Simplicity is effective.
I am often asked: how can I produce professionally-designed presentation slides? Here are my top seven tips — and there is no technical magic.
1. Incorporate Video and Images as Backgrounds
The mantra “less is more” applies — insert videos and images as backgrounds on your slides as opposed to plain solid colours.
Simply use your phone to capture images and record video appropriate to your presentation, then edit them on software like Adobe Premiere Pro or even as simple as iMovie — be creative with this like producing a video montage, time-lapse, or just a real-time video background. You may even use stock images and video if your resources and time are scant.
Importantly, make sure your images are high resolution, too, so your backgrounds are not a pixelated, blurry mess. For video, ensure they are at least 1080p resolution.
This portrays a more visually appealing and dynamic presentation, and highlights effort and dedication to the presentation, whatever it is for.
Unfortunately, it does significantly increase your presentation file size but the end-result visuals offset the compromise.
*For images on PowerPoint > right click the slide > select ‘Format Background’ > choose the ‘Picture or Texture Fill’ option on the sidebar > ‘Insert’ button to choose your picture.
*For video, drag the video file onto the PowerPoint > right-click and select ‘Send to Back’ to ensure text overlaps on top of it > head to the ‘Video Playback’ tab at the top ribbon > select the ‘In Sequence’ drop-down menu and choose ‘Automatically’ > tick any checkboxes if appropriate like ‘Loop Until Stopped’ or volume controls.
2. Less Text, Two Fonts
Remember to include minimal text and choose fonts that are relevant and suitable to your presentation.
To ensure slides are readable, a simplistic design must be implemented; only add main points of your speech or pitch in text-boxes and ensure each point has one line of spacing in between.
Sans serif fonts are often more readable, so common typefaces such as ‘Helvetica’, ‘Arial’ or ‘Calibri’ are good options for displaying body text, otherwise known as your main points you show on the slide.
For headings, use a different font that relates to your presentation — a traditional font like ‘Times Roman’ or a contemporary font such as ‘Roboto’ can be considered.
Also, make your text size larger than 18pt font and align it in respect to the text-boxes position (eg: right text-box equals right-aligned text)
3. Make Text Contrast
Ensure the text is readable to all audiences whether near and far away – it should not ‘blend’ in with the background.
For image and video backgrounds, you can underexpose them (essentially decreasing the brightness to make it darker) by using simple editing software like the built-in Windows 10 ‘Photos’ app or Adobe Premiere Pro.
Alternatively, add a transparent background to your text boxes or shapes on PowerPoint. Select the shape > right click and choose ‘Format Shape’ > ‘Fill’ > ‘Solid Fill’ option > choose black in the colours > and increase the transparency to 50 per-cent or more depending on the visibility of your text.
4. Use Microsoft PowerPoint
Google Slides and Prezi’s are great tools for collaboration and a quick mash-up of presentation slides from templates, but only Microsoft PowerPoint can provide a full-featured experience to customise the design and animations of your slides.
Granted, using the OneDrive cloud service, PowerPoint can be collaborative as well, though not as intuitive as its counterparts.
5. Try Some Transitions & Animations
PowerPoint has tremendous capabilities in creating presentations, including a slew of transitions and animations; however, too many risks your slides being gratuitous and quite annoying to viewers.
Transitions is when one slide changes to the next, whereas animations are focussed on the content itself (i.e. text-boxes, shapes, images, etc.).
The ‘Morph’ transition is recommended: it does the animations for you by analysing the elements in the previous slide, then transitioning them smoothly to the next. You can do this by simply duplicating a slide into a new one. When you alter text, text-box sizes, images, shapes, and other elements, the transition will automatically transition the elements from one to the other slide.
In situations where it is a team presentation, you can set a time so the transitions (slide changes) happen automatically, if you need to fit more text and content on a different slide. When speech timing is practiced, you can do a rough estimate of the time. Though, this is not recommended when a different person speaks on a different slide as automatic transitions will never be accurate in changing slides in time — manually change in this case.
‘Fade’ animations of content is also a good idea. If you want to fit multiple images on one slide but do not want them to appear at the same time (or if they cannot fit), use animations and set automatic timers so content fades out for the next image to fade in when they need to.
*To do this, select the first image you want to be shown > ‘Animations’ tab > ‘Animations Pane’ > Exit Effects > choose your animation type > ‘With Previous’ (so it automatically plays) > set a delay (up to 60 seconds) of when you want the image to fade out > then, choose you second image > choose your animation type in the effects panel > ‘After Previous’ so it initiates after the exit of the first image before > then repeat these steps for any other content.
Animations can be quite tricky to master; transitions are recommended, though it does increase your slide count and thus PowerPoint file size as well.
6. Do Not Use Design Templates
Pre-made design templates are only available for those who need to create a quick slide — not for important assignments and client meetings or pitches.
By using templates, you are beholden to its design elements so take control and start from a blank slate.
Choose your colour scheme, types of fonts, and layout of content — while keeping it minimal and simple.
Furthermore, since it is original, your audience will appreciate your slides better as they have not seen it before from any of your counterparts or competitors.
7. Screen Recording to Show Documents
If you have a large document (eg: budget table appendix, long-read article, etc.) and want to show it on your slide, do not insert the whole document — no one will be able to read it and it detracts from your minimalist presentation design.
Instead, try to record your computer or mobile’s screen scrolling that document by using software like ‘QuickTime’.
This is an effective tool because it shows the entire document without filling an entire slide, and is visually intriguing to audiences as it is constantly moving (or scrolling).
When inserted onto the PowerPoint, make sure to head to the ‘Video Playback’ tab > change ‘In Sequence’ to ‘Automatically’ to ensure it plays when the slide is presented > and tick ‘Loop Until Stopped’, otherwise it will only show the scrolling document recording once.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Presentation slides are vital in highlighting your audience the effort and dedication you (and your team if applicable) have made to the project beyond your confidence-inspiring speech.
Designing slides requires simplicity, minimalism, and some degree of creativity.
The Connected by Henry Man 