7 Presentation Design Tips For Making Your Best Designs

Giving a presentation is, more often than not, the most daunting ordeal. Whether it is just your team members or a conference, the pressure to deliver is evident. Through it all, your main aim is to deliver your ideas and message clearly, while also keeping the audience’s attention. 

A presentation is a great way of visualizing an idea to support a speech and gather the audience’s attention. On the other hand, a badly made presentation can have the opposite effect and make people lose interest easily. A poor presentation design with distracting illustrations or too much text can lead to the audience getting carried away. 

The main distinction between a good and a poor presentation is the design and content that goes into it. Even though your speech might be perfect, the designs and images can add detail and also influence people’s reactions to the presentation. 

Here are 7 tips to help you create presentation designs to effectively get your point across. 

Presentation Design Tips

Pick The Right Template

Using pre-existing themes and templates from your software is one of the worst mistakes you can make in your presentation design. These templates are not only tacky but also immensely overused. A cleaner and the more sophisticated template is always the way to go as it is more simplified and easy on the eyes too. 

Moreover, the method of creation and presentation depends on the content and idea you want to put across. This is why it is important to use cohesive elements, fonts, colors, and backgrounds throughout the presentation design. For this, you can also make use of presentation design services to gather ideas for your presentations. 

Use Limited Text And Slides

Packing your presentation with too much text is presentation suicide. While making any presentation it is important to realize that the audience has to process the content in the presentation while listening to you speak. Therefore, if the presentation consists of too much information, it becomes difficult for them to keep track and this will end up completely undermining the purpose of the presentation, as well as your idea. 

It is thus advised to use a maximum of 6 lines of text on any slide so as to keep the audience’s attention on what is most important. 

Apart from this, try to limit the number of slides according to your time limit. Constantly flipping through the slides and rushing through your presentation will only result in chaos. It will lead to you being flustered as well as distract the audience from the original message of the presentation. A good rule is to limit yourself to one slide per minute. 

Use Appropriate Fonts 

For the texts in your presentation, opt for legible fonts rather than funky and fun ones. While it is acceptable to use a creative and fun font for the title, make sure to use clean and traditional fonts for the main text. Choose sans serifs fonts like Helvetica rather than serif fonts. The issue with serif fonts is that it tends to bleed together, making it hard for the audience to read. 

Coming to the font size, it is important to keep in mind that the size of your laptop is different from the ultimate presentation screen. When choosing a size for your fonts, make sure that the content is visible even to the people in the far end of the room. Avoid making the text too small, or using all caps. Just as you should use a maximum of 6 lines per slide, avoid using more than 6 words in each line of text.

Pay Attention To The Color Scheme 

It is imperative to maintain a contrast between the text and the background. In order for your idea to pop, high contrast between the text and background is necessary. If your background image has a lot of variation, you may add a bar of color to establish legibility while also adding a visual appeal to your presentation.

Although it is important to make your presentation attractive, adding too many colors is never the way to go. A harmonious color palette is what enhances the look of any presentation. Instead of using complex textures and gradients that tend to make the presentation distracting, simply using the right colors is enough to make your presentation aesthetic and easy on the eyes.  

In case you are unsure of how to go about this, you can also draw inspiration from the innumerable presentation design ideas available on different platforms.

Use Adequate Images

The saying a ‘picture is worth a thousand words’ stands true to this very day. Pictures and images make any presentation more visually stimulating and also attract people’s attention. Instead of seeing them as space-fillers, think of them as something that further reinforces and complements the idea or message you are trying to convey. But make sure not to overdo it. Empty spaces on the slides will actually help in readability. Try not to clutter the slide with unnecessary images which will only distract the audience. 

Another thing to keep in mind while adding pictures is the quality. Test your pictures to make sure they uphold the quality and resolution while being projected on a bigger screen. Also, only add images that add value to your presentation. Clip art illustrations usually lack emphasis and fail to convey the full message and idea of the presentation. Instead, you can browse the diverse variety of presentation design services available to enhance the quality of your presentation. 

Lastly, use visuals to increase the emotional value and appeal of your presentation. As mentioned, visuals are a great way of supporting your message. They can be used to emphasize the comprehension and retention of the information you are conveying, and thus elicit an increased emotional response which in turn increases impact. You can also consider consulting a presentation design company that can help you gain more insight into what goes and what does not. 

Avoid Too Many Transitions

All the special effects and transitions available to us seem ever so tempting and impressive at first, but all veteran presentation design services will tell you to avoid them as they have a tendency to distract the audience from the message. These transitions and special effects, such as animations and sounds, also reduce the professionalism of your presentation and make it look rather childish and immature. Just like graphics, special effects should also increase the impact of your presentation, not distract the audience away from it. No matter what your presentation is about and what content it consists of, always make sure that you use designs to your complete advantage without leaving any stone unturned, and if you ever feel lost, you can always turn to any presentation design company which will always have your back. 

Know Your Presentation

Everyone knows that the most important aspect of giving a successful presentation is confidence, and the only way to build confidence is through constant practice. It is important to know your presentation to its very core. Practice moving up or down your presentation with the help of the shortcuts available. Your audience may want to view a previous slide or skip a few slides ahead as well, and it is your responsibility to deliver. 

Another thing that can immediately make your audience lose interest is if you are reading from the slides instead of directly speaking to them. The information on your slides should be supplementary to your speech. You should be using your slides as inserts to pace yourself, not to read them. It is imperative for you to realize that the slides are to support, not replace your speech. The audience can read it themselves, and reading off the points in your slide will only bring down their interest. 

Hopefully, the next time you create a presentation you will keep the above-mentioned points in mind. And if you ever get stuck, remember that there are many presentation design ideas available, or you can also seek help from any presentation design company to get a better idea of giving a successful presentation.

All Time Design provides unlimited graphic design at a flat fee with a 14-day risk-free trial.