Format

Make a PechaKucha deck — 20 slides, 20 seconds each

The PechaKucha 20×20 format is the discipline of saying one thing per slide in twenty seconds. Type a topic and BananaSlides locks the format for you: exactly twenty designed slides, ready in two minutes.

Free credits to try · No credit card required

What it does

A format that forces clarity, automated.

PechaKucha was invented in Tokyo in 2003 by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham. They wanted a way to let young designers present without rambling. The rules: exactly twenty slides, exactly twenty seconds per slide, six minutes and forty seconds total. The slides advance automatically. You can't pad. You can't dodge.

The constraint is the whole point. With unlimited slides you keep adding qualifications and supporting evidence until the talk becomes about everything and nothing. With twenty slides at twenty seconds each, you have to pick one idea per slide and trust the audience to follow.

PechaKucha BananaSlides takes that constraint and locks it. You type the topic; we generate exactly twenty slides — no more, no less — designed for the format. Every slide is built to land in twenty seconds: visual-first, one core idea, short headline if any.

How it works

Three steps from source to deck

Type the topic

A sentence or short paragraph. The clearer the topic, the more cohesive the twenty-slide arc.

🍌

BananaSlides

A 10-slide deck on the history of the banana trade

10 slides · Modern Purple & Blue

We build a 20-slide outline

Gemini structures the topic into exactly twenty slides — opening, twelve to fifteen content beats, transitions, close.

AI Outline

Draft

1Title slide
2Why this matters
3Key point #1
4Key point #2
5Supporting data
6Counter-arguments
7What to do next

Render all 20 slides

Each slide is generated as a designed image in your chosen theme. The deck downloads as PNGs or a single ZIP.

Designed deck

6:40 total

Features

What you get

Locked to 20 slides

No slider to nudge, no chance to drift. The format is the format, every time.

Designed for 20-second slides

Visual-first layouts, short headlines, one idea per slide — built to read in the time you have.

Six-minute, forty-second arc

The 20×20 structure encourages a real beginning, middle, and end across the deck.

Theme + style consistency

Twenty slides have to feel like one deck. Pick a theme once and every slide stays coherent.

Works from any source

Start with a prompt here, or use the other BananaSlides tools to turn a URL, PDF, DOCX, or video into PechaKucha-shaped content.

Saved to your account

Every PechaKucha you generate stays in your dashboard for re-download or rebuild.

Who uses it

Real use cases

Meetup and PechaKucha Night talks

The format is regularly used at PechaKucha Nights around the world — generate the visuals, rehearse the timing, show up.

Conference lightning talks

Many conferences use PechaKucha-style 5-minute or 7-minute slots. Adjust the read aloud time and use this as a draft.

Classroom assignments

Teachers assign PechaKuchas to force students to be concise. This tool gives them a starting structure to edit.

Internal practice rounds

Practicing tight, one-idea-per-slide presentations builds a muscle that pays off in every other deck you ever make.

Manual vs BananaSlides

Why bother automating?

Making a PechaKucha by hand is the worst kind of constraint puzzle. Here's what changes:

Aspect	Manual	BananaSlides
Time to first draft	3–6 hours of structure work	Under 2 minutes
Hitting 20 slides exactly	Endless trimming and stretching	Locked
One-idea-per-slide discipline	Easy to cheat	Generated that way by default
Visual design	Stock template	Image per slide, themed
Iterating on the structure	Manually reorder	Regenerate from a new prompt

The reasoning

Why the 20×20 format still works

PechaKucha has been around for more than two decades and its constraints have aged extraordinarily well. The reason is mathematical: most ideas, told fully, don't need more than six and a half minutes. They need exactly that long. The format calibrates speaker effort to listener attention.

It also dethrones the bullet point. With twenty seconds per slide, a slide loaded with bullets becomes unreadable — you simply don't have time. So presenters revert to one image, one number, one short headline. The visuals do the explaining.

We default to the format because it makes every deck materially better. The same topic at "however many slides you want" produces meandering decks; at twenty slides exactly, it produces tight ones.

Pro tips

Get the most out of the format

Four habits that make PechaKuchas land.

Pick one through-line

Twenty slides is enough for one strong argument, not three okay ones. Decide what the deck is really about before you type the prompt.

Embrace the visual

Don't try to write essays on a 20-second slide. Let the image carry, and use the speaker's voice for the words.

Rehearse the timing

20 seconds is shorter than you think. Practice with a stopwatch — you'll trim the script naturally.

Use the same theme as your brand

Twenty slides in a row need to feel cohesive. Pick a theme that matches whatever you usually present in.

FAQ

Common questions

Can I change the slide count?

No — the whole point of this tool is the 20-slide constraint. If you need a different slide count, use the regular Prompt to BananaSlides tool, which lets you pick any number from 3 upward.

Does the deck actually advance every 20 seconds?

We generate the deck as images; auto-advance is a feature of the player you use to present. PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides all support auto-advance — set the slide duration to 20 seconds and you'll have the canonical PechaKucha experience.

Is this the official PechaKucha format?

We follow the original 20×20 specification invented by Klein Dytham architecture. PechaKucha Inc. licenses the brand for live events; we don't claim affiliation with PechaKucha Inc. — we just generate decks that match the format they popularized.

Can I use a source document instead of a prompt?

Use the PDF, DOCX, URL, or YouTube tools first to extract text, then re-enter that content here as a prompt. Future versions will integrate the upload path directly into PechaKucha mode.

Why 20 slides and not 15 or 25?

Twenty was chosen because it produces a 6:40 talk, which is short enough to keep attention but long enough to develop a real arc. Klein and Dytham arrived at it empirically — they tested shorter and longer and twenty held up best.

How many credits does a PechaKucha cost?

Twenty credits — one per slide. The whole deck is 20 slides, so the cost is fixed regardless of how complex the topic is.

Do I need an account?

Yes. Generating slides consumes credits, and credits are tied to your BananaSlides account. New accounts get a small free pack so you can try the tool end-to-end without paying. You can sign up with email or Google in under thirty seconds, and the source you've already entered (URL, file, or prompt) is preserved across the redirect.

Can I edit the slides after generation?

Each generated slide is delivered as a high-resolution image. You can download individual slides, or download the whole deck as a ZIP and drop the images into PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, or Notion as a starting point. For text edits, regenerate the slide with a tweaked outline — the deck is fast enough that iterating beats hand-fixing pixels.

What is the BananaSlides format?

BananaSlides decks are designed to be visual, not bullet-heavy. Each slide is rendered end-to-end by an image model so you get a real layout — typography, illustration, color — instead of a generic template with your text dropped in. You choose the theme, style, and aspect ratio up front, and the AI keeps every slide visually consistent across the deck.

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