Pull in the reigns to take your presentations to the next level
Most of us have to use Microsoft PowerPoint at some point in our careers. It’s a powerful tool for delivering complex presentations, but it can produce nauseating results if its wide array of visual tools aren’t used carefully. Here are some quick tips for making your next presentation look pro…
Type use and fonts
A good place to start is your font usage. All of our computers come with a variety of typefaces, but just because you have them, doesn’t mean that they have to be used – especially all at one time. Pick one, maybe two, and use them consistently. By this, I mean use the same font for all of the slide headlines. Use the same font for all of the bullet points. A lot of companies have fonts that are part of the company’s identity – use those if you have them available.
Type is a great way to establish a hierarchy of information. The biggest and boldest type on the page will command the attention before smaller, lighter type. You know those settings H1, H2, H3, etc? That’s a built-in hierarchy. H1 is typically bigger and bolder than H2, H2 is bigger and bolder than H3, etc.. But, bigger and bolder are not the only way to create hierarchy. Bigger can be used alone, bolder can be used alone, and oftentimes you achieve the same conceptual benefit without beating the viewer over the head by using both at the same time. Italics is rarely effective for indicating hierarchical importance – it’s generally better used as in-sentence emphasis.
Color is another great way to indicate something that is more important. Red type on a page of black and white screams out, regardless of the size (use loud colors sparingly!). Here again, though, don’t feel like you have to choose two “emphasizers”; the headline of a page can actually afford to use less heavy color, since it’s already in a more prominent position/size.
The most important thing is to be consistent across all slides. Make sure you base all of these changes on the presentation’s “Master Slide” so that your style and positioning are the same throughout.
The last tip on type I’ll leave you with is this: design your presentation for the people in the back of the room. If they can read the type, chances everybody else can too.
Line it up
The layout of your slides can make or break the presentation – if your layout is wonky, then everything else will seem disorganized. The best thing you can do in this department is to consistently line up your elements. The most common ways to align your elements are left, right, and center. Left and center are generally going to be your best bet. Right can be effective in the right context, but should be used carefully. And be sure to create decent-size margins around the outside of the slide, lest your presentation look too crowded. Preexisting slide templates are a great way to take advantage of these concepts.
Color me good
Sure, you have millions of colors to choose from, but for the love of all that is easily digestible, please don’t try to use all of them. Pick a handful of colors (maybe 2-5) and use them across the presentation in a consistent manner. Above all, use loud colors only for accents and occasional emphasis; unless your company has a “loud” brand, you don’t want to burn your audience’s retinas with your harsh color choices. As with fonts, some companies have specific colors as part of the identity, so make use of those if you have them available. Powerpoint has some great color palette options available by default, you might want to peruse them before you to make a custom palette of your own.
Custom Backgrounds
One feature of Powerpoint that can add some great visual appeal to your slides is a background graphic. It is also a great way to make your slides too busy, so proceed with caution. Make sure that your type can be read, and that your background graphic isn’t more interesting than the content that it’s supporting.
Templates
PowerPoint ships with a ton of prebuilt templates for you to start with. Sometimes I start with those and sometimes I build my own. The benefits become clear very quickly when you choose the template route, though. First of all, it helps save time by applying the key elements to the page so you don’t have to create new ones for every slide. Another benefit is that you can get the alignment just right on the template and it will be consistent on all of your slides. And the best part? The headline, type and colors will be consistent across your whole presentation. Have I mentioned that consistency is key?
A picture is worth 1000 words
If you have the opportunity to show your audience instead of telling them, you should probably take it. The best presentations I have seen used images instead of bullets whenever possible. What’s going to be more compelling from the audience’s standpoint, seeing a list of bullets describing the attributes of a product or seeing an image of the product as the presenter discusses the attributes?
Aside:
While PowerPoint has long ruled the business presentation realm, those with access to an Apple computer might benefit from giving Apple’s Keynote a try. This is their answer to PowerPoint, and we find it to be generally more elegant David to Microsoft’s Goliath. With Keynote, Apple has done a terrific job of infusing graceful ease of use and a powerful feature set. It is well worth an evaluation.
Dan Lipe is a creative engineer at Angled End.