wildcat

A modern, highly customizable Beamer theme.

Overview

This Beamer theme uses branding guidelines (colors, fonts, and logos) from Northwestern University. The design mimics Northwestern's facets Zoom backgrounds, and the style files build on the amazing Stack Exchange answer by Claudio Fiandrino. This is not an official Northwestern-approved Beamer template.

Quick Start

The easiest way to get started is to download presentation.zip and unzip it. It contains all the .sty files and a main.tex starter file ready to compile with XeLaTeX.

Alternatively, place all .sty files in the same directory as your .tex file and add to your preamble:

\usetheme{wildcat}

Requires XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX — PDFLaTeX will fail due to fontspec.

See source/wildcat-demo.pdf for a full reference of all features, or open the Overleaf template to get started immediately.

Theme Options

All options can be combined in a single line:

\usetheme[
  pattern=triangle,
  color=nudarkblue,
  font=poppins,
  numbering=progressbar,
  sectionpage=on,
  agendastyle=pattern,
  breadcrumb=on
]{wildcat}

Background Patterns (pattern=)

12 built-in patterns ship with the theme:

Option	Description
facet (default)	NU facet design
facetrand	NU facets (alternate arrangement)
triangle	Triangle mosaic
triangleiso	Isometric triangles
trianglemesh	Wireframe mesh
squares	Square grid
circles	Circles
hexraise	Raised hex clusters
hexrand	Random hex shading
network	Network/graph grid
quilt	Quilt rings
plain	Solid color fill

See source/wildcat-gallery.pdf for a visual preview of all patterns.

Agenda Style (agendastyle=)

Agenda and section divider pages use a 60% white content panel by default:

\usetheme[agendastyle=plain]{wildcat}    % default
\usetheme[agendastyle=pattern]{wildcat}  % show the active pattern on the right 40%

Section Pages (sectionpage=)

Section divider pages are inserted automatically before each section:

\usetheme[sectionpage=on]{wildcat}    % default
\usetheme[sectionpage=none]{wildcat}  % disable section divider pages

Slide Numbering (numbering=)

Slide numbers exclude the title page and are hidden on title, plain, section, standout, and appendix slides:

\usetheme[numbering=fraction]{wildcat}     % default: n/N
\usetheme[numbering=number]{wildcat}       % slide number only
\usetheme[numbering=progressbar]{wildcat}  % bottom progress bar
\usetheme[numbering=none]{wildcat}         % no numbering

Breadcrumbs (breadcrumb=)

Frame-title breadcrumbs show the current section and subsection above normal slide titles:

\usetheme[breadcrumb=none]{wildcat}  % default
\usetheme[breadcrumb=on]{wildcat}

Colors (color=)

Pass any named color to change the primary theme color. All lighter and darker shades are generated automatically:

\usetheme[color=nudarkblue]{wildcat}

All nu* palette colors (nupurple, nudarkblue, nubrightgreen, etc.) are available. Standard xcolor names (red, blue, etc.) also work. For precise per-shade control, redefine individual wcprimary10–wcprimary40 and wcprimary110–wcprimary140 colors after \usetheme.

Fonts (font=)

Option	Fonts	Files needed
(default)	Fira Sans	None — works on Overleaf, MiKTeX, TeX Live
noto	Noto Sans	None — works on Overleaf and TeX Live
poppins	Poppins + IBM Plex Sans	TTF files in fonts/ (free from Google Fonts)
nu	Campton + Akkurat Pro	OTF files in fonts/ (Northwestern brand fonts)
installed	Campton + Akkurat Pro	Must be installed as system fonts

The default (Fira Sans) requires no setup — it is pre-installed on Overleaf and auto-installs on MiKTeX. For TeX Live, run tlmgr install fira if not found. The font=poppins option expects the downloaded font files in fonts/Poppins/ and fonts/IBM_Plex_Sans/.

Custom Background Patterns

You can load a custom background pattern from a .tex file in your preamble after \usetheme:

\usetheme{wildcat}
\input{bg-gallery/bg-template}   % use \input, not \include

The source/bg-gallery/ folder contains:

• bg-template.tex — a contribution template with full instructions
• bg-voronoi.tex — a Voronoi diagram pattern (15 seeds)

Want to contribute a pattern? Copy bg-template.tex, add your TikZ drawing commands, and open a pull request at github.com/aarondwolf/wildcat. Community patterns are welcome!

Overleaf

Users on Overleaf can use the Overleaf template to get started quickly.

• The default font (Fira Sans) and Noto fonts (font=noto) work on Overleaf out of the box
• The font=poppins option works if the TTF files are uploaded to the project
• The Northwestern logo is not included in the Overleaf template; download it here or replace it with your own logo

Issues

There are no known issues at the moment. Please create an issue if something isn't working.