Project Overview
As Overstock’s brand and design needs expanded across the company, I recognized a growing challenge: I was being called upon for design support in too many areas, often stretched thin, especially for important presentations. To solve this, I focused on creating a robust PowerPoint template and providing training so that employees could take ownership of their own presentations while ensuring consistent, high-quality brand representation. This initiative allowed me to scale my impact and maintain final sign-off on key presentations that needed to reflect our brand at its best.
The Challenge
Overstock was seeing increasing demand for cohesive, on-brand presentations. My expertise was needed across multiple departments, from executive assistants and chiefs of staff to department heads and project teams. The challenge was twofold: I needed to reduce the strain on my time while ensuring that the design work was both efficient and aligned with Overstock’s branding standards.
My Role
As the person responsible for maintaining Overstock’s brand identity across all presentations, I took a proactive approach to building scalable tools that would empower other employees. My key actions included:
✅ PowerPoint Template Development: I designed the official corporate PowerPoint template, making it easy for employees to create on-brand presentations without needing deep design expertise.
✅ Comprehensive Training: I hosted PowerPoint classes and one-on-one training sessions with various teams, including executive assistants, chiefs of staff, and department heads, so that they could manage presentations on their own.
✅ Design Scrubs: For important presentations, I continued to provide final sign-off and make last-minute adjustments during the “design scrub” phase to ensure presentations were polished and correctly branded before being shared externally.
Approach & Solution
1. Building a Scalable Template
- Goal: Provide a template that was easy for employees to use and adhered to Overstock’s branding guidelines.
- Solution: I developed a comprehensive PowerPoint template, replacing the previous sparse version (which had fewer than 10 slides) with a fully fleshed-out set of over 150 slides. This included a range of content layouts, a variety of typography options, and beautiful high-quality imagery—all aligned with Overstock’s brand standards. I also included built-in rules, tips, and suggestions to guide employees in using the brand correctly, reducing the need for constant oversight.
- Outcome: Employees now have access to a toolkit that empowers them to create presentations on their own, knowing they are using the brand correctly without requiring design assistance.
2. Empowering Employees Through Training
- Goal: Scale my design expertise by empowering others to manage presentations with minimal intervention.
- Solution: Recognizing that my time was stretched across many teams, I launched training programs focused on PowerPoint usage. These were geared toward teaching employees how to use the templates and apply the brand guidelines effectively. In addition, I conducted workshops and one-on-one sessions with key employees, including executive assistants and chiefs of staff, to ensure they could support their teams with on-brand presentations.
- Outcome: This training initiative led to employees feeling confident in creating presentations on their own, significantly reducing the number of requests for assistance.
3. Final Sign-Off for Key Presentations
- Goal: Ensure that high-visibility presentations reflect Overstock’s brand at its best.
- Solution: While employees now had the tools and training to build their presentations, I remained responsible for providing the final sign-off on key presentations. I reviewed important slides and materials to ensure the highest-quality representation of Overstock’s brand. This included making last-minute “design scrubs” to ensure everything was perfectly on-brand before being shared externally.
- Outcome: Key presentations continued to reflect the strength of Overstock’s brand, with a polished and professional look that aligned with the company’s values.
Results & Impact
✅ Increased Efficiency: With over 150 slides available in the template, employees had everything they needed to create cohesive presentations without waiting for design support, dramatically reducing turnaround time.
✅ Brand Consistency: The final presentations were on-brand every time, maintaining Overstock’s strong visual identity in both internal and external communications.
✅ Scalable Solution: By building tools and offering training, I was able to scale my impact, enabling employees across departments to confidently create presentations. This allowed me to focus on higher-level design tasks while still ensuring the quality of key presentations.
✅ Employee Empowerment: Employees felt more confident in their ability to use the templates effectively, knowing they had the training and resources to create polished, on-brand presentations.
