterns and contributes seven new build-phase patterns (sparkline, call-to-adventure, call-to-action, new-bliss, star-moment, inoculation, master-story) plus six refinement subsections folded into existing patterns: "Adopting the Stance — Planning Implications" (in mentor.md), "The Big Idea — Statement Format" (in the-big-why.md), "Numerical Narrative — Making Numbers Land" (in vacation-photos.md), "Screening with Critics — Beyond Copyediting" (in peer-review.md), "Murder Your Darlings — The Pre-Delivery Cut Pass" (in crucible.md), and "The Three Contrast Types — Engine of the Middle" (in sparkline.md).