what is presentation design

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Presentation design guide: tips, examples, and templates

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Anete Ezera January 09, 2023

Presentation design defines how your content will be received and remembered. It’s responsible for that crucial first impression and sets the tone for your presentation before you’ve even introduced the topic. It’s also what holds your presentation together and guides the viewer through it. That’s why visually appealing, easily understandable, and memorable presentation design is what you should be striving for. But how can you create a visually striking presentation without an eye for design? Creating a visually appealing presentation can be challenging without prior knowledge of design or helpful tools. 

With this presentation design guide accompanied by Prezi presentation examples and templates, you’ll have no problem creating stunning and impactful presentations that will wow your audience.

In this guide, we’ll start by looking at the basics of presentation design. We’ll provide a simple guide on creating a presentation from scratch, as well as offer helpful tips for different presentation types. In addition, you’ll discover how to organize information into a logical order and present it in a way that resonates with listeners. Finally, we’ll share tips and tricks to create an eye-catching presentation, and showcase some great presentation examples and templates you can get inspired by!

With our comprehensive introduction to designing presentations, you will be able to develop an engaging and professional presentation that gets results!

What is presentation design?

Presentation design encompasses a variety of elements that make up the overall feel and look of the presentation. It’s a combination of certain elements, like text, font, color, background, imagery, and animations. 

Presentation design focuses on finding ways to make the presentation more visually appealing and easy to process, as it is often an important tool for communicating a message. It involves using design principles like color, hierarchy, white space, contrast, and visual flow to create an effective communication piece.

Creating an effective presentation design is important for delivering your message efficiently and leaving a memorable impact on your audience. Most of all, you want your presentation design to support your topic and make it easier to understand and digest. A great presentation design guides the viewer through your presentation and highlights the most essential aspects of it. 

If you’re interested in learning more about presentation design and its best practices , watch the following video and get practical insights on designing your next presentation:

Types of presentations

When creating a presentation design, you have to keep in mind several types of presentations that shape the initial design you want to have. Depending on the type of presentation you have, you’ll want to match it with a fitting presentation design.

1. Informative

An informative presentation provides the audience with facts and data in order to educate them on a certain subject matter. This could be done through visual aids such as graphs, diagrams, and charts. In an informative presentation, you want to highlight data visualizations and make them more engaging with interactive features or animations. On Prezi Design, you can create different engaging data visualizations from line charts to interactive maps to showcase your data.

2. Instructive

Instructive presentations teach the audience something new. Whether it’s about science, business strategies, or culture, this type of presentation is meant to help people gain knowledge and understand a topic better. 

With a focus on transmitting knowledge, your presentation design should incorporate a variety of visuals and easy-to-understand data visualizations. Most people are visual learners, so you’ll benefit from swapping text-based slides for more visually rich content.

3. Motivational

Motivational presentations try to inspire the audience by giving examples of successful projects, stories, or experiences. This type of presentation is often used in marketing or promotional events because it seeks to get the audience inspired and engaged with a product or service. That’s why the presentation design needs to capture and hold the attention of your audience using a variety of animations and visuals. Go beyond plain images – include videos for a more immersive experience.

4. Persuasive

Persuasive presentations are designed to sway an audience with arguments that lead to an actionable decision (i.e., buy the product). Audiences learn facts and figures relevant to the point being made and explore possible solutions based on evidence provided during the speech or presentation.

In a persuasive presentation design, you need to capture your audience’s attention right away with compelling statistics wrapped up in interactive and engaging data visualizations. Also, the design needs to look and feel dynamic with smooth transitions and fitting visuals, like images, stickers, and GIFs.

How to design a presentation

When you first open a blank presentation page, you might need some inspiration to start creating your design. For this reason, we created a simple guide that’ll help you make your own presentation from scratch without headaches.

1. Opt for a motion-based presentation

You can make an outstanding presentation using Prezi Present, a software program that lets you create interactive presentations that capture your viewer’s attention. Prezi’s zooming feature allows you to add movement to your presentation and create smooth transitions. Prezi’s non-linear format allows you to jump between topics instead of flipping through slides, so your presentation feels more like a conversation than a speech. A motion-based presentation will elevate your content and ideas, and make it a much more engaging viewing experience for your audience.

Watch this video to learn how to make a Prezi presentation:

2. Create a structure & start writing content

Confidence is key in presenting. You can feel more confident going into your presentation if you structure your thoughts and plan what you will say. To do that, first, choose the purpose of your presentation before you structure it. There are four main types of presentations: informative, instructive, motivational, and persuasive. Think about the end goal of your presentation – what do you want your audience to do when you finish your presentation – and structure it accordingly.

Next, start writing the content of your presentation (script). We recommend using a storytelling framework, which will enable you to present a conflict and show what could be possible. In addition to creating compelling narratives for persuasive presentations, this framework is also effective for other types of presentations.

Tip: Keep your audience in mind. If you’re presenting a data-driven report to someone new to the field or from a different department, don’t use a lot of technical jargon if you don’t know their knowledge base and/or point of view.

3. Research & analyze 

Knowing your topic inside and out will make you feel more confident going into your presentation. That’s why it’s important to take the time to understand your topic fully. In return, you’ll be able to answer questions on the fly and get yourself back on track even if you forget what you were going to say when presenting. In case you have extra time at the end of your presentation, you can also provide more information for your audience and really showcase your expertise. For comprehensive research, turn to the internet, and library, and reach out to experts if possible.

4. Get to design

Keeping your audience engaged and interested in your topic depends on the design of your presentation.

Now that you’ve done your research and have a proper presentation structure in place, it’s time to visualize it.

4.1. Presentation design layout

What you want to do is use your presentation structure as a presentation design layout. Apply the structure to how you want to tell your story, and think about how each point will lead to the next one. Now you can either choose to use one of Prezi’s pre-designed templates that resemble your presentation structure the most or start to add topics on your canvas as you go. 

Tip: When adding content, visualize the relation between topics by using visual hierarchy – hide smaller topics within larger themes or use the zooming feature to zoom in and out of supplementary topics or details that connect to the larger story you’re telling.

4.2. Color scheme

Now it’s time to choose your color scheme to give a certain look and feel to your presentation. Make sure to use contrasting colors to clearly separate text from the background, and use a maximum of 2 to 3 dominating colors to avoid an overwhelming design.

4.2. Content (visuals + text)

Add content that you want to highlight in your presentation. Select from a wide range of images, stickers, GIFs, videos, data visualizations, and more from the content library, or upload your own. To provide more context, add short-format text, like bullet points or headlines that spotlight the major themes, topics, and ideas in your presentation. 

Also, here you’ll want to have a final decision on your font choice. Select a font that’s easy to read and goes well with your brand and topic.

Tip: Be careful not to turn your presentation into a script. Only display text that holds significant value – expand on the ideas when presenting. 

4.3. Transitions

Last but not least, bring your presentation design to life by adding smooth, attractive, and engaging transitions that take the viewer from one topic to another without disrupting the narrative. 

On Prezi, you can choose from a range of transitions that take you into the story world and provide an immersive presentation experience for your audience. 

For more practical tips read our article on how to make a presentation . 

Presentation design tips

When it comes to presentations, design is key. A well-designed presentation can communicate your ideas clearly and engage your audience, while a poorly designed one can do the opposite.

To ensure your presentation is designed for success, note the following presentation design tips that’ll help you design better presentations that wow your audience.

1. Keep it simple

Too many elements on a slide can be overwhelming and distract from your message. While you want your content to be visually compelling, don’t let the design of the presentation get in the way of communicating your ideas. Design elements need to elevate your message instead of overshadowing it. 

2. Use contrasting text colors

Draw attention to important points with contrasted text colors. Instead of using bold or italics, use a contrasting color in your chosen palette to emphasize the text.

3. Be clear and concise. 

Avoid writing long paragraphs that are difficult to read. Limit paragraphs and sections of text for optimum readability.

4. Make sure your slide deck is visually appealing

Use high-quality images and graphics, and limit the use of text to only the most important information. For engaging and diverse visuals, go to Prezi’s content library and discover a wide range of stock images, GIFs, stickers, and more.

5. Pay attention to detail

Small details like font choice and alignments can make a big difference in how professional and polished your presentation looks. Make sure to pay attention to image and text size, image alignment with text, font choice, background color, and more details that create the overall look of your presentation.

6. Use templates sparingly

While templates can be helpful in creating a consistent look for your slides, overusing them can make your presentation look generic and boring. Use them for inspiration but don’t be afraid to mix things up with some custom designs as well. 

7. Design for clarity

Create a presentation layout that is easy to use and navigate, with clear labels and instructions. This is important for ensuring people can find the information they need quickly and easily if you end up sharing your presentation with others.

8. Opt for a conversational presentation design

Conversational presenting allows you to adjust your presentation on the fly to make it more relevant and engaging. Create a map-like arrangement that’ll encourage you to move through your presentation at your own pace. With a map-like design, each presentation will be customized to match different audiences’ needs. This can be helpful for people who have different levels of expertise or knowledge about the subject matter.

9. Be consistent 

Design consistency holds your presentation together and makes it easy to read and navigate. Create consistency by repeating colors, fonts, and design elements that clearly distinguish your presentation from others.

10. Have context in mind

A great presentation design is always dependent on the context. Your audience and objective influence everything from color scheme to fonts and use of imagery. Make sure to always have your audience in mind when designing your presentations.

For more presentation tips, read the Q&A with presentation design experts and get valuable insights on visual storytelling.

Presentation templates

Creating a presentation from scratch isn’t easy. Sometimes, it’s better to start with a template and dedicate your time to the presentation’s content. To make your life easier, here are 10 useful and stunning presentation templates that score in design and engagement. If you want to start creating with any of the following templates, simply go to our Prezi presentation template gallery , select your template, and start creating! Also, you can get inspired by the top Prezi presentations , curated by our editors. There you can discover presentation examples for a wide range of topics, and get motivated to create your own. 

Business meeting presentation

The work desk presentation templates have a simple and clean design, perfectly made for a team or business meeting. With all the topics visible from start, everyone will be on the same page about what you’re going to cover in the presentation. If you want, you can add or remove topics as well as edit the visuals and color scheme to match your needs.

Small business presentation

This template is great for an introductory meeting or pitch, where you have to summarize what you or your business does in a few, highly engaging slides. The interactive layout allows you to choose what topic bubble you’re going to select next, so instead of a one-way interaction, you can have a conversation and ask your audience what exactly they’re interested in knowing about your company.

Mindfulness at work presentation

How can you capture employees’ attention to explain important company values or practices? This engaging presentation template will help you do just that. With a wide range of impactful visuals, this presentation design helps you communicate your ideas more effectively. 

Business review template

Make your next quarterly business review memorable with this vibrant business presentation template. With eye-capturing visuals and an engaging layout, you’ll communicate important stats and hold everyone’s attention until the end.

History timeline template

With black-and-white sketches of the Colosseum in the background, this timeline template makes history come alive. The displayed time periods provide an overview that’ll help your audience to grasp the bigger picture. After, you can go into detail about each time frame and event.

Storytelling presentation template

Share stories about your business that make a lasting impact with this stunning, customizable presentation template. To showcase each story, use the zooming feature and choose to tell your stories in whatever order you want.

Design concept exploration template

Not all meetings happen in person nowadays. To keep that face-to-face interaction even when presenting online, choose from a variety of Prezi Video templates or simply import your already-existing Prezi template into Prezi Video for remote meetings. This professional-looking Prezi Video template helps you set the tone for your meeting, making your designs stand out. 

Employee perks and benefits video template

You can use the employee benefits video template to pitch potential job candidates the perks of working in your company. The Prezi Video template allows you to keep a face-to-face connection with potential job candidates while interviewing them remotely.

Sales plan presentation template

Using a clear metaphor that everyone can relate to, this football-inspired sales plan presentation template communicates a sense of team unity and strategy. You can customize this Prezi business presentation template with your brand colors and content.

Flashcard template

How can you engage students in an online classroom? This and many other Prezi Video templates will help you create interactive and highly engaging lessons. Using the flashcard template, you can quiz your students, review vocabulary, and gamify learning.

Great presentation design examples

If you’re still looking for more inspiration, check out the following Prezi presentations made by our creative users.

Social media presentation

This presentation is a great example of visual storytelling. The use of visual hierarchy and spatial relationships creates a unique viewing experience and makes it easier to understand how one topic or point is related to another. Also, images provide an engaging and visually appealing experience.

Leadership books presentation

Do you want to share your learnings? This interactive presentation offers great insights in an entertaining and visually compelling way. Instead of compiling leadership books in a slide-based presentation, the creator has illustrated each book and added a zooming feature that allows you to peek inside of each book’s content.

Remote workforce presentation

This is a visually rich and engaging presentation example that offers an interactive experience for the viewer. A noteworthy aspect of this presentation design is its color consistency and matching visual elements.

A presentation about the teenage brain 

Another great presentation design example that stands out with an engaging viewing experience. The zooming feature allows the user to dive into each topic and choose what subject to view first. It’s a great example of an educational presentation that holds the students’ attention with impactful visuals and compelling transitions.

Remote work policy presentation

This presentation design stands out with its visually rich content. It depicts exactly what the presentation is about and uses the illustrated window frames in the background image as topic placements. This type of presentation design simplifies complex concepts and makes it easier for the viewer to understand and digest the information.

Everyone can create visually-appealing presentations with the right tools and knowledge. With the presentation design tips, templates, and examples, you’re equipped to make your next presentation a success. If you’re new to Prezi, we encourage you to discover everything it has to offer. With this presentation design guide and Prezi, we hope you’ll get inspired to create meaningful, engaging, and memorable content for your audience!  

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Learn about slide design, its importance, and principles and strategies for designing strong slides.

What is Slide Design?

Through the use of different elements, including visuals, colors, typography, style, layout, and transitions, slide design provides a visual representation of the important points of your presentation. It not only complements your research, but can also enhance your presentation. Slide design can impact how much an audience understands and retains the content that you present.

Slide design strategies that thoughtfully consider and prioritize the experience of the audience can result in stronger presentations. Melissa Marshall —an expert in understanding how technical presentations can be transformed—advocates for an innovative approach to slide design. Her well-researched methods have been successful in the scientific community and we recommend her strategy.  In an article on how to transform your technical talks , Marshall discusses the science behind the impact of slide design and how the overuse of text on slides while engaging in verbal communication during presentations increases the chances of cognitive overload for audience members. Marshall advocates for an “audience-centered speaker” approach, a technique in which you shift your focus from the speaker to that of the audience.

-Melissa Marshall

Audience engagement is an important indicator about the level of success of a presentation. Marshall argues that “a critical insight is to realize that your success as a speaker depends entirely upon your ability to make your audience successful.” In order to prioritize the experience of your audience and how they receive your presentation, Marshall advocates for a design strategy called assertion-evidence design which uses a succinct headline in the slide with the key assertion in the form of a sentence that is accompanied by visual evidence, such as charts, graphs, and flowcharts. This method prioritizes the utilization of strong visuals and minimizes the amount of text on slides. As needed, presenters can provide the audience with a handout of their slides that contain more detailed notes from their presentation as a reference. If you have not used assertion-evidence slides before, it is a good technique to further explore and consider as its approach can enhance a presentation when carried out effectively. Examples of strong assertion-evidence slides and a self-assessment checklist for this design strategy can be found on Create and Assess Your Slides , and a template can be accessed below.

(Click to Enlarge)

An assertion-evidence slide template that includes tips and layout suggestions by melissa marshall. .

To learn more about creating strong visual representations of your data and the importance of forming a mutual exchange between you and your audience, visit our pages on Data Visualization , along with Consider Your Audience which is part of the section on how to Deliver Authentically . 

Watch these short videos by Marshall to further explore the impact of slide design, strategies for fostering audience engagement, and helpful ways to approach the scope and focus of your presentation.

Learn more about the impact of slide design.

Further explore how to analyze your audience.

Consider scope and focus of your slides and talks.

For additional resources to help you think about the organization and framing of your talk visit Deliver Authentically and Prepare for Any Talk .

What Does it Look Like to Design Effective Slides?

There are techniques and tools that can be utilized to strengthen the design of your slides in order to enhance the quality of your presentation. The following section presents one approach. Review this list and explore how each strategy can improve your slide design.

A more comprehensive slide design checklist and other resources can be found on Create and Assess Your Slides .  

Inclusive Slide Design

Creating slides that are inclusive and accessible for different learners is a critical part of the design process. Consider the implications of your design on the viewer’s interpretation, including visual representation, language and color choice. As you engage in this process, explore the role of slide design in creating an inclusive environment that considers multiple perspectives, values, beliefs, identities, disciplines, abilities, experiences, and backgrounds. To learn more about what it means and looks like to design visuals that are inclusive, visit Visual Storytelling as part of the section on Data Visualization and Preferred Terms for Select Population Groups & Communities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Are You Ready to Create Your Own Slides?

To begin the process of designing your slides or to improve an existing deck, visit Create and Assess Your Slides . Use the provided resources to learn more about helpful design strategies, how to create effective slides and ways to assess them.

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Presentation Design and the Art of Visual Storytelling

Discover a practical approach to designing results-oriented presentations and learn the importance of crafting a compelling narrative.

By Micah Bowers

Micah helps businesses craft meaningful engagement through branding, illustration, and design.

Presentations Must Tell a Story

We’ve all been there, dutifully enduring a dull presentation at work or an event. The slides are packed with text, and the presenter feels obligated to read every single word. There are enough charts, graphs, and equations to fill a trigonometry book, and each screen is awash in the brightest colors imaginable.

As the presentation drags on, the lists get longer. “We do this, this, this, this, this, and oh yeah, this!” Unfortunately, everyone in the audience just wants it to be over.

This is a major opportunity missed for a business, and we designers may be part of the problem. No, it’s not our fault if a presenter is unprepared or uninspiring, but if we approach our clients’ presentations as nothing more than fancy lists, we’ve failed.

See, presentations are stories , not lists, and stories have a structure. They build towards an impact moment and unleash a wave of momentum that changes people’s perceptions and preconceived notions. Good stories aren’t boring and neither are good presentations.

But before we go any further, it’s important to ask why presentations exist in the first place. What’s their purpose? Why are they useful?

Presentations exist to…

Presentations impart new and sometimes life-changing knowledge to an audience.

Most presentations provide a practical method for using the knowledge that is shared.

If executed correctly, presentations are able to captivate an audience’s imagination and lead them to consider the worth of what they’re learning.

Well-crafted presentations have the power to arouse feelings that can influence an audience’s behavior.

Presentations ready people to move, to act on their feelings and internal analysis.

Ultimately, presentations make an appeal to an audience’s logic, emotions, or both in an attempt to convince the audience to act on the opportunity shared by the presenter.

With this kind of power, designers can’t afford to view presentations as “just another deck.” We shouldn’t use the same formulaic templates or fail to educate our clients about the importance of high-quality image assets.

Instead, we need to see presentation design as an opportunity to craft a compelling narrative that earns big wins for our clients.

Need more convincing? Let’s take a quick look at how a few big brands merge storytelling with world-class presentation design.

Salesforce – Write the Narrative First

The overarching emphasis of any presentation is its narrative. Before any flashy visuals are added, the presentation designer works hand-in-hand with the client to establish the narrative and asks big questions like:

• Who are we presenting to?
• Why are we presenting to them?
• How do we want them to respond?

The marketing team at Salesforce, the world’s leading customer relationship management platform, answers these questions by first writing presentations as rough essays with a beginning, middle, and end. As the essay is fleshed out, themes emerge and section titles are added.

From here, the presentation is broken into slides that present the most impactful topics and information the audience needs to know. Only a few select words and phrases will make it onto the screen, but the essay draft will be rich with insights for the presenter to further refine and share in their oral narrative.

Writing the narrative first prevents the chaos of slide shuffling that occurs when a presentation’s stories aren’t clearly mapped out. With no clear narrative in place, slides don’t transition smoothly, and the presentation’s momentum dissipates.

Deloitte – Establish Credibility

Within the first few moments of meeting someone new, we quickly assess whether or not we feel they’re trustworthy.

Presenters are typically afforded an initial level of trust by virtue of being deemed capable of talking in front of a large group of people. But if that trust isn’t solidified within the first minute of a presentation, it can vanish in an instant.

Deloitte is a global financial consultant for 80 percent of all Fortune 500 companies. Naturally, they understand the need to quickly establish credibility. The slide used in the example above is number five in a thirty-slide deck. Right from the outset, Deloitte establishes their authority on the topic, in essence saying, “We’ve been at this awhile.”

Including a slide like this in a client’s deck can be a real confidence booster because it allows them to quickly secure expert status. Establishing credibility also helps an audience relax and engage with what they’re learning.

iControl – Define the Problem Visually

It’s not always possible to express a complex problem or solution with a single visual, but when it happens, it can be a powerful experience for an audience.

iControl is a Swedish startup that built an iPad app designed to replace paper and create better documentation at construction sites. They aren’t a big brand, but their investor pitch deck powerfully identifies a huge audience problem with a single slide—too much paper wasted, too many documents to track. An image like this so clearly identifies the problem that it simultaneously intensifies the need for a solution.

Defining the problem visually is an awesome strategy, but use it with care because an image that’s confusing or overly specific to an industry can leave audience members feeling like outsiders.

Arrange a Compelling Narrative

“Storytelling” is everywhere these days. Social media platforms have cleverly packaged the promise that our every post, image, and interaction is part of an ongoing story, but most of what we call “stories” are loosely related moments strung together by the happenstance of time and technology.

So what’s the distinction between narrative and story? How do they relate, and how do they differ? And most importantly, how do they tie into a compelling presentation?

A story is bound by time. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It details events and orders them in a way that creates meaning. In a presentation, stories speak to specific accomplishments and inspire action—“We did this, and it was amazing!”

A narrative is not bound by time. It relates separate moments and events to a central theme but doesn’t seek resolution. In a presentation, the narrative encompasses the past, present, and future—“Where we’ve come from. Where we are. Where we’re headed.”

How does this information impact the presentation designer? Here’s a simple and practical example.

You have a client who makes amazing paper clips that always bend back to their intended shape no matter how much they’re twisted. They ask you to design a presentation that highlights the paper clips and their company vision to “forever change the world of office products.” How do you begin?

Start with the Narrative

The narrative is the overarching emphasis of a presentation.

In this example, you would shape the presentation around your client’s company vision of forever changing the world of office products.

Advance the Narrative with Stories

Use succinct stories that highlight challenges, improvements, big wins, and daily life.

Perhaps the paper clip company’s research and development team faced several setbacks before a eureka moment made mass production cheaper than traditional paper clips.

Use stories like this as brush strokes on a canvas, each one contributing towards a more complete picture of the narrative.

Support Stories with Visuals

This is where the simple, yet stunning slides you design come into play.

In this case, you could show a simple graph that compares the production cost of traditional paper clips to your client’s innovative paper clips. And, to make sure you’re reinforcing the narrative, you could add a short title to the slide: “Game. Changed.”

Conflict Is the Engine of Memorable Presentations

In his bestselling book Story , Hollywood screenwriting guru Robert McKee writes, “Nothing moves forward in a story except through conflict.” This advice is extremely valuable for the presentation designer.

An overly optimistic presentation packed with positive information simply crashes over an audience and sweeps away their enthusiasm. Each rosy insight is less impactful than the one prior. Before long, all the audience hears is, “Good, better, best. We’re just like all the rest.”

An effective presentation designer looks for ways to create internal conflict within an audience. This means they feel the weightiness of a problem and actively hope for the relief of a solution. The yin and yang of problem and solution is the presentation designer’s true north, the guiding principle of every piece of information included in a deck.

One tried and true way to ensure a healthy positive/negative balance, without overly dramatizing a presentation is withholding information.

For instance, in our example of the paperclip company, this could mean devoting an extra slide or two to the research and development process. These slides would hint at the soon-to-be-revealed production costs and build anticipation without providing actual numbers.

Then, when the cost comparison chart is finally shared, the audience is genuinely eager for the information it holds, and the payoff is far more rewarding and memorable.

Unlock the Power of Clear, Consistent, and Compelling Content

Content doesn’t exist apart from the narrative; it enhances it. Once the narrative is in tip-top shape, it’s time to make the content shine, but before we dive into slide design, let’s take a quick detour.

Imagine we’re reviewing an investor pitch deck and we take an elevator into the sky to observe the presentation from an aerial view. From this lofty position, the deck’s content should have a cohesive appearance that ties in with the brand, organization, or topic being presented.

If you’ve ever been hired to work on a company’s pitch deck design , you understand how challenging this can be.

Many times, clients already have some sort of skeleton deck in place before they hire a presentation designer. Sometimes, these decks are packed with a dizzying assortment of charts, graphs, fonts, and colors. Here, you have two unique responsibilities.

First, you must help your client understand how the disunity of their content detracts from the narrative. Then, you must provide a way forward and present them with a practical vision for remaking things in a cohesive style.

Be warned that you may have to sell this idea, especially if your client thinks that their visual content is presentation ready and only in need of some “design magic” to make it look good.

If this happens, remember to be gracious, and acknowledge the role that their expertise played in generating such valuable information. Then, bring the conversation back to results. “This is a compelling topic. I want your audience to be in awe as you present, but for that to happen, I need to recreate the visuals.”

This is a tough chore, but as designers, we’re hired to improve the way our clients communicate—not fill their heads with false affirmations of poor content.

Essential Slide Design Principles

Slide design is an important part of presentation design, and effective slides are rooted in visual simplicity. But the strange thing about simplicity is that it stems from a thorough grasp of complexity. If we know something well, we can explain it to someone who does not in just a few words or images.

In this section, we’ll look at hierarchy, typography, image selection, and color schemes, but know that these design elements are rooted in a proper understanding of a presentation’s narrative and content. If we start the design process with slides, we seriously risk equipping our clients with presentations that are unfocused and unimpactful.

Create Emphasis with Slide Hierarchy

Design hierarchy relates to the placement of visual elements in a way that creates emphasis. For the presentation designer, this means asking, “What two or three things do I want the audience to see on this slide?

Do’s and Don’ts

• Do create visual contrast through scale, color, and alignment.
• Don’t try to visually highlight more than three ideas per slide.

Whenever a really important idea comes up, be brave and only use a few words in bold type to communicate it. This kind of simplicity signals to an audience that it’s time to intensify their focus and really listen to what the presenter has to say.

Overcome Ambiguity with Thoughtful Typography

Most presentations are built on words, so it’s important to know which words to include and how to style them. This starts by choosing the right font, then knowing how big to make the words and where to include them.

• Do ask if your client has any designated fonts listed in their brand style guide.
• Don’t use more than two fonts in your presentation, and avoid text blocks and lengthy paragraphs like the plague.

Try not to use anything smaller in size than a 36 point font. Some designers believe it’s ok to use sizes as small as 24 point, but this often leads to packing slides with more text. Remember, slides are a speaking prompt, not promotional literature.

Communicate Authority Through Graphic Simplicity

Every chart, graph, icon, illustration, or photograph used in a presentation should be easy to see and understand. Images that are difficult to interpret or poor in quality can erode the trust of an audience.

• Do look for ways to use symbols, icons, or illustrations as they have a way of communicating ideas more quickly than photography.
• Don’t use more than one photograph per slide, and don’t use stock photography that conflicts with your client’s brand (e.g., too funny, serious, or ethereal).

During the consultation phase of a presentation design project, ask your potential client to see existing charts or graphs they’re hoping to include. If anything is confusing, pixelated, or inconsistent, tell them you’ll need to remake their graphics. Be prepared to show high-quality examples from well-known companies to sell your point.

Add Energy and Meaning with Bold Color Schemes

Color plays an important role in nearly every design discipline, and presentation design is no different. The colors used for a presentation affect the tone of the topic being shared and influence the mood of the audience.

• Do keep color schemes simple. Two or three colors should make up the majority of slides.
• Don’t use complementary colors for text and background (e.g., blue background with orange text). This has a way of making words vibrate with nauseating intensity.

Identify a few high-contrast accent colors to make strategic cameos for added impact.

The Mission of Every Presentation Designer

It can’t be overstated; presentations are huge opportunities for designers to positively impact their clients’ businesses. Innovation and advancements in culture and technology are occurring so rapidly that it’s become absolutely vital to be able to tell a good story. No one has time for poorly communicated ideas.

Here’s the simple truth: A bad presentation designer dresses up junk content with no thought for narrative and dumps a pile of slides into their client’s lap. Maybe the presentation looks pretty, but it doesn’t inspire, doesn’t activate, and certainly doesn’t sell.

To be effective, results-driven presentation designers means that we must empower our clients with an efficient tool. We carefully consider each slide, word, and visual for maximum impact, and we remember that presentations are intended for a human audience. Whether it’s a room of investors or a conference hall packed with consumers, it’s our job to provide our clients with opportunities to change minds and win business.

Understanding the basics

What is presentation design.

Presentation designers craft an array of ideas, stories, words, and images into a set of slides that are arranged to tell a story and persuade an audience.

Why is storytelling so important?

Where numbers, lists, and facts merely inform, storytelling has the power to make an audience care about and act on information that is being presented.

What are the basic elements of a slide?

The basic elements of a slide are its dimensions, text, images, layout, and color.

• SlideDesign
• VisualStorytelling
• PresentationDesign

Micah Bowers

Vancouver, WA, United States

Member since January 3, 2016

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Presentation Design: A Step-by-Step Guide

Nailing your presentation structure can have a big impact on your target audiences, whether they are investors, coworkers, partners, or potential customers. It helps get your ideas across and persuade others. 

For a presentation to work, its contents must be paired with great design. In fact, 91% of presenters feel more confident with a well-designed slide deck.

Now, design may not be something that interests you or something you’re good at. But like it or not, the moment you fire up Powerpoint, or Keynote you are a designer. And there is no escape. 

So instead of designing a poor presentation with lousy templates, why not learn the essentials of designing a beautiful presentation?

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to design a captivating presentation, and break down the whole process into small chunks so you can tackle each step easily. 

If you’re eager to put these principles into practice, create a Piktochart account and start creating beautiful presentations in minutes.

What makes a presentation well designed?

A bad presentation can give the impression that you lack preparation, care, and credibility. A well-designed presentation, on the other hand, makes you look professional and trustworthy. Here’s what it means: 

Less text and more visuals

Humans are visual beings. Our comprehension of visual elements is way more than just plain text. And we retain any information much better when it’s paired with imagery. 

If you want your message to connect with your audience, remove the extra text in your slides and replace it with visual content .

There are many ways to add photos , one of which is visualizing your data into timelines , flowcharts, graphs , and other frameworks. For example, this presentation by Trinh Tu uses data visualization really well to convey key stats and details.

However, adding visuals doesn’t mean just throwing some fancy pictures and icons onto your slides. Your icons and photos need to be relevant.

Before you add a visual element, always check if it contributes to the message you are trying to communicate. 

Well-placed pictures can go a long way in helping the audience connect with your presentation. So use them cautiously and strategically. 

Summarize points instead of writing them all out

According to a survey by David Paradi , the three things that annoy audiences most about presentations are:  

• Speakers reading their slides 
• Slides that include full sentences of text 
• Text that is too small to read 

Notice what’s common to all these annoyances? The text. People have extremely short attention spans, especially when it comes to reading heaps of text. 

So the text in your presentation slides should be just enough to complement the speaker, no more. It should not compete with what’s being said. 

For example, this simple presentation does a great job of summarizing the message of each slide in just a few words and breaking up the text nicely into multiple slides. 

Crowding your slides with all the information you have makes you unnecessary. You don’t want people to be distracted by reading when they’re trying to listen to you. 

Instead, the slides should only be considered as a visual aid. So keep them simple. Focus on the message, not the slides themselves. 

One takeaway per slide

As we discussed, people find it hard to absorb too much information from a single slide. So don’t overwhelm your audience, and remember that less is more. Make sure not to have more than one key point in each presentation slide.  

For example, this presentation about startup weekend has minimalistic slides walking viewers through one message at a time. It also shows that you don’t need a ton of fancy elements to make your presentation visually appealing.

Limit each of your slides to a simple statement, and you’ll easily be able to direct your audience’s focus to the main topic and subtopics. 

Arranging your text this way is one of the best ways to make a powerful impact on your presentation design.  

Clear hierarchy in design

Visual hierarchy is easily one of the most important yet most overlooked design principles. Simply put, it means the color, size, contrast, alignment, and other factors related to each element of your slide should be based on its importance. 

The most important elements should capture the attention of your audience first, followed by the second most important elements, and so on. 

Needless to say, you must know the whole narrative and outline before you start planning the visual hierarchy. It’s all about the message you want each slide and your whole presentation to get across. 

For example, in this presentation about building a good team, see how the header text, the description text, and the button text are different from each other. The header font is the largest and placed at the top, catching immediate attention. 

Then your eyes go to the button text because it captures attention with a red background. And finally, you see the description, the illustration, and other elements. 

So as you design your presentation, consider the narrative and plan the visual hierarchy needed to justify the story. This will ensure that your audience will not miss out on the key points you want to emphasize. 

Design consistency across slides

People are quick to identify inconsistencies in a presentation design, and these inconsistencies prevent them from having a fully engaging experience. So keep your presentation design consistent with a single theme.

Consistency creates a better flow and shows that each slide in your presentation belongs to the same story. To understand this better, see the below slide from this presentation . 

Notice how the slide primarily uses only two colors (white and red) for all the elements. And the image dimensions, fonts, and styling for each team member are exactly the same. 

You’ll notice the same thing in other slides of this presentation too. The same colors, the same font family , and similar backgrounds have been used in the overall design . This is what we mean by consistency. 

If the presentation you’re making is part of a company, the company may already have a style guide that dictates how to keep your presentation consistent with the company’s branding. If not, it’s never too late to create one . 

Call to action

A presentation is not complete without a call to action (CTA). If there is no CTA, your audience will think, “Is that it?” and you’ll leave them wondering what they’re supposed to do next with the information you provided.

The best CTAs are simple and easy. For example, you can ask the audience to contact you, connect on social media, sign up for a product or webinar. 

Also, make sure to highlight the incentive. Your audience should be clear on the main benefits they will get by following through with your call to action. 

The bottom line is: Make it a no-brainer and make it easy for people to take action right away. 

Designing a great presentation

Now that you know the ingredients of appealing presentation design, let’s see how to design a presentation that wows your audience, and also drives your key points home at the same time. Follow the below presentation, ideas, steps, and best practices to create a stunning presentation.

Prepare slide backgrounds and images

Backgrounds and pictures go a long way in setting the right mood and feel for your presentation. And there is no one right way to do this. Your options are limited only by your creativity.

For example, this presentation from Zuora makes masterful use of background images. Almost every slide has a beautiful background photo, along with a color overlay above the background to make the text easy to read. 

Pay attention to the following best practices as you work on your backgrounds and photos:

• Make sure your images have enough contrast with your words. 
• Use simple images that are closely relevant to your messages. You can use multiple free and paid stock photo sites to find photos that resonate with what you want to convey. These include Picography , Unsplash , Freepik , and Gratisography .
• Don’t pick common, generic stock images that people have already seen hundreds of times elsewhere. Also, avoid clipart for the same reasons. 
• Don’t crowd too many pictures into a single slide.
• Ensure that your images are of high quality, with a resolution that allows a comfortable viewing experience. They should come off as clear and crisp on both small and large screens. 

Zero in on your slide layouts

Contrary to what you may believe, great presentation design is not about being very artistic or creating complex layouts. Instead, your focus should be on communicating information in a nice, user-friendly way.

For example, this presentation has many slides that emphasize a great alternative to the conventional approach of putting text over an image. It leverages a split-screen layout for each slide, resulting in clean and elegant quotes paired with stunning visuals. 

Pay attention to the following best practices as you work on slide layouts:

• Make sure you have a reason for aligning elements in a certain way for each slide. If possible, use frames or grids to align your images and text appropriately. 
• When used too often, center alignment makes your design look amateurish. Use it only as a last resort.  
• Don’t keep using the same layout for consecutive slides. It makes your presentation dull and repetitive. Mix up the layouts to keep your audience engaged. 
• Have enough white space around each element. Don’t feel like you have to fill vacant spaces with more objects. Giving each visual room to breathe makes your whole design easier on the eyes, while a cluttered composition is hard to make sense of. 

Pick your colors wisely

Colors influence emotions and contribute to the identity of your brand. They also lift the audience’s overall sense of enthusiasm and move people to action. So you must use colors strategically to pull the audience into your presentation. 

For example, this colorful presentation for Adidas was designed to show how its deck could give a combination of fun and luxurious vibes. 

Notice the colors used in the above slide. There is a lot of white, purple, and blue, with some variations used sparingly around the illustrations. Only three main colors are doing most of the heavy lifting. That’s why the overall design still works even with some extra colors thrown in. 

Pay attention to the following best practices as you work on your presentation colors:

• If your company already has a color palette in place, stick to it. If not, pick a strong color scheme with no more than five colors to serve as a base for your presentation design. Too many colors can make your audience frantic. 
• Use tools such as Adobe Color CC , Kuler , Piknik , and 0to255 to play around with different colors and color schemes and see what works with what. 
• Make sure your color scheme has colors that can contrast and complement each other. Colors that don’t clash will make your presentation look clean and polished. 

Select the right fonts

Typography is another factor that can make or break your presentation. Fonts have a subtle but powerful impact on how the audience views both your presentation and your brand. 

But choosing fonts is a major challenge for those without any form of design education or experience. They mistakenly think that simple and basic fonts are too dull and boring. So they try to look for some fancy fonts to make their presentation exciting, eventually ending up with some hideous or outdated font such as Comic Sans.

Instead, you should consider the readability of the message you want to convey. For example, this presentation by With Company makes great use of modern typography . 

Since many of the slides have lengthy quotes, they are split in ways to make the message easy to digest. In addition, see how all the text is super clean and concise. 

Pay attention to the following best practices as you work on your presentation fonts: 

• Just like with your color scheme, use the same set of fonts and the same font sizes in all the slides of your presentation. For example, if your slide heading is Verdana 40pt, then each slide heading should be Verdana 40pt. In fact, you don’t need more than three fonts that work well together. 
• If you feel like using some animated text that bounces, soars, or glitters, just don’t. Curb the temptation. Hyperactive words and phrases are annoying and distracting. 
• If you already have standard font pairs based on your company’s brand identity, use those. If not, choose fonts that convey the voice and tone you’re aiming for. 
• The best fonts for presentations are simple, professional, modern, and readable. Pick a font such that there is a significant difference between its regular and bold font faces.
• Don’t shy away from using standard fonts. Avoid using some rare font that’s unlikely to be available on all computers and mobile devices.
• Pair fonts that work well with each other. Granted, this can be tricky and hard for an untrained eye to pull off. But there are many collections known to be effective. So you can pick from those. Resources like FontPair and FontJoy make it easy to find great font combinations.
• As discussed before, size the fonts based on visual hierarchy. For example, headlines should be larger than body text. But even the least significant texts should be large enough to read, with appropriate line and letter spacing. 

Wrapping up

We know this may be a lot to take in. It’s not easy to design a mesmerizing presentation. But the final result is worth all the trouble. A great presentation can open doors that you may have never thought to be possible. 

A clean design is much easier to take in. It makes you and your brand look more credible and professional. So use the above steps to push your design skills as far as you can. 

Start improving one thing at a time, and your efforts will add up to a point where you’ll design stunning presentations without thinking. You can also accelerate the process with a tool like Piktochart that comes with hundreds of ready-made templates and intuitive features. So get started today.

About The Author

Other Posts

Mastering the Craft: Presentation Design Strategies From a Pro

How to Make a Presentation (Guide With Tips & Templates)

How to Nail Your Brand Presentation: Examples and Pro Tips

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Presentation Design: Your Complete Guide to Better Presentations

We don’t like boring presentations either. here’s how to dial your next presentation design to eleven..

Presentation design is that “I told you so” friend. You can have the best stage presence around, the most pertinent information for your audience, a simply stellar narrative . . . and none of it matters if your design doesn’t work.

That’s when presentation design swoops in and gives ya the big ole, “I told you so.”

Look—presenting information to other human beings without slowly (or quickly) starting to look like you dove headfirst into the deep end of your community pool is hard enough. We’ve all been there. We get it.

That’s why this guide exists. Treat it as a cheat code to better presentations. We’ll cover all things slide design—tips, examples, and tools you can use to make your next presentation look good (no complicated game controller combos required).

Table of Contents

The Pillars of Any Great Presentation

10 presentation design tips that work, presentation design ideas, how to design a presentation.

There are a million different things you can do when designing a presentation. That’s the challenge. You’re in the center of a maze, and if you spin around you’ll see twenty pathways. Each one of these takes you to twenty more, and on and on and on.

Let’s start with some basic pillars of great presentation design: purpose, narrative, content, cohesion, and delivery. Everything that comes after rests on top of these building blocks.

Even though we’re talking about five pillars, purpose might be the most important one. Or, at least the deepest dug, supporting everything else.

Without a purpose for your presentation, there is no hope. That sounds grim—because it is. 

Go to the grocery store with no list, and what happens? A $100 overdraft charge and seven pounds of crab cakes with a “Sell by” date of tomorrow. Dive into a presentation with no purpose, and you have a similar theme: sadness.

Start simple—what type of presentation are you making? Is it a quarterly review? Sales report? Pitch? Perhaps you’re the keynote speaker at a once-every-three-years global conference? (Okay, hotshot.)

Figure out what kind of presentation you need. That informs its purpose. Then, factor in your audience. Who are you speaking to, and what do you want them to gain from this soon-to-be beautifully visualized information sharing session?

That brings us to . . .

Say you’re crafting a pitch presentation. Your purpose is to inform and persuade investors to finance your product. This gives you what you need to develop your theme: “XYZ product isn’t just showy, it makes users’ lives easier.”

Great. Now, like any good writer or painter or filmmaker , your job is to develop this theme over the course of your narrative, A.K.A. the overarching journey of your presentation.

You’ll pepper this narrative journey with elements of storytelling . For example: Where you were when you had your big idea is a story that supports your larger narrative—how it all started, why it matters, and where it’s going.

Make sure there’s conflict. Take it from famed screenwriter Syd Field : “All drama is conflict. Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no character; without character, you have no story; and without story, you have no screenplay.”

A presentation that’s all sunshine and rainbows is a presentation that lacks realism. And, just like moviegoers don’t want to spend $20 to see a movie where everything is wonderful and nothing could be better, your audience wants engaging information that’s rooted in conflict. 

Because, that means it’s real.

Your product will change the world because it’s solving a real-world problem , and guess what? You’ve faced problems of your own in getting said product off the ground. They were A, B, and C, and you solved them by . . .

Here’s where we get designer-y (author’s choice—that’s a word today). You know your purpose, you understand how that purpose creates a theme, and you see how to develop this theme through narrative.

Now, you need awe-inspiring content. This is where design choices start to have an effect. Your job is to make the complexity of presentation design look simple. No sweat, right?

Opt for high-quality stock photos , readable fonts , and a balanced color scheme . In a way, it’s like tightrope walking across the Grand Canyon.

Also—don’t ever actually tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon.

Your visual content should complement your message and help an audience understand exactly what you want them to take away from your presentation.

Ever seen a Baz Luhrmann film? He’s a man with a distinctive style. If you need proof, go watch Moulin Rouge! , or his adaptation of The Great Gatsby .

We’ll wait.

See? Distinctive style. You look at a Baz film, in all of its creative chaos, and just know—that was made by him. Good or bad doesn’t matter. Baz Luhrmann stays on-brand . Even if on-brand is nine million things happening at once in a single frame.

Cohesion is of the utmost importance when crafting a presentation. The easiest way to achieve visual cohesion is to keep your design on-brand. Be it personal or business, use images, colors , and fonts that represent you.

And if you don’t have those? Decide upon them. Then use them.

If purpose is the deepest pillar, this is the . . . not so deepest . . . if only because it’s the last pillar to consider. We’re not talking about you talking —that is important, but in terms of presentation design, delivery is about slide layout.

How you’re using content, how you’re creating cohesion, and how you’re layering slides and building narrative—that’s your delivery. 

It’s a tall task, for sure. Each pillar seemingly heavier than the last. 

Ready for some tips? Let’s talk through ten quick and actionable tips that you can use when creating your next presentation.

You’ll find nifty previews of Shutterstock Create’s multi-page presentation templates included with these tips.

Note: There’s no shame in starting with a template , nor do you need to spend hours finagling with PowerPoint or Google Slides. Just grab one that’s right for your presentation type, then customize it to match your brand and flaunt your info. 

1. Use Presentation Slides as a Complement to an Outline

 A 2018 study found that only 20% of people finish reading an article online. What’s worse, the average visitor in the study would only read 25% of an article. 

If you’re still with us—thanks. We’re well past the 25% point.

We bring this up because presentation slides aren’t meant to be inundated with information, at least not via words (more on this soon). 

That’s what your outline is for. It’s the notes you put together in tandem with your presentation. No one will see it but you, so, unlike your presentation layout, it can look like a house of horrors as long as the only one experiencing the terror is you ( and you can still decipher it).

Think of an outline as your pseudo-script. Maybe not word for word what you’ll say, but the map for your entire presentation (like speaker notes), with each gorgeous presentation slide backing up your words.

2. Create Narrative Progression from Beginning to End

Narrative progression means using storytelling to develop your theme and strengthen the overall journey of your presentation. 

• This is who we were, who we are, and who we will be .
• This is where we were, where we are, and where we will be.
• This is what you want, how to get it, and where “getting it” will take you.

In the example above, the first slide introduces “brand guidelines” the second slide expands the topic with a strategy, and the third slide dives into more specific advice. There’s a steady and progressive unpacking of information. 

3. Corral Your Colors and Fonts

Reel in those colorful and scripty design elements .

Two complementary colors are more than enough, and if you opt for extra, make sure there’s a reason behind it (intentional flashiness, a third color used for emphasis, etc.)

In the above example, you see black and grey are the dominant backgrounds, with a nice rainbow gradient header and footer here and there. Regardless, the use of rainbow is intentional and scarce, serving as a nice accent.

Same goes for fonts—keep ‘em under control. Using too many fonts creates reader confusion. Sans serif and simple serif fonts are easy to read. 

Also, “easy to read” doesn’t translate to “boring.” If you crave extra fonty flavor, learn how to pair your fonts . Not only does it look good, but it’s a simple way to create visual interest.

If you do this, use one font in your slide headings, and the other in the body copy. Keep it consistent throughout your presentation slide design.

  4. Cut Text Like It’s the Last Piece of Pie

It’s the day after Christmas . There’s one piece of pie left and, in a moment of charity (or foolishness), you decide to share it with the entire family. Good for you. 

That single piece of pie is sliced into tiny slivers, each one put on its own plate.

Cut to now. You’re making a presentation. You notice a heavy paragraph full of ideas, and it’s hanging out on a single slide . . .

. . . share it with the rest of your presentation. Give each slide its own [singular] idea. This makes your information digestible. Maybe a few slides merit more than one sentence. Fine. So long as they support one idea, concept, point, etc.

5. You’re Not Presenting a Resume

Lose the bullet points. They’re an eyesore and a recipe for subconsciously adding way too much information to a single slide. 

“But, but . . . I use bullet points to break everything up!” Nice. So, why are there seventeen of them?

If you want to “bullet” out sentences, use graphics or icons as separators. They’re more interesting.

6. If There Is an Opportunity for Dynamic Visuals, Take It

To a degree. Viewers retain 95% of a message from video compared to 10% from reading. Strike a conversation with any content marketer and they’ll pile on the merits of creating video content .

There’s a reason YouTube has over two billion monthly active users .

If you have a thematically relevant and omnipotent piece of video content, then consider using it. Same goes for animation . A bit of dynamism isn’t a bad thing.

Unless you overuse it. Don’t stuff your presentation full of videos, don’t overload it with animation, and certainly don’t mix and match. This isn’t 8th grade U.S. History, where fading in Thomas Jefferson’s greatest accomplishments might take you from a B+ to an A-. 

7. Make Your Presentation Design Reflect Your Brand

We’ve harped on this already, and it’s worth repeating—the easiest way to keep your presentation consistent is to maintain its brand focus. Dig into that wondrous brand kit of yours (or make one), where all your glorious design elements exist.

There are plenty of times to experiment with new looks and tonal pivots. But, the quarterly sales meeting with the executive leadership team is probably not one of them.

8. Help Your Audience by Creating Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is about arranging your design elements in a way that shows their order of importance. Sure, you should be using as little text as possible on your slides, but that short chunk of text is there to be read, yeah? 

Text size, colors , spacing, texture, style, and contrast all play a role in crafting airtight visual hierarchy. First off—limit yourself to a single image, illustration , or chart. Use multiple and you’re leaving your audience to guess what’s most important.

Heading text should be bigger than body text. This creates contrast. Same deal with colors—does a vibrant red against a soft white direct your viewers’ eyes? 

Tell your viewers where to look . . . without telling them anything at all.

9. Use Design Elements as Points of Emphasis

Let’s stay on that vibrant red / soft white thought—you can use colors , graphics, and icons as points of emphasis in your presentation. A huge contrast in color or text size draws the eye where you want it to look.

It creates emphasis, and this is really how you design a good presentation. Use design elements to help build your narrative and speak to your audience. 

This way, as you deliver your two cents, they’re already looking at and interpreting exactly what you want them to. 

10. Develop Trust Through Consistency

Beyond visual bliss, a consistent design builds trust with your audience. These slide design tips by themselves can pump up your next big Prezi, but together they’ll help you create a consistent and powerful visual message that supports your equally potent dialogue.

Captivate your audience and gain their trust. When everything’s said and done, and you’ve won over your crowd, that’s your queue to ask something of them. Call ‘em to action .

Whether that’s something as simple as “Questions, anyone?” for a company presentation or something more business-driven (download this, sign up for our newsletter, connect with us on social media, etc.), the key to people actually doing it is them trusting you first.

We’ve talked about the pillars of great presentation design , built upon those pillars with ten actionable tips, and now—before we get down to the business of actually making a presentation—it’s time for some inspiration.

If you know how but not what , here are a few slide design ideas. 

Use Powerful Background Imagery

Images can elevate or completely derail your presentation. The latter happens when you stuff your slides full of low-quality photos, or content that’s cliché or too on-the-nose.

Luckily, you’ll never run out of top-notch stock photography with Shutterstock’s library . Start stockpiling your stock now. Remember, you don’t have to use a picture of a lightbulb to resemble that one idea you had that started everything.

Look for powerful images that tell a story of their own. They can be related to your topic without overshadowing it in “Look at me, I’m exactly what the words say!”-ness.     

Boost Your Presentation Design with a Quote

We like quotes. The millions of quotes + images = my next Instagram post have taught us that. And hey, if you find an interesting quote—particularly by someone well-known —that relates to your message, then go for it. 

Quotes can be engaging transitions into new presentation material.

Distinguish Offerings via Color

Here’s a cool idea—if your presentation is about certain offerings or services, consider pairing these offerings with their own unique colors . 

Then, you can color code them throughout the presentation. Subtle enough to create better understanding without your audience even realizing it.

Embrace Trendy Looks

There are new design trends every year, and then some that seem to never go away. Take gradient colors for example. For a “That person really knows how to stay relevant!” look, pick a design trend that speaks to you and work it into your slides.  

Channel Your Modern Elegance

We’ve talked ad nauseum about black and white designs before because they’re amazing and timeless and 900 other adjectives. Here’s the formula for the example above:

Stunning photography + black and white color scheme + a dab of another color (thanks logo) = modern elegance.

Take the photos yourself , call in a few favors from us , or turn those amazing color photos of yours into elegant black and white art .

Now that you’re loaded with presentation advice, let’s make one using Shutterstock Create .

1. Open a Presentation Template

Inside Create , click File > Create new > Templates . Search by category, or type “Presentation” into the text box.

Once you have your template selected, click Add all ___ pages to add the entire template to your design canvas. Click a single slide to edit it individually. 

2. Customize the Design

Use the left tabs to customize your design however you want. 

Swap images and text with your own from their respective tabs, change colors, emphasize points with graphics, and give your slides unique looks with textures and effects.

3. Use the Layers Panel to Navigate Between Slides and/or Add Pages

The Layers panel is your best friend when working on a multi-page design. Switch between the Layers tab and Pages tab to navigate your design. 

The Layers tab lets you select individual design elements to customize on a single slide. Click the Pages tab to navigate between slides, or use the blue page icon and arrows on the bottom toolbar.

Click the paper/plus sign icon to add a page to your design. The double paper icon lets you duplicate the page you’re working on, and the garbage can icon will delete the selected page. 

4. Download Your Finished Presentation

Download your finished presentation as a PNG/JPG/PDF (images only), GIF (animated image), or MP4 (video) file.

If you download as a PNG or JPG, your file will export as a .ZIP file. Simply unzip and save the images to your desktop. You can download your entire project, individual pages, or select a page range. 

If downloading as an MP4, you have the choice to export as a single video file or individual files.

Alright, newly-minted presentation savant—get to it.

Cover image via Stilesta .

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Principles of Presentation Design

A course by katya kovalenko , presentation & data designer.

Learn how to design beautiful and effective presentations from scratch

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Remember the time you had to sit through an endless presentation full of charts and text and weird transition animations? Chances are you do. But do you remember anything about what was on it? Now that's a different story. The way we present information greatly influences how much of it we absorb, which is why presentation design is an art in and of itself.

Katya Kovalenko is a Barcelona-based data designer who helps businesses communicate visually, clearly, and more effectively. In this course, she'll share all the potential that she's found in presentation design, showing you the process that she uses with her clients, the methods of organizing information, as well as give you pro tips from a designer’s point of view.

What will you learn in this online course?

18 lessons & 22 downloads

• 18 lessons (2h 12m)
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• Level: Beginner
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What is this course's project?

As a final project, you will have to choose a topic for your presentation, create the narrative structure, develop the content and the look & feel and finally, join everything you’ve learned into a complete and effective presentation.

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Who is this online course for?

This course is suitable for anyone who wants to learn about presentation design, from a complete beginner to an advanced designer.

Requirements and materials

You will need a computer with any presentation software installed (Katya will use Keynote, but you can use the software you prefer), basic notions of the chosen software, and a notepad for conceptualizing.

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Muy interesante el desarrollo del diseño de la presentación de la profesora. Me ha gustado el curso.

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adafernandez

Cómo deiseñar presentaciones para dummies!! Excelente!!!

rebeccajgould

Great tips!

Very good, great design ideas

yuruanimartinez

Un curso muy basico, muy bien desarrollada las primeras unidades son de gran utilidad

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Katya Kovalenko A course by Katya Kovalenko

Katya Kovalenko worked in advertising for nearly a decade before she embarked on what she calls “a quiet revolution.” After reading “Quiet” by Susan Cain, her notion of communication completely shifted. It led her to create Quiet Studio, which focuses on communicating in a more subtle and personal way.

As presentation and data designer at Quiet Studio, she creates presentations, infographics, and brand identities for businesses. She has worked with numerous brands and organizations like Meom, Article Group, Interesting Development, and Chelsea & Co.

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Presentations, What About Them?

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Content & Narrative

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• Content Structure

Let’s Create Our Presentation

• Mood Board 1
• Mood Board 2
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• Slides Design 2
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What is presentation design?

Presentation design is the art and science of creating visually appealing and engaging slides to deliver your message effectively. It involves combining text, images, and graphics to convey your ideas, data, and information in a clear and compelling way. Whether you are delivering a sales pitch, giving a lecture, or presenting a report, effective design can make a significant impact on your success.

Presentation design refers to the process of creating slides that convey a message or information. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves graphic design, user experience, psychology, and communication skills. Presentation designers use various tools such as PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides to create visually compelling slides that support the speaker’s message. The goal is to engage the audience, communicate ideas effectively, and make a lasting impression.

Why is presentation design essential?

The effectiveness of a presentation depends not only on the content but also on the design. A well-designed presentation can grab the audience’s attention, convey complex ideas, and persuade them to take action. Here are some reasons why design is essential when it comes to presentations:

I t grabs attention. 

People are visual creatures, and they are more likely to engage with a presentation that is visually appealing and stimulating. Above all, your presentation design should capture attention.

I t helps communicate ideas effectively.

A well-designed presentation can convey ideas, data, and information in a clear and concise way, making it easier for the audience to understand.

I t creates a lasting impression.

A visually compelling presentation can make a lasting impression on the audience, increasing the chances of them remembering the content and taking action.

How to Create Powerful Presentations

Creating a powerful presentation requires a combination of design skills, storytelling, and effective communication. Here are some tips to help you create powerful presentations that get results:

Define Your Message

Before you start your presentation design, define your message and objectives. What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation?

Choose the Right Visuals

Choose visuals that support your message and are visually appealing. Use high-quality images, charts, and graphics that are easy to understand.

Keep It Simple

Avoid cluttering presentation slides with too much information. Keep it simple and use a consistent design that reflects your brand guidelines .

Use Fonts Wisely

Choose fonts that are easy to read and complement your design. Avoid using too many fonts, and use them consistently throughout your presentation.

Trust the presentation design pros

Are you doubting your design skills or tight on bandwidth? It might be time to find a professional presentation designer , like SketchDeck. Even if your design team is at capacity, SketchDeck can turnaround show-stopping presentations as quickly as you need them.

Practice your presentation

Practice your presentation multiple times, and don’t be afraid to get feedback from others. Above all, this will help you refine your message, delivery, and design.

Why invest in presentation design?

Presentation design is a critical component of creating a successful communication strategy. Investing in it helps you grab attention, communicate ideas effectively, and create lasting impressions. By following the tips mentioned above, you can create powerful presentations that get results. Remember to define your message, choose the right visuals, keep it simple, use fonts wisely, and practice your delivery. With the right design and delivery, your presentation will captivate and persuade your audience and achieve your biggest objectives.

Ivy Croteau

• Originally published on April 24, 2023

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Presentation design principles for better PowerPoint design

• Written by: Richard Goring
• Categories: PowerPoint design , PowerPoint productivity
• Comments: 17

I’m often asked how to make presentations more effervescent. How they can have more fizz. Or, worst of all, “Can you make my presentation pop?” Well, the answer is yes. By applying some key principles of presentation design , you can make your PowerPoint design really standout and deliver both a more ‘popping’ – but also more effective – presentation.

I’ve split this out into a couple of topics, across two broad categories. One is presentation design, which is really the core graphic design principles that work across any form of visual communication. The other I’ve classed as PowerPoint design, which is a little more specific to using PowerPoint as a tool to create or deliver content. All the ideas have practical applications in PowerPoint, but I thought this breakdown was potentially useful.

Presentation design with images

What if I told you that your presentations could look like these examples?

They’re all using images to enhance your PowerPoint design, both by looking good, but also contributing to the story and helping your audience understand your messages. We’ll get more into the visual storytelling aspect of this later, so for now, just think about the quality of your images. All of these come from one of my favourite free stock photo sites, Unsplash , which gives you royalty free images for commercial use, and they’re all beautiful.

So, it’s not just a case of dropping nice images on the slide. You need to understand how to lay them out well, and use the crop, colour, and artistic effects tools in PowerPoint to treat the images appropriately, and give your presentation a professional look.

To see how we’ve created these kinds of slides, check out the image crop , and crop to zoom and full bleed step-by-step guides. Simple, but considered use of the crop tool can work wonders with your PowerPoint presentation design.

Presentation design incorporating white space

Big, bold, flood fill images are great, and an easy way to make your slides stand out. But it’s not all about pictures and Presentation Zen;  inevitably you’ll need to place other content onto your slides, whether that’s facts, figures, charts, or even dare I say it… bullet points. This is where the use of white space in presentation design becomes crucial.

White space is not about purely adding ‘white space’ onto your slide. This one has plenty of it, but it still looks terrible:

It’s about creating areas of contrast, with clear focal points to draw your attention to the important parts, and even create a flow and hierarchy across your slide.

This example gives you that luxurious feel of the full bleed image, but crops it so that the focal point – the watch – is off to one side, leaving plenty of white, or ‘negative’ space around the arm for your content. The two sections work nicely together, and we’ve anchored the text in a content placeholder and given it some structure too, by actually reducing the size of the text to give it more room. Again, we’ve got a full tutorial on how to incorporate white space like this here .

Presentation design using grids

Grids are pretty much design 101, and to be honest, I’m surprised that we’ve got this far into presentation design without me having brought them up. You’ll likely be familiar with grids from magazines and newspapers – these mainly use column grids. The page is divided into columns and then content is designed to sit across these columns in any combination, which balances the content.

Well, the same thing applies to PowerPoint presentation design: a grid system helps to lay out your content in clear, easy to follow areas.

You can use a grid to create distinct sections, such as telling the start, middle, and end of a story. It’s much easier for your audience to follow, as everything is better organized.

And, it helps bring text into line – if you have any – which is important as it minimizes distractions for your audience when trying to read.

Using a grid also helps you decide where to position content, as there are only so many places that you can put things. Here, for example, one third of the slide has been taken up with the supporting image, so we’ve created a grid within a grid to lay out the three pie charts, which helps to create a feeling of harmony and sophistication:

And don’t think that your divisions have to be straight along the gridlines. Here’s an example that doesn’t apply the rule exactly, but still works really well.

Also, by using a grid, you achieve a consistent feel across all your slides for overall presentation design cohesion.

What does all of that mean? Well, you can transform a slide like this:

It’s really quick and easy to do in PowerPoint too, and you can see our tutorial on using grids and the guide tools in PowerPoint to bring your presentation design up a level.

Presentation design with colour themes

Another key presentation design principle is colour. Setting the right colour palette is essential, as it gives everything a consistent feel, allows you to adhere to your brand, and can give you the ability to assign meaning to specific colours to help your audience understand things. The best way to handle colours in PowerPoint is to set your template correctly and use a colour theme. You can find out how to  change your PowerPoint colour theme here . It’s really quick and easy to do. Once you’ve done it, the theme will save with the file (or template), so you don’t need to worry about it again.

Once set, you can use colour in interesting ways to convey meaning.

For example, a heat map is a great way to show data ranges, like metrics, using a scale, rather than just plain numbers. That’s more helpful to your audience, as it allows them to immediately see both the absolute and relative values, rather than having to spend time deciphering it.

You can also use colour to focus attention.

In complex data sets, using contrast colours can help to highlight primary datasets. Here, for instance, you can clearly see the main data series, compared to the ‘everything else’ data series.

Again, once you’ve set your colour theme, using these techniques as part of your presentation design is pretty easy, and you can find more specific guidance on how to manipulate colours in PowerPoint here .

PowerPoint design with text formatting

With your grids, colours, and white space considered from a high-level presentation design perspective, you now get into the specifics of creating slides in PowerPoint. As much as you, I, and your audiences, love presentations that make use of effective visuals, we know there are always going to be slides that are stuffed to the gills with boring text and even boring-er bullet points.

But, by applying the presentation design techniques already mentioned, you can fairly easily transform your text-heavy slide into something that’s far easier on the eye:

By using grids, appropriate colour, and white space, your PowerPoint slide design could look like this. Breaking out the text with decent paragraph spacing helps your audience parse the content more efficiently. Everything is easier to follow with consistent fonts and the use of colour highlighting. And the white space around the content actually gives the slide greater impact – particularly the use of the large margins around the text, created by the contrasting placeholder. There are a great many more options, and for ten in-depth typography techniques, check out this post . But if you’re just looking for nice fonts to use, this rundown of ten of our favourite fonts for presentations is a must-read.

As you’ve probably come to expect by now, this is something you can do using only PowerPoint, and you can see how in this tutorial on text formatting .

PowerPoint design to manipulate images

While it’s not Photoshop, PowerPoint has some neat tools to manipulate images.

What if I were to tell you the picture you see here had been constructed out of this…

PowerPoint design tools for images are all found on the Format tab on the ribbon. There are plenty of options to choose from, but only some actually enhance your design. For PowerPoint design tools, you should really focus on the left-hand side of the ribbon. The good features include the Remove Background tool, which does what its name suggests. The Color section allows you to put a colour wash over everything, but also, at the bottom of the menu, you can choose Set Transparent Color, which will remove a single colour from any image, which is how I’ve cut out the phone image in this example. Artistic Effects are generally terrible, except blur (which is great for changing focus on an image) and the Transparency tool – newly available in Office 365 – which makes pictures transparent. For a full tutorial on making the above example image, watch this short video .

PowerPoint design with visual storytelling

And finally, my favourite thing is to use these design techniques as part of visual storytelling, which helps dramatically improve your presentation.

Think about how you can use an image to convey meaning, as well as provide aesthetic appeal. For instance, you could use a skyscraper being constructed to show elements that are taking you higher, with labels up the building showing the key metrics:

Or use a common sight from underground stations – the advertising boards on escalators – to show a data series increasing. The image also gives the figures room to breathe:

It doesn’t need to be complicated, and this example has been constructed from an image, some text, and an arrow, to show the 20% of business highlighted on the office photograph:

And of course, we have a short video tutorial to show you exactly how to do it. Sometimes, just finding the right image can be a real help coming up with the right PowerPoint design ideas, but you may also want to look to other design resources for inspiration .

The main thing to remember about effective presentation design is that you probably don’t have the time to create a totally new concept each time, or a mood board for your work. These ideas, especially the PowerPoint design ideas, are all about helping you create beautiful and effective presentations quickly, with minimal effort. A solid basis in design principles – coupled with a few PowerPoint tricks -will set you on your way. So, hopefully next time someone asks you to make a presentation ‘pop’ you can uncork the champagne and tell them you already have.

Richard Goring

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• PowerPoint design / Visual communication
• Comments: 4

Most presentations are a cascade of text-heavy Death-by-PowerPoint slides. Online learners suffer the torture of brochures converted to click-through-eLearning. Most people now recognize that using visuals is the way to go. But how do you make visual presentations and eLearning that work? We think there are six steps you need to follow.

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LOVE LOVE this . .. so helpful and fun to work with. .

Your design concepts and tips were highly recommended by BiancaWoods.weebly.com and after downloading a template and reading your articles – now I see why.

Impressive resources!

Brilliant, thanks so much! Bianca is pretty awesome too. Glad that we’re all able to share with the community.

Nice way of explaining the information

Richard I have been following you since I met you at an ATD regional conference. You have always responded generously with the best in class PowerPoint tutorials and aids. Thank you for your excellence.

You’re most welcome, thanks so much!

Really useful and inspiring presentation.

It’s helped me see how to go beyond the mechanics of what PowerPoint can do towards creating a compelling and coherent design and story

This was really engaging, beautiful and extremely useful. Looking forward to using ideas into my slides.

The way you showed the Before and After is fantastic.

Very useful read .short video of 7 minutes on presentation is great to improve our presentation skills

Very creative and inspiring! You continue to amaze me with the quality of your desin6!

Really nice ideas – solid information. Thanks.

Amazing tutorials. Thank you for so generously sharing your skills, tips, and creativity!!

very interesting topic and very well presentation,thanks for this blog

very interesting topic

Excellent session as usual.

Thank you Richard for your amazing presentation! Very helpful.

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It is, quite simply, the best deck we have. I did a nice presentation with it yesterday and would like to do the same next week... I am sure it will get a lot of use. The visual impact and flow are compelling! Peter Francis Janssen

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Blog Beginner Guides How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

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Presentation Design: Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Great presentation design is as important as presenting. Are you creating your own slide decks? Here are some must-follow rules for awesome presentations!

Table of Contents

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Whether you are pitching a business idea, telling about your new research, or sharing important data with your audience, presentations are a visual aid essential for your success. You could have awesome presenter skills, and a fantastic idea for the content. But without stunning presentation design, the whole thing will fall flat. Learn how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design with these 10 tips.

Presentations: you’ve seen many of them, and you've probably made several yourself. An ultimate visual communication tool to get your point across, presentations are deeply integrated into the academic and business world.

However, many individuals and businesses still make the mistake of thinking that PowerPoint presentation design always comes down to dark text on a white background, with a few images and charts sprinkled in. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Presentation design shouldn’t be walls of text or extensive bullet point lists, but rather a way to tell a story and inspire the audience with a beautiful and balanced design. And it’s not just about communicating with your audience. Visme found that 91% of presenters feel more confident when using a professionally designed slide deck .

Want to learn how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design? We can help. In this article, we’ll cover the basics, such as:

What is presentation design?

• What types of presentations are there?
• 7 Tips to design presentation slides yourself.

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Presentation design focuses on the visual look of your presentation as a tool to engage your audience. It is the way you present your information on the slide: the color scheme, combination of fonts, the way design elements are used as part of your slide. All of this comes together to present your message in a certain way.

Presentation design is about finding the perfect combination of design elements to create slides that will not bore or tire your audience, but rather engage them and glue them to the slides while attentively listening. Whether you are looking to inform your audience, entertain them, establish credibility, or something else, well-thought-out and executed presentation slides can help you achieve this.

Types of presentations

What is the first step in designing an effective presentation? Knowing what the presentation is for, of course.

Presentations have different purposes. A quarterly presentation you are making for the investors of your dropshipping business will not be the same as an employee training slide. In the first case, your aim will be to inform and report, in the second case, the goal of the presentation is to educate. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, there are 5 types of presentations. Let’s take a look at each.

• Informative - One of the most common presentation types, informative presentations aim to communicate important information with the audience and show new findings. Think of presenting company updates or planning a new project: informative presentations should be clear and straight to the point.
• Persuasive - As the name suggests, the aim of this presentation type is to use important data to not simply inform the viewers, but to persuade them to take a specific action. Persuasive presentations are what you should show to potential investors when telling them about the user acquisition growth speed of your company.
• Educational - Often confused with informative presentations, educational presentations are different because they aim to not simply inform, but to teach the viewers new skills and educate them about a new topic. Staff training slides or academic presentations are a great example of this slide type. You can go as far as making a tutorial video and including it in the slides, adding notes and key points next to it.
• Inspirational - Often used by managers and team leaders, inspirational presentations aim to cause a spark and motivate employees to work harder. Presentations of this type usually have a highly emotional message the aim of which is to inspire viewers to take a particular action.
• Problem-solving - This presentation type does a particularly good job at hooking the audience, as the key part of this presentation is the problem they are facing. Then, during the presentation, you are showing them how you are going to solve that problem. An example of this would be discussing how hard it is for large companies to hire qualified people by sharing statistics, then presenting your new HR automation tool and showing its benefits.

7 presentation design tips for beginners

Are you ready to jump into it? Here are 7 golden tips that will help you design presentation slides you can be proud of.

1. Outline your content and refine the key message

What is the first step in designing an effective presentation? You need to prepare your content and refine the key message. Try to understand what your audience wants to know, what they may already know, and what is more likely to keep them engaged. Then, keep this information in mind as you prepare your content for your presentation. What is the main takeaway from each slide?

Choose a working title and have a clear point for each of the slides. Understand what you want your slide to tell people. For example, instead of “Using hashtags for Instagram ” go with “Using hashtags for Instagram increases engagement by 12.5%.”

Keep your content specific and informative, but as concise as possible. Simplify your sentences, keep only the main point without writing an excessive amount of information on the slide. Below are two examples of a slide with the same information. Which one do you think is more readable?

2. Pick a framework

Now it’s time to pick the framework you are going to use to make your professional presentation design. Do you want to create a presentation from scratch, or go with something pre-built?

There are many terrific presentation design templates available online, on platforms like Canva, Visme, and Venngage. Still, you should never use a presentation template without editing it .

Changing the color scheme or fonts to match your brand may seem like a small detail, but it will greatly improve the overall impression of your presentation. It also helps to strengthen your brand identity (whether for a personal or business brand marketing ), and demonstrates professionalism and care.

Another important thing is not to limit your creativity to pre-built presentations. That’s why it’s also advisable to explore presentation designs on platforms, such as Behance, Dribble, and 99Designs.

Sure, most of these will have been done by professional designers, and may be a little challenging for beginners to recreate. However, understanding just how creative PowerPoint presentation design can be will help you shed your preconceptions and explore new creative routes.

3. Choose a color scheme and fonts

The best presentation design will be limited to a handful of options as too many colors will create chaos on your slide and make it harder for the readers to understand.

If you have a brand guide in place, it’s best to stick to colors and fonts used in your branding. However, remember that a PowerPoint presentation design is supposed to keep viewers engaged. So, even if your brand colors are soothing muted tones, a bright element here and there can work well to draw attention to the key messages.

4. Make it visual

Sharing your information only as texts and bullet points is a lazy way out. When you design presentation slides, consider how you can present information visually. This will help your audience understand and take in key messages faster.

A simple example of this is adding relevant icons instead of simple bullet points. Colored or outlined texts next to realistic and relevant photos make the presentation a lot more enjoyable and keep the viewers entertained.

Graphs and charts are a business presentation design staple. However, you can also think about different design elements that can be both surprising and effective. For example, a simple illustration instead of a dull stock photo will delight your audience and keep them engaged.

5. Pay attention to the layout

Your slide layout is the area where all of your presentation elements (photos, texts, icons, logo) are contained. Most presentation tools come with pre-built layouts you can use.

You can also create your own layout from scratch. In both cases, the main aim is to design a beautiful slide that doesn’t overwhelm the viewer. Include plenty of white space in your layout, don’t crowd it with too many text boxes and elements. If the elements are different, as they often will be, keep similar one close to each other. Keep your layout as clean and simple as you can.

6. Align and position

Nothing screams amateur more than jumping texts and layouts from slide to slide. Mismatching logos and design elements jumping here and there showcase a lack of professionalism and give an impression that you’ve put your presentation in a hurry. Not to mention that they are sometimes extremely annoying and distractive!

So, whenever you are working on your slides, always align and position them properly. No matter the presentation tool used, chances are, it will have an alignment tool.

Presentation software such as Keynote and Figma even offer an option to create background grids to help with the alignment. Below is an example of a slide, before and after aligning the texts and icons. Notice the difference?

7. Stay consistent

As you progress through the design of your presentation, it is essential that you stay consistent. No matter how many slides your presentation has, they are still part of one presentation. And you don’t always have to keep the same background color, or slide themes for this. Consistency in design can be achieved through design elements, color schemes, and similar illustrations.

Take a moment to look at these three slides. Although some of the slides seem to be styled differently from the rest, the color scheme of design elements holds the presentation together. It’s crucial to make sure that each one of your slides is visually connected to the previous one, to make sure your viewers don’t lose track of what you were saying.

Key takeaways

Now that you know the basics of professional presentation design, it's time to try them in practice! As with every other design type, there is no end to presentation design. Try to experiment with different tools, elements, and styles to find the one that works best for your audience. Research trends and best practices, and dedicate time to plan each slide thoughtfully. Don't be afraid to try new things, and you'll see the benefits a good presentation can have for your project in no time.

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A Beginner’s Guide To Presentation Design [+15 Stunning Templates]

Table of Contents

• What Is Presentation Design? 

What Is the Significance of Presentation Design?

Understanding various forms of presentations.

• 10 Tips to Create a Compelling Presentation Design 

5 Inspirational Presentation Design Trends

• 15 Best Presentation Design Templates to Consider 
• Key Takeaways 
• Conclusion 

Once you’ve mapped out your presentation, it’s time to tackle the intimidating task of creating a visually stunning presentation design . Creating an excellent presentation design becomes simpler by learning and adhering to fundamental presentation design standards. Here is a presentation design guide to creating an engaging and well-designed presentation,  regardless of the kind of project you are putting together. 

What Is Presentation Design?

Presentation design focuses on the visual facet of your presentation to captivate your audience. An outstanding presentation design may significantly impact your target audience, whether it is investors, employees, collaborators, or potential customers. The design must ideally complement the material of your presentation to help get your views across and convince your audience.

Creating a presentation for the first time to present in a professional setting or to a large audience might feel challenging. This guide to presentation design will walk you through the elements required for building a visually appealing presentation. 

A presentation is much more than just a layout of slides with text and graphics on them. You need to make sure it’s visually appealing too. It is mainly because visuals are much more engaging than written words in your presentation slides. Presentation design is crucial because it allows you to combine your ideas, narrative, graphics, facts, and statistics into one cohesive tale that drives your audience to the decision you desire.

A robust presentation design may unlock doors you never imagined could be opened. An effective design is much simpler to understand and earns a lot of credibility for your brand. You can communicate your message effectively, encourage your audience to take subsequent actions, and get them to engage with what you’re saying with excellent presentation design.

You have the potential to communicate your point of view, create a brand identity, and get your audience to see and hear you loud and clear when you build a presentation with impeccable design. The material of your presentation is crucial to your project’s success, but a poor design may divert the listener’s attention (and not for a good reason). Don’t let a lousy presentation design force you to lose out on a huge business opportunity.

Creating a winning presentation design involves combining design components to produce slides that will neither bore nor exhaust your audience. Instead, it will engage and inspire them effectively. So, instead of creating a lousy presentation using shoddy designs, it is significant to master the fundamentals of creating the best presentation design.

Presentations may be used for several purposes and can come in different forms. A quarterly sales presentation with your team will not be the same as a presentation focused on employee training. 

In the first scenario, you’ll strive to advance your team to achieve targeted sales growth. In the second, you’ll focus on imparting essential knowledge and skills to your employees. Looking at some of the most prevalent presentation types can give you a better idea about presentation design and when to begin constructing your own.

1. Investor pitch presentation

Using facts to convince rather than enlighten is the primary goal of this presentation style, as indicated by the name. If you’re a startup or a small firm looking for investment, you’ll need to use this form of presentation to your advantage. An investor pitch presentation will be required when you’re explaining your company’s user acquisition growth rate to prospective investors. Such presentations are created using the classic pitch deck concept to make the perfect, thoroughly professional pitch.

2. Educational presentations

Educational presentations are sometimes misunderstood as informative presentations since they are designed to teach viewers new skills and educate them on a new subject. You may need to produce a presentation for a school for various reasons, such as presenting an idea or providing an academic report.

Academic and corporate training programs often employ this presentation format. A video tutorial with comments and suitable themes may be added to the slides to improve them. Educators are always looking for new and unique methods to provide engaging and enthralling presentations for their students. Using an educational presentation template may guarantee that your presentation is visually appealing as well as easily comprehensible.

3. Webinar presentations

Webinar presentations are the newest craze, and they’re a win-win for presenters and the audience alike. A webinar refers to an online presentation, but unlike a video posted elsewhere, the webinar takes place in real-time and with the active participation of the audience. There are several themes and settings for which webinar presentations might be utilized. 

Short surveys, quizzes, and Q&A sessions let participants feel more involved in the webinar. Most commonly, a webinar is meant to disseminate information, but it may also act as a marketing tool, a source of leads, or a way to generate new sales and sign-ups.

4. Report presentations

A report presentation is intended to offer the necessary information to those engaged in a process or project. Report presentations are critical in ensuring these stakeholders that the procedures that must be followed for the project’s completion are effectively planned and executed. Sample reports are also accessible to these stakeholders. 

A report presentation may take numerous forms, such as a business report or an infographic. Reports on sales and marketing performance, website statistics, income, or any other data that your team or supervisors wish to know about can be presented during the report presentation.

5. Sales presentations

Sales presentations are often the initial phase in the sales cycle, and are, therefore,  critical. A sales presentation, often known as a sales pitch deck, is a form of presentation you would need to provide a prospective customer or client with when pitching a product or service.

Not every sales presentation is designed to close a deal right away. The goal might be to pique the curiosity of the people concerned. Sales presentations often include your company’s unique selling proposition (USP), product price points, and testimonials. Your sales presentation must be engaging and successful in influencing potential customers, using a well-thought-out approach.

6. Inspirational presentations

An inspiring presentation is a standard tool used by managers, team leaders, motivational speakers, and business owners to stimulate and encourage their audience. Inspirational presentations are essential to influencing others and achieving your individual and business goals. 

To get a desirable result from this kind of presentation, elicit an emotional response from the audience and motivate them to act. Using a presentation template that has been professionally developed provides you with an advantage over others. 

7. Keynote presentations

Keynote presentations are given in front of a larger audience. A good example can be those shown at TED Talks and other conferences. While the presenter gives the entire speech, there are advantages to using slides, such as keeping an audience engaged and on track.

10 Tips to Create a Compelling Presentation Design

If your presentation is lousy, you might come across as unprepared, uninterested, and lacking any credibility. A well-designed presentation makes you appear reliable and competent. Here are some fantastic points to help you develop the best presentation design.

1. Outline your content and fine-tune the message

It’s crucial to prepare your content and fine-tune your main message before you begin developing your presentation. Try to figure out what your target audience wants to know, what they may already know, and what will keep them engaged. Then, when you create your presentation’s content, keep those things in mind and furnish designs accordingly. It is vital to remember the key takeaway of each deck you create.

Too much information shown on a single slide is difficult for most viewers to comprehend. Make sure you don’t overwhelm your viewers; each presentation slide should include no more than one key point. Make your information as brief as possible, yet make it detailed enough and valuable.

2. Use more visuals and less text in your decks

Your audience recalls information considerably better when images complement it because they can better understand visual features than simple text. Presenters that employ images instead of words get more favorable feedback from their audience than those who rely only on text.

Using visual examples in slide decks increases audience engagement, encourages more questions, and registers your message in the minds of your audience. Remove any unnecessary text from your slides and replace it with visuals that will engage your audience.

You may use various methods for adding images, but the most common is using your data’s visual representation. It’s important to note that adding visuals does not mean sprinkling fancy images and symbols across your slides. Relevant images and iconography are a must.

3. Limit the use of fonts and colors

It is vital to pay attention to color schemes and other design components, such as fonts, to ensure your presentation succeeds. Although it may be thrilling to employ as many fonts and colors as possible, the best presentation design practices imply that you should only use two or three colors overall. Also, make sure the content in your slides is of a different font than the headers.

When it comes to color schemes, certain combinations work better than others. When choosing colors, keep in mind that they should not detract from the message you want to convey. Add an accent color to one or two of your primary hues for a cohesive look. It’s critical that the colors you choose complement one another and communicate your purpose effectively. Headers should be in one typeface, while body content should be in another. Add a third font for the accents, if you’d like. 

4. Create a visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is an important consideration when including text in a presentation. Visual hierarchy is one of the most significant but underappreciated presentation design principles. Color, size, contrast, alignment, and other aspects of your slide’s elements should all depend on their value.

When creating a visual hierarchy, you must clearly understand the story and its structure. Your audience’s attention should be drawn to the most critical components first, then to the second-most essential aspects, and so on. When creating your presentation, think about the story you want to tell and the visual hierarchy you need to support it. If you do this, the essential ideas you wish to convey will not be lost on your audience. 

5. Incorporate powerful visuals

It is important to use visual aids to make a compelling presentation: think images, icons, graphics, films, graphs, and charts. You should also ensure your slides’ aesthetics accurately portray the text they contain. Alternatively, if you don’t have words on the slide, make sure the visuals mirror the words you’re saying in your speech.

Visual aids should enhance your presentation. In addition, you’ll want to ensure that your slide has some form of visual representation so that you’re not just dumping a bunch of text onto a slide.

6. Avoid using bullet points

These days, any excellent presentation design instruction would encourage you to avoid bullet points as much as possible. They’re dull and old-fashioned, and there are more effective methods to display your material. 

A slide consisting of icons, images, and infographics is more exciting and conversational than one written in list form. Using bullet points for each slide’s primary theme is a standard PowerPoint design recommendation that you should refrain from while designing your presentation.  

7. In group presentations, segregate slides by theme

While making a group presentation, finding an appropriate balance of who should be demonstrating which presentation segment is often challenging. Arranging a group presentation by topic is the most natural technique to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak, without the presentation becoming incoherent. Your group presentation should be divided into sections based on the subject.

Prepare your presentation ahead of time so that everyone understands when it’s their turn to talk. It’s up to each person in the group to pick one thing to talk about when they give this presentation to investors or potential customers. For instance, the business model slide may be addressed by one person, while another can discuss the marketing approach.

8. Maintain consistency

Consistency is essential when you work on the design of your presentation. Your presentation is still one presentation, no matter how many slides it has. Design elements, color schemes, and similar illustrations can all be used to achieve design consistency.

Although some of the slides in your presentation may appear to be styled differently than the others, the overall presentation must be held together by a single color scheme. To ensure that your viewers don’t lose track of what you’re saying, make sure each of your slides is visually connected.

9. Emphasize important points

It is pertinent to use shapes, colorful fonts, and figures pointing to your material. They help emphasize vital information to make it stand out. This not only keeps the reader’s attention on the page but also makes your design more streamlined. Emphasizing the point you’re trying to put across with visual elements makes it easier for your audience to grasp what you’re saying.

10. Integrate data visualization

Consider utilizing a chart or data visualization to drive your argument home, especially if you have vital figures or trends you want your audience to remember. This might be a bar graph or a pie chart that displays various data points, a percentage indication, or an essential value pictogram. 

Confident public speaking mixed with good visuals may greatly influence your audience, inspiring them to take action. The use of design features makes it simpler for your audience to grasp and recall both complex and fundamental data and statistics, and the presentation becomes much more enjoyable too. 

Even though trends come and go, effective presentation design paired with some inspiration to get you started will always be in style. Think about what’s current in the world of graphic design before you create a staggering presentation deck for a creative proposal or a business report. To help you better, we’ve come up with a list of the most popular presentation design concepts. 

1. Dark backdrops with neon colors

While white backgrounds have long dominated web design, the advent of “dark mode” is gradually altering that. Designers may use dark mode to play with contrast and make creative things stand out.

This is a great way to get your audience’s attention and keep them interested in what you have to say. The key is to pick one or two bright colors and utilize them as highlights against a dark backdrop, rather than using an abundance of them.                                                                                            

2. Monochromatic color schemes

In recent years, color schemes originating from one base hue, such as monochromatic color schemes, have been given a subdued pastel makeover. The usage of monochromatic color schemes in presentation design is always seen as clean and professional. It’s ideal for pitch decks and presentations since monochrome is generally utilized to assist people in concentrating on the text and message, rather than the colors inside a design.

3. Easy-to-understand data analysis

The fundamentals of data visualization should be restored. In other words, even the most complicated measurements may be made easy to grasp via effective design. Designers, marketers, and presenters are generating snackable stats in the same way infographics have found a place on visual-first social networks.

Create a dynamic proposal or presentation with the help of an infographic template that is easy to use. You can create distinctive slides with animations and transitions to explain your point more effectively. With the help of templates, you can convert your data into bar graphs, bar charts, and bubbles that represent your idea simply, guaranteeing that every data point is simple to comprehend.

4. Straightforward minimalism

Minimalism is a design trend that will probably never go out of style. It has always been a show-stopper. Each slide should offer just enough information to let the reader comprehend what’s going on. You should use a color palette that isn’t distracting. Your simple presentation will enthrall your audience if you boldly highlight your most significant points and use trendy fonts.

5. Geometric structures

There’s a good reason why designers are so fond of geometric patterns, 3D objects, and asymmetrical layouts. They’re basic yet stunning, making them perfect for times you want to make a lasting impression with the information you’re sharing. 

More cutting-edge components, such as 3D shapes and floating objects, are used in presentation graphics these days. Go for a presentation template that contains editable slides that enable you to easily add your visuals and material to brighten your presentation. 

15 Best Presentation Design Templates to Consider

In the case of presentation designs, you should never sacrifice quality. Ideally, you should have a design that improves your brand’s image, amplifies your message, and enables you to deliver various content forms efficiently. 

The problem is, it’s pretty challenging to locate premade themes and templates of this merit. We’ve made it easy for you by putting together a list of the best 15 presentation design templates out there. These presentation design suggestions are a great place to start.  

1. Business plan presentation template

This is a crucial business presentation template with a significant emphasis on visualizations and graphics. To create a business strategy, you need this presentation template. It consists of several crucial elements, such as a mind map, infographics, and bar graphics. Replace the placeholder text with your own to complete the presentation.

2. Pitch deck template

Startups seeking financing require a clean and eye-catching pitch deck design to impress investors. You may use it to present significant aspects and achievements of your company to investors. You can include slides for mockups, testimonials, business data like statistics, and case studies.

The pitch deck presentation template is excellent for your next client pitch, as it allows you to pick from a range of different startup tales to showcase the most crucial features of your firm.

3. Brand guidelines presentation template

Creating a bespoke presentation talking about the company dos and don’ts may be a terrific approach to discuss your brand rules with your team and stakeholders. You can easily show off your brand’s typeface and color schemes using this presentation template.

4. Marketing plan presentation template

Marketing is a vast concept, and the slides included in this design stock set reflect that broadness. A well-executed marketing strategy is essential to the success of any team. A marketing plan presentation template should ideally include slides for charts, timelines, and competition research. You can create executive summaries or mission statements with the below-mentioned presentation’s elegant and minimalistic slides.

5. Keynote presentation template

This keynote template has a lovely color scheme that is equal parts captivating and professional. You can employ a keynote presentation template if you’re going to be a keynote speaker at an upcoming event and want to ensure that your design stands out.

In addition to several slides, the template comes with various predefined color schemes. This template is perfect for any business presentation requiring a well-designed layout.

6. Training manual presentation template

A training manual presentation template may be used to convey new hire training to your workforce. It is essential for the design to be as clean and straightforward as possible.

These training material decks created with a predesigned template make it easy for new employees to learn the ins and outs of their jobs. 

7. Case study presentation template

A case study is an excellent way to illustrate a point in your presentation. The best way to attract new consumers using a case study presentation is to show them how your existing customers are using your product or service. Make sure to highlight how your product solved their pain points.

8. Interactive brief presentation template

It’s common to provide a creative brief when working with a contractor, freelancer, or designer to ensure everyone involved understands what the final product should look like.

An interactive presentation template like a creative brief is a terrific concept for absorbing and memorizing that information.

9. Workforce handbook presentation template

When hiring a new employee, your company needs to create an employee handbook to ensure they know the company’s objective and general working norms. You may connect this presentation to your intranet or website, or just distribute the digital version through a password-protected or private link.

10. Ignite presentation template

Using this template as a starting point for an Ignite presentation would be ideal. An Ignite presentation is a five-minute presentation consisting of 20 slides, compelling the speaker to speak fast and concisely. As a result, an Ignite presentation template prevents you from using too much text on any slide. 

11. Informative presentation template

The need to create an educational presentation may arise due to several reasons, such as onboarding new hires, explaining a concept to students, and more. An informative presentation template is a suitable solution in all cases.

Regardless of who they are meant for, presentations are the optimal format for sharing information with any audience. Create an educational presentation that you can embed in a blog post or publish on several platforms online. Make presentations to provide knowledge at conferences and other meetings.

12. SWOT analysis presentation template

A strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is a valuable tool for gauging where your business stands, and how your strategic planning measures are paying off. This presentation template is an excellent tool for SWOT analysis or refining your marketing strategy.

It comes in several formats; circular design and hexagonal shapes being two of them. You may modify the colors as desired.

13. Competitor analysis presentation template

Knowing your competition and what they offer is essential for a successful business. Competitor analysis means researching your competitors’ key strengths and weaknesses, which can, eventually, help you define your goals and USPs more clearly. 

There are built-in interactive elements in this competitor analysis presentation template, which can help hook your audience. 

14. Bold presentation template

Ideal for non-corporate sales presentations, a bold and daring presentation template includes slides with a vibrant, attention-grabbing theme that is neither overbearing nor distracting. The color combination is striking without being oppressive.

15. Company overview template

Creative presentation templates are all the rage today. Using a lot of negative space will allow your audience to take a breath and direct their attention to the most crucial parts of your presentation. It is suitable for corporate presentations, since it doesn’t stick out more than is necessary.

Key Takeaways

• Audiences tend to forget a large percentage of what was addressed before the presentation is through. This is why it is important to create a presentation design that is memorable.
• A presentation is much more than just a layout of slides with text and graphics on them. You need to make sure it’s visually appealing too. 
• Use a wide range of best presentation design tools, components, and styles until you discover the one that resonates with your target audience. 
• Consider the most recent trends and best practices, and dedicate time to thoroughly crafting every presentation.
• Fine-tuning your message, avoiding the use of bullet points, incorporating visual hierarchy, and incorporating data visualization are a few design tips to create a winning presentation. 

Both your presentation style and design are crucial. You can deliver more dynamic, memorable presentations by creating visually pleasing decks. It’s advisable to create a resourceful presentation design if you want to elevate your personal as well as professional credibility.

Take cues from some popular presentation templates, and enhance one little aspect at a time. Now is the time to practice everything you’ve learned in this presentation design guide. As with any other visual communication, creating the best presentation design requires time, effort, and patience. Never be afraid to try something new; you’ll quickly see the benefits a strong presentation can have on your project.

A presentation design puts ideas, tales, words, and pictures into a series of slides that convey a narrative and engage your audience.

A presentation design template is used to achieve a uniform look for your slides. Templates are pre-made presentations into which you may insert your data.

People remember images and words better than just words. The design of your slides should be simple and consistent. This way, your audience will focus on the most important points.

Use high-quality images to back your message, but don’t use too many special effects. Make sure you don’t read from your slides.

A well-presented, memorable introduction and conclusion are two essential parts of a presentation. Don’t forget them when you write your outline.

Presentation design is essential, because it helps you weave your ideas, narrative, images, facts, and statistics into a unified story that leads your audience to the choice you want them to make.

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Presenting like a pro: The comprehensive guide

Phoebe Perelman

Drum roll please … presenting … a blog about presenting. Hold your applause. I’m about to present you with a jumping-off point into the big wide world of presentations.

What are the must-have presentation skills? What’s the difference between a pitch and a keynote? What are some fundamental presentation design principles? And how can you become a better presenter? This blog aims to answer these questions and more. It’s also rich with resources that allow you to double-click on any topic of your choice. So, without further ado, let’s get this presentation party started.

What is presenting?

Presenting has a myriad of comparable meanings. From the fields of medicine to law to entertainment, presenting can be defined as:

• Appearing formally before other people
• Representing (someone or something) to others in a particular way
• Showing or offering (something) for others to scrutinize or consider
• Giving someone (a gift or award) in a formal or ceremonial way

The common thread is this: presenting is about communicating or demonstrating something to others. Today we’re not talking about a specific field. We’re talking about presenting verbal and visual content, whether that be an internal recommendation, a product launch, or a board update.

You can present in front of 2 people or 200 people: it’s still presenting, nonetheless. And if you’re ever in a position to present, there are specific presentation skills that will serve you (and your message) well.

What are presentation skills?

Duarte is the original presentation company. We’ve spent more than 30 years creating cinematic presentations that move audiences. We’ve been so successful making presentations that we started teaching clients en masse how to improve their presentation skills. We start by focusing on the 4 foundational presentation skills you cannot go without:

Spoiler alert: when it comes to presenting, the presenter is not the most important person in the room. The audience is. And in order to win over those critical audience members, you must empathize with them. Think deeply about who the audience is, what they need to be successful, how they might be stuck, and how they consume information. Only then can you develop content that resonates with them.

Presentations aren’t inherently engaging. In fact, many presenters just spew out information with no compelling structure. Or they read from their slides robotically. Or maybe they provide an overwhelming amount of content with no context. But the presenters that grip us, engage us, and leave us forever changed – well, they tell a story. Stories are the secret presentation sauce. In a way, stories are just as essential for survival and success today as they were thousands of years ago.  Whether you’ve woven a full-circle story into your presentation from beginning to end, or you incorporate customer stories and personal anecdotes – stories are necessary to evoke emotion and convey memorable meaning.

Visuals help reinforce your message and make ideas stick. Although not always used, presenters often create slide decks on presentation software (like PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides) to complement their oral presentations. Or, in place of slides, presenters may also use visual aids like videos or demonstrations throughout a presentation.

4. Delivery

How you say things matters just as much as your message itself. No matter how well-crafted your content, if you can’t deliver it with confidence and conviction, no one will hear – nevertheless act – upon your ideas. And in that case, what’s the point of presenting in the first place?! When it comes to presenting information in front of others, delivery is central to your success. Mastering public speaking is no easy feat, but it is possible, with self-awareness, coaching, and practice. 

Keynote speeches

Some presentations are higher stakes than others, like keynote speeches. And the presentation skills needed for these can vary slightly. Keynote speeches typically set a tone and central theme for an event, conference, or ceremony. Whether an event is in-person or virtual, small or large, keynote speeches hold a lot of weight.

At Duarte’s annual internal event, ShopWeek, we get to hear a keynote speech every year. These speeches rally us around a common goal. Last year we heard from a professional mountain climber. The year before that, we heard from an astronaut! (I guess we have a thing for courageous adventurers.) But anyone can deliver a keynote speech as long as they have a unique or exciting insight to offer.

Depending on the occasion, keynote speeches aren’t always accompanied by visuals, but they usually incorporate some type of visual aid. Video clips, product demonstrations, and presentation slides are all powerful ways to complement a keynote speech – as long as they’re executed for the (literal and figurative) spotlight.

Speaking of spotlights … it’s important to remember that in-person keynote speeches come with a myriad of in-person event elements. Lights! Cameras! Microphones! Stages! Confidence monitors! Action! So if you’ve never given a production-level presentation, it’s important to familiarize yourself with these elements in advance so you can prepare for all the extra commotion.

The main stage can be nerve-racking. But it offers an unmatched opportunity to:

• Demonstrate thought leadership
• Increase brand loyalty
• And initiate change

If you want to nail it, consider working with presentation experts to refine your content, visuals, and presence.

We help some of the biggest global brands create keynote content for massive industry events (like Dreamforce) using the Duarte Method. The Duarte Method relies on a proven presentation structure that Nancy Duarte uncovered  when studying the commonalities of the greatest presentations, stories, and speeches of all time. This structure emulates the captivating rise and fall of myths and movies by infusing contrast. Contrast between:

• What is and what could be
• Sacrifices and rewards
• Pros and cons
• Roadblocks and opportunities

Contrast (or conflict) keeps listeners engaged. It is what inches you closer to the edge of your seat during that awe-inspiring keynote speech. And just like all presentation skills, contrast can be taught.

Do you think you need presentation skills training?

Whether you’re delivering a keynote presentation on a mainstage for the first time, or you’re a seasoned presenter with a high-stakes talk on the horizon, everyone can benefit from presentation skills training.

Although your level of expertise will influence which type of presentation training best suits you, there is always room for improvement. After all, just because you’ve given a great talk in the past doesn’t mean your next presentation will be equally as successful (no offense). Presentation training helps ensure that you can ace your delivery consistently, by uncovering tools and techniques to coach yourself for every unique presentation opportunity that arises.

There are a few different presentation training formats:

• Self-guided presentation courses online
• Live online (virtual) workshops
• In-person training
• 1:1 speaker coaching

To determine which type of training is right for you, consider the speaking engagement, your experience, your professional development goals, and your preferred learning style.

Additionally, identify whether you need help with presentation content, presentation delivery, or presentation design.

What is presentation design?

Presentation design is exactly as it sounds: it involves the design and development of presentation slides or visual aids.

And to be honest, everyone who gives presentations could use the help of a presentation designer. I mean, have you ever looked at a slide and thought to yourself …”I have no idea what I’m looking at.” Be honest. How many presentations have you sat through where every slide consisted of boring bulleted lists? Or maybe you wished you had a magnifying glass to try and decipher what some teeny tiny text said? I know I have. And my head hurts just thinking about it.

Presentation slides have incredible potential to make a verbal message stick. But more often than not, presentation slides detract from the speaker and the message because they’re not designed with the audience in mind.

That’s why we train professionals in the art of slide design. Here are three presentation design principles that we live by at Duarte:

1. Design is not decoration.

Everything on your presentation slide should serve a purpose. And that purpose should always link back to your message. There’s no need to waste precious presentation real-estate with decorative icons or superfluous details. If it’s not adding meaning to your message, you don’t need it. When in doubt, leave it out.

2. Stick to one idea per slide.

Crowded slides crammed with lots of content are not effective. If your audience can’t comprehend what’s on your slide in  a few seconds, you’ll lose them. Presentation slides should support your presentation, not distract from it. So unless you want your audience to read your slides instead of listening to your talk, limit yourself to one main idea per slide and keep it as simple as possible.

3. Audience-centric slides are accessible slides.

Everyone digests information differently. As an  empathy-first organization, we encourage you to look at every presentation slide through an audience-centric lens and create visuals that are accessible to everyone. Because when you design with accessibility, you open the doors to a wider audience and create a more equitable and empathetic world. To ensure accessibility, review the AA accessibility standards. You can also download our  recent webinar about visual accessibility 101.

Oh, and if you’re designing slides specifically for virtual presentations, there are just a few additional slide design components to consider.

But overall, if you keep it simple, keep it aligned with your message, and keep your audience in mind, you’ll be off to a good start.

Honing in on data visualization

We can’t talk about presentation design without considering data visualization. After all, it’s rare we can ask anyone to make a decision without providing data to support our claim.

No matter what type of presentation you’re delivering, meaningful metrics are a must. Yet, another common presentation design pitfall we see is the dreaded “data dump.” That’s when someone includes way too much data on their presentation slides. Or, provides data with zero context or meaning behind it.

Datapoints alone don’t move audiences. They need a storyteller.

And data storytelling isn’t easy. If you’ve ever asked yourself “how do I display data the right way in presentations?” – you’re not alone. Presenting data is tricky because different rules apply to different contexts. That means, first and foremost, you’ve got to know your audience. Only then can you determine and extract the key messages they need to hear from a deluge of data.

Once you’ve identified what data matters most to your audience, you need to visualize that data in a way that’s both consumable and memorable. To do so:

• Choose charts that everyone can understand
• Write clear chart titles
• Make descriptive observations using adjectives
• Use color, labels, or highlights to draw attention to specific data points

If you want more guidance on how to synthesize your findings, craft recommendations, organize your thinking, and visualize meaning, consider enrolling in a data visualization training course like Duarte DataStory®.

Pitch presentations

Sales pitches, investor decks, start-up overviews – oh my! These are all examples of pitch presentations – and they’re presentations you need to get right if you want to get paid. Companies often come to us confused. They think they’ve included everything an investor or customer needs to know, but their pitch is not performing. There are a few common reasons for this:

1. They’re using a one-size-fits-all deck.

Every sales conversation must be customized to the stakeholder you’re speaking to. As author and management consultant Tom Peters says, “one size never fits all. One size fits one. Period.” Hashtag agreed. Modular sales decks and sales pitch templates sound good on paper, but are difficult to put into practice. Check out these sales enablement tips to learn how to build situational sales presentations for your team.

2. They aren’t highlighting anything unique.

If you don’t have anything unique to offer, your pitch won’t stand out no matter how charismatic your delivery or how beautiful your branding. Consider this statement: “We build incredible, unique, and thoughtful experiences that allow you to delight, surprise, and wow people.”

Despite the word unique being included, does that sound like a unique value proposition to you? I can’t even tell what this company sells based on that claim. It could be software, or it could be ice cream delivery. The world may never know. And that is a problem.

3. They don’t incorporate a story.

Facts and figures are helpful sales tools, don’t get me wrong. But nothing sells like stories do. After all, our feelings drive our decisions 70% of the time according to Gallup. Data proves a point, but stories influence people to act. When you intertwine analytical and emotional content, you’ve got a powerful pitch that appeals to both ethos and pathos.

4. They start with a single problem and make the rest of their pitch all sunshine and rainbows.

Our brains need contrast to stay engaged. If you vomit all product benefits for the last 80% of your pitch, it makes it harder to think critically about the necessary components that must be considered to move a decision forward. Not to mention, that listeners stop believing you. Instead, your audience needs vicissitude, or a back and forth, between problem one and solution one. Problem two and solution two. And so on. This requires brainstorming every possible objection or resistance point your audience might have, and weaving them throughout your pitch.

Now, how do you ensure your entire salesforce avoids these missteps? That’s where a sales enablement deck comes in.

A sales enablement deck equips reps with every sales resource they need to win: case studies, key metrics, audience personas, and expected objections, all wrapped in an overarching story, topic, or category.

But as stated, one size will never fit all. It just won’t! So refrain from relying on one sales enablement deck for everything. The more concise and tailored your sales enablement decks are, the easier it will be for your reps to use them, and the more likely you’ll hear that sales bell ring.

And if you want help crafting (or delivering) sales enablement training, that is one of the many presentation services Duarte offers.

Presentation services

As the O.G. presentation company turned communications consultants and trainers, we can help you (and your team) with every and any aspect of presentation development.

We offer training and custom agency services for presentation delivery and presentation creation.

Presentation coaching

Need executive coaching for an upcoming panel discussion? We’ve got coaches for that.

Need to help a group of sales reps up-level their delivery skills? We’ve got a course for that.

Presentation storytelling

Need a fresh sales pitch written for a high-stakes audience? We’ve got writers for that.

Need cinematic presentation slides for a keynote event? We’ve got designers for that.

Or, need to train your entire staff in the art of business storytelling? We’ve got a course for that too.

Presentation skills are critical  for our careers and our companies. Arm your team and your organization with the skills and resources needed to present their best.

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Up-level your speaking skills with one-on-one support. We’ll help you rehearse your talk, polish your presence, and transform your message delivery.

Presentation Principles™

Learn presentation basics

Follow a step-by-step method to write compelling stories, amplify ideas visually, and present with confidence while learning at your own pace.

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From novice to expert: Keynote speaking tips from the pros

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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What is a Presentation Designer? Everything You Need to Know

Do you need to give a presentation but don't know where to start? Do you want your presentations to look more professional? Maybe you're looking for a new job and want to learn about the role of presentation designer. If any of these describe you, then read on! 

By understanding what a presentation designer does and how they can help your business succeed, you'll be able to better communicate your needs and make the most out of any presentation.

What is a Presentation Designer?

A presentation designer creates the visual layout and graphic design of a presentation. They have an understanding of many different types of media, such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Keynote.  The presentation designer selects fonts, colors, and other elements to create a visually appealing look for a company's presentations and reports. In short, they know how to effectively communicate complicated information in an easy-to-digest manner.

What Do Their Services Include?

Presentation designers come in many forms and have varying degrees of experience and capabilities – nonetheless, they all share a common trait: their goal is to make sure your audience is engaged and informed during your next corporate event. You may find that most presentation designers offer instructions and guidance on how to more effectively communicate through visually engaging mediums, like the aforementioned PowerPoint.

Other services offered might include:

• Sales Presentations
• Pitch Decks
• Capabilities Decks
• Findings & Recommendations
• Marketing & Strategy
• Animated Presentations
• RFP Responses
• Training Presentations
• Internal Meetings

Why Are They Beneficial to Your Business?

While it is not often talked about, one of the more vital aspects of a business is its presentations! How do you come across to your clients? How do your customers see you? Your employees? Answering these questions takes time and a lot of effort. It can be extremely stressful too! 

Presentation designers are beneficial because they improve the visual appeal of your presentations and provide it with design continuity. Another benefit is that presentation designers will save you time and energy by allowing you to concentrate on what is important: the content of your message. 

Why is it Important For Your Presentations to Look Professional?

Presentations are a common form of communicating information. It is important that they look professional to capture the audience's attention and effectively transfer knowledge. A study published by "InfoDesign" revealed that employers gauge job applicants' professionalism before hiring them, and one-third said that they judged applicants on how their resumes looked.

Similarly, if your presentation looks unprofessional or difficult to read then it might not be well received by your audience. This may lead to a judgment on the organization of the content, rather than the ideas themselves. It's important that the material and design look professional and polished. 

A presentation is a great way to show your audience what you have learned, who you are and what your business can offer them. However, if the presentation looks unprofessional then it will be difficult for people to take you or your business seriously.

Contact us to learn more about our presentation design services.

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How to design presentations

Designing presentations isn’t easy. But with these 5 simple pieces of advice, you’ll avoid common mistakes and learn the best practices for creating great presentations. Marq makes it easy to design beautiful presentations in our intuitive online editor. Choose your slides from a lineup of professional templates, then customize the content to match your unique vision.

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Purpose of a presentation

It’s good to remember what you want your presentation to do: share information efficiently and in an aesthetically pleasing manner. But it’s also important to keep your slides from distracting your audience. Keep that in mind while you’re designing. It’s easy to get carried away, and that results in presentations that are hard to follow. Let’s look at how to avoid that.

How to make a presentation

Step 1: outline your presentation.

Before you start designing, you need to know what you’re going to say. Starting with an outline helps you get a good idea of the text you’ll be using on your slides, as well as the visuals that support your ideas. If you don’t know the information you’re going to present, it’s difficult to choose design elements that support it. So, spend some time thinking about your main points—you don’t need to get everything down, but make sure that you cover at least three main ideas for your presentation.

Step 2: Think about tone

The tone of your presentation has a strong effect on your design decisions. If you’re going for a business-like tone, for example, you might not choose a flowery theme, and you might use more jargon and complicated terms. If your presentation is going to be light, airy & funny, you need to know that up front so you can make the right decisions along the way. Don’t be afraid to use a tone that’s different from what you might think of as “normal.” Business presentations can be informal, boring subjects can be made entertaining, and experience can be shared in novel ways.

Step 3: Choose a palette

With your outline and tone figured out, you can move on to design. First, you’ll want to decide on a color palette. Choose one or two main colors, and two or three secondary colors, to use in your slides. It’s good to use the basics of color theory to mix colors (hint: Adobe’s Kuler tool is a great way to discover color combinations). And keep your tone in mind; if you’re aiming for a fun, energetic feel, warm colors will suit your presentation well. If you’re aiming for a more professional tone, blues and grays might be more appropriate.

Step 4: Emphasize one point per slide

This is where many of us go wrong. Too often, we include tons of information on each slide—and sometimes end up reading from the slide instead of speaking extemporaneously. This is a recipe for a boring and forgettable presentation. Think of slides more like your notes: each slide should focus on a single idea and contain no more than a few lines of text. This ensures that your audience focuses on you, that you focus on your audience, and that you remind yourself of the main points you’re trying to get across. Seth Godin says you should have no more than six words on a single slide. Challenge yourself to meet this guideline.

Step 5: Make it visual

Appealing to the emotions of your audience will leave a strong impression and help them to remember what you said. Words are great for inspiring emotion—but pictures are much better. We strongly recommend using professional stock photos, like those from Unsplash or Pexel. You can use other visuals, too. If you’re emphasizing the growth of a particular value or figure, a simple chart will impress upon your audience just how much growth you’re talking about. As with words, keep your graphics simple and to-the-point.

Ready to make your presentation?

Once you’ve put these items together, you’re ready to give your presentation. All that’s left to do is practice your delivery and wow your audience. Don’t forget that we have a whole gallery of professional presentation templates available for free. Simply customize the design and put in your text, and you’ll have a killer presentation in just a few minutes.

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60 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks (Giant List)

Here's a PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks guide that takes you through how to make a good PowerPoint presentation.

The best PowerPoint presentations shouldn’t be remembered. Instead, they should fall into the background to support you and the message you’re trying to get across.

Unlike good PowerPoint presentations , bad PowerPoint presentations are a distraction. You may remember them, but not in a good way.

You’ve seen them before. They might have millions of lines of text. Or a disjointed flow to the slides. Even worse, some slides feature ugly photos and poor design that detract from the message you’re trying to get across. That can even hurt your credibility as a professional or speaker.

This article will take you from finding your initial topic to learning how to make a great PowerPoint presentation. Our guide covers everything in between so that you learn how to present a PowerPoint like a pro.

These Microsoft PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines are organized into sections. So cut straight to the advice you need and come back when you’re ready for the next steps.

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

Also, download our Free eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It’s the deepest resource for learning effective presentation skills for a PPT.

This eBook covers the complete presentation process. It takes the PowerPoint tips and tricks you learn in this article further. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and prepare it to present powerfully. It’s another great source for presentation design tips.

Master PowerPoint (Free Course): 15 Essential Tips

This article is full of helpful tips so you can build a powerful presentation. You can also find more PowerPoint tips in this video lesson:

To learn even more about how to make a PowerPoint look good, review the huge list of tips below.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

Knowing how to use PowerPoint and work within it quickly is helpful. But more important is making a good presentation that hits all your goals. A great PowerPoint presentation is:

• Prepared to Win . Research, plan, and prepare your presentation professionally. It helps you deliver an effective message to your target audience.
• Designed Correctly . Your visual points should stand out without overwhelming your audience. A good PowerPoint visual shouldn’t complicate your message.
• Practiced to Perfection . Rehearse your timing and delivery so that your points land as practiced with a live audience.
• Delivered With Poise . Present with a relaxed inner calm and confident outward projection. Give your audience warmth, excitement, and energy.
• Free From Mistakes . Avoid typos, cheesy clip art, and mistakes like reading directly from your slides.

Consider this your all-inclusive guide to how to make a good presentation. We’ll look at preparing your presentation and explore how to design it in PowerPoint. Plus, we’ll cover how to practice and nail your delivery successfully come presentation time.

We’ll also address what not to do in these tips for PowerPoint presentations—so you can sidestep any big mistakes. Now let’s dig into these tips for effective PowerPoint presentations.

Killer Presentation Preparation Tips to Get Started Right

Before even opening PowerPoint, start by addressing these things. These Microsoft PowerPoint tips and tricks will ensure that you’re prepared for your presentation:

1. Know Your Stuff

Your presentation isn’t about your slides alone. It’s about the message you want to get across. Before filling in stats, facts and figures, think about the narrative that’ll be discussed, why, and in what order.

2. Write It Out

Start in a Word or Google doc, and storyboard or script the entire presentation. This will give you an idea of how the information presented will flow and how viewers will see it in sequence. Learn the complete writing process .

3. Highlight What’s Most Important

A presentation covers the most crucial pieces only. Whatever you’ve been working on that led to this—a paper, a work project, a new product design—doesn’t need to be shared in its entirety. Pick key points and put the rest in an “Appendix” to refer to during the Q&A session at the end.

4. Know Your Audience

How you talk to a room full of medical professionals should be different from the way you address a room full of young entrepreneurs. Everything, in fact, is different: your topic selection, the language you use, the examples you give to illustrate points. The little bits of humor you include should be tailored specifically with your target audience in mind.

Understand your audience’s needs to create a successful PowerPoint presentation. Customize your content to meet their specific requirements.

5. Rehearse! (Yes, Already)

It’s never too early to get used to the rhythm of your presentation and take note of points you want to emphasize. While saying it out loud, you’ll start to develop a “feel” for the material. You’ll notice that some things work well, while others don’t and might need to be worked around.

6. Rewrite After You Rehearse

As you’re rehearsing your presentation, you’re bound to stumble over sections that don’t quite flow naturally. Instead of reworking your delivery, it might be time to consider the content and rewrite the areas that served as stumbling blocks.

“Editing is hard. ‘It’s good enough,’ is a phrase wannabes use. Leaders take editing seriously.” – Anthony Trendl

The most important part of creating a great presentation is the writing stage. The second most important stage is rewriting.

7. Share With a Friend

If the stakes are high for your presentation, it’s never too early to get feedback from those that you trust. Here’s an article that helps you collaborate as a team on a PowerPoint presentation. Get PowerPoint design tips from those that you trust when you collaborate.

Simple Tips to Design Your PowerPoint Presentation Better

Second only to you (the information you bring and how you present it) is your PowerPoint slides. If not designed well, a PowerPoint can be disengaging or distracting (regardless of the content quality). Here are some presentation design tips to make sure this doesn’t happen to you:

8. Keep Your Slides Simple

This is one of the most important PowerPoint presentation tips to follow when designing your slides. Keep in mind that less is more (effective.) A cluttered slide is distracting. It causes confusion for an audience: Which part of the slide should I focus on? Should I read the slide or pay attention to the presenter?

A simple, visually appealing slide will engage your audience, keeping them on track with your main points. Here’s an example of a simple slide that serves its purpose perfectly:

Minimalist slide templates like Nook can help you resist the urge to clutter your slides.

9. Limit Words on Your Slides

Piggybacking on the last point, less is more effective. If possible, avoid bullets altogether. Otherwise cut them to just a few simple words. The audience should be listening, not reading.

10. Use High-Quality Photos and Graphics

One of the most important tips for quality PowerPoint presentations is to use high-quality photos and graphics.

Earlier in this tutorial, you saw Envato Elements, an all-you-can-download service with PPT tips inside of templates. Those pre-built designs are a beginner’s best friend. They’re even better when paired with Elements’ unlimited library of stock photos .

People are more likely to take you seriously if your presentation is visually appealing. Users view attractive design as more usable. Similarly, they’ll view a more attractive PowerPoint as more effective.

11. Use Accurate and Relevant Charts and Graphs

Charts and graphs can also be distracting if they’re not used right. Make sure your information design is simple and clean so that the audience doesn’t spend the entire time trying to decipher what your X axis says. Learn more about PPT data presentation .

12. Use High-Quality, Fresh Templates

Have you seen the old PowerPoint template that looks like worn paper and uses ink splashes? Yeah, so has your audience. Templates can be distracting if they’re too basic or if the design feels dated. You need one with great design options.

Costs are always a concern. But when you use Envato Elements, you’ve got everything you need to create a great PowerPoint presentation . That’s thanks to the incredible all-you-can-download subscription package.

The best PowerPoint tips and tricks can hardly compare to the value of using a template while building your presentation.

On Envato Elements, there are thousands of PowerPoint design templates that are ready to use. Instead of designing a presentation from scratch, start with a template! Just add your specifics to the placeholders.

Templates like Galaxi are impressively designed and waiting for your slide specifics.

The best PowerPoint design tips save you time. And there’s no tip more powerful than this one: use a pre-built template . It helps you master how to present a PowerPoint without spending all your time in the app.

13. Choose Appropriate Fonts

Fonts are an important part of engaging your audience. Fonts and typography choices have a subconscious effect on viewers. They can characterize your company’s presentation and brand either positively or negatively. Make sure that you’re choosing fonts that are professional and modern.

14. Choose Color Well

Like font choice, colors cause specific subconscious reactions from viewers. Choosing an outdated color combination for your presentation will render it ineffective.

Below is an example of the Popsicle PowerPoint template , which has a modern presentation color choice:

The Popsicle PowerPoint template highlights how harmonized color palettes can create beautiful slides.

15. Clean + Simple Formatting Makes All the Difference!

We’ve got a full tutorial on how to make a good presentation slide . Give it a read through and review the accompanying video. Just remember, less is more. The focus is you and your message , not your slides.

16. Make Sure All Objects Are Aligned

A simple way to create a well-designed presentation is to make sure all items on a slide are intentionally aligned. To do this, hold down Shift and select all the objects you want to include. Then choose Arrange in the options bar and apply Alignment Type .

17. Limit Punctuation

This isn’t the place for exclamation points. Emphasize your points (while speaking). Don’t enlist punctuation to do this for you. (Leave these at home!!!)

18. Avoid Over-Formatting Your Points

This PowerPoint presentation tip is simple. There’s no need to have every word of every bullet point capitalized, or to have all your bullet points in title case. If possible, drop bullets altogether. Again, the simpler, the better!

Limit your text formatting, including reducing the use of bullets, underline, and other effects. Compare the before example on the left to the revised version on the right.

19. Combine Information With Graphics in PowerPoint

One of the most powerful presentation skills for PPT is using infographics. With the right type of visuals, slides come to life and reduce the text in favor of graphics.

Infographics help combine information with graphics. It’s easier to explain complex ideas when you use visual formats that are intuitive.

Practice Presentation Tips: Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!

Delivery is probably more important than the actual content. Here’s how to become more aware of your own unique ticks, and how to present like a polished pro:

20. I’ll Say It Again, Rehearse!

Just do it. Again and again. Experiment with pauses, gestures, and body language. Practice around one hour for every minute of your speech.

21. Practice With a Timer

Consistency is key to an effective PowerPoint presentation. The timing should be similar (ideally the same) each time you rehearse. This one will especially pay off when it’s time to present in front of your audience.

22. Slow It Down

Many of the best speakers today intentionally speak slowly. You’ll have the chance to emphasize, appear more thoughtful, and make your information easier to digest.

23. Pause More Often

Like the prior tip, pausing more often allows your main points to be emphasized and gives time for information to sink in. You need to let key points breathe a little before rushing into the next section.

24. Record Yourself

Use your phone’s voice recorder. Assess and critique yourself. Consider:

• Are your pauses too short or too long?
• Are you speaking slowly enough? Too slow?
• When you’re nervous, does your voice get high like the mice in Cinderella?

It’s always weird to hear your own voice recorded; don’t stress it. Use this as a time to adjust.

25. Choose Three Focal Points in the Room

If you stare at the same spot (or even creepier, the same person) the entire time, your presentation will be ineffective (and awkward.) People will be distracted by you, wondering what you’re staring at.

Try this: pick three points in the room (typically: left, center, right). Take time to direct your delivery toward each physical focal point in the room. Also, focus on the center when making your primary points.

26. Vary Your Sentence Length

This makes you sound more interesting, and it’s easier for your audience to follow. Think short and punchy. Or go long and complex for dramatic effect.

27. Modulate!

Don’t speak in monotone for your whole presentation. Be conscious of raising and lowering your voice tone. Otherwise, people will tune you out, and you’ll come across like the teacher in Charlie Brown.

28. Practice in Front of a Mirror

What you look like is as important as how you sound. Pretend you’re having a normal conversation, and allow your hands to move with your speech to emphasize your points. Just don’t get carried away! (I’m thinking Brene Brown or President Obama , not your Aunt Jamie after a few gin and tonics.)

29. Use “Present Mode” When Rehearsing

When you finally are ready to hit the Present button in PowerPoint, make sure you use the Present Mode option. This allows you (and only you) to view extra notes about each slide—just in case you forget something!

30. Practice With New Audiences

If possible, try doing a few real live test runs as a webinar or even at a local Toastmasters organization to get some feedback from a live audience.

31. Engage the Audience by Asking Questions

There’s no reason that a presentation should be one-sided. Why not invert the format and ask your audience a question?

To learn how to create a slide that kicks off a Q&A, use this article . These PowerPoint design tips help you create an engaging and exciting discussion.

Helpful Tips to Step Up and Deliver Come Presentation Time

When the actual day arrives, there are only a few last PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines to keep in mind:

32. Take a Deep Breath

Deep breathing is proven to relieve stress. It’s simple, and it’ll help you remain calm and in the moment, even up to the last minute before starting.

33. Lighten Up Your Mood

Tell yourself a joke or watch a funny video clip. Do this before the presentation, of course. Research concludes that happy people are more productive. More productive is more focused and able to perform better.

34. Remind Yourself to Take It Slow

When we’re stressed or nervous (or both), we tend to speak faster. Consciously, take yet another deep breath and remind yourself to take it slow!

35. Read the Room

Every presentation room has a temperature. It’s your job as a speaker to gauge it and tailor your presentation to it.

Here’s a great example. Layoffs are coming at a company, and you’re asked to speak to an audience. Even if the audience isn’t personally affected by the actions, you’ve got to consider the morale of the workforce.

Skilled speakers have a knack for reading the energy of the room and adjusting their presentation on the fly.

The last thing that group will want to hear is how strong the economy is and why the company is the best place to work. That doesn’t mean that you’ve got to align to their uncertainty, but don’t go too far against the grain while presenting.

Robert Kennedy III is a master of bringing energy and aligning a speech to the audience. Here’s his advice for adjusting:

“It can be hard to wake up a “dead” crowd but go for it. Most of all, don’t take their energy personally. Focus on serving them with every bit of your fiber then leave empty.”

36. Fake It ‘Til You Make It!

Go forward with confidence. If you act confident, you’ll start to feel more confident. Move slowly with grace, speak clearly, smile, wear something nice. You’ll appear confident to all attendees (no matter how you feel internally).

PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Tricks to Help Avoid Mistakes (What Not to Do)

Most importantly, focus on what you can do to make your presentation better. There are a few important things not to do that we’ve got to address. Here are a handful of PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks to help you avoid missteps.

37. Stop With the Sound Effects

Sound effects are distracting and outdated. In most cases, avoid them. Add audio or music to your presentation to inject interest or highlight an important point, but it’s something to take extra care with. If you insert audio, then make sure your use really connects with your audience and has a fresh approach. Otherwise, it’s best to leave it out.

38. Don’t Use Flashy Slide Transitions

Again, this is distracting and outdated. Use transitions and subtle animations in your PowerPoint presentation. But you need to take care and do it right .

39. Beware of Clip Art

This PowerPoint presentation tip shouldn’t even have to be said. But please, please don’t use clip art. Use professional graphics instead.

40. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Afraid

The fear of public speaking is a real one. Many beginners think that if they’re feeling nervous that a presentation won’t go well or succeed. That might lead them to cancel the presentation.

Here’s a tip from expert Sandra Zimmer, who leads The Self-Expression Center on conquering your fears before you take the stage:

“Get out of your head and into your body. I do this through a grounding exercise that really works to calm nerves and bring you present in the moment.”

If you think that public speaking fears aren’t normal, you might never give your award-winning presentation. So don’t be afraid to be afraid, and acknowledge it’s part of the process!

41. Don’t Read Directly During Your PowerPoint Presentation

If you spend your entire presentation looking at the screen or your note cards, you’re sure to lose your audience’s attention. They’ll disengage from what you’re saying, and your presentation will fall flat.

Reading from your paper or screen also makes it look like you’re not prepared. Many people do it, but no one should. As a general rule, only present something you know well and have, at least mostly, memorized the main points of.

42. Don’t Miss Out on PowerPoint Customizations

Many new PowerPoint users often make significant mistakes when using Envato Elements designs.

The best way to see how to make a good presentation PPT is to start with designs from others. That means using a template, but that doesn’t mean you can’t customize them!

Don’t forget that PowerPoint templates are infinitely customizable. Think of them as guides with built-in presentation design tips.

To see more presentation tips that show you what not to do, make sure to check out our guide .

Work in PowerPoint More Effectively (Tips & Tricks to Level Up Your PPT Skills)

These PowerPoint tips will help you get the most out of the application to level up your next presentation. Let’s dive in.

43. Use the Visual Guides

When you’re designing your next PowerPoint presentation, it helps to create a sense of visual rhythm. Slides that have objects aligned and centered are more likely to resonate with an audience.

44. Use a Few Animations (Tastefully)

Animations in effective PowerPoint presentations are a slippery slope. We’ve all sat through presentations where there were so many objects in motion that it was easy to lose focus on the key ideas in the presentation.

But that’s why animations get an unfairly bad reputation. Use animations to create motion and hold an audience’s attention. Use them sparingly and on key elements on your slide, and you’ll capture that attention properly.

45. Stage Key Content With Animations

You just learned that animations should avoid being distracting. But there’s an important principle to using animations properly. It’s called staging content.

Staging content means that the content appears step by step. There’s nothing worse than overwhelming an audience with all your content at once. But when you stage content, bring it on step by step.

Take it from presentation pro Suzannah Baum :

“If you’re sharing a slide with lots of different points on it, using the animation to reveal those points one at a time is a way to keep the presenter’s content flowing smoothly.”

For more animation presentation tips and tricks, follow our guide .

46. Add a Video to Your PowerPoint

When you’re sharing a big idea in your presentation, it helps to share your perspective from a few different angles. Adding a video to supplement your content can do just that. Luckily, it’s easy to add and embed a YouTube video in your next PowerPoint presentation.

47. Add Charts & Graphs

Charts and graphs can help you tell stories with data. It’s easy for an audience to zone out when you throw a big data table or set of statistics at them.

instead, convert those to charts and graphs. Try out our tutorial to learn how to edit those graphs.

48. Build Your Own Infographics With SmartArt

Earlier in this tutorial, we gave you one of my favorite PowerPoint design tips: use infographic templates.

Here’s another. One of my favorite PowerPoint features is SmartArt, which allows you to build infographics right inside the app.

You don’t have to use another graphic design app like Photoshop or Illustrator to add visuals. Instead, try out SmartArt to help you build graphics that are easy to update.

49. Use Presenter View

Remember that when you use the PowerPoint, you’ re the presentation. The slides are just there to reinforce what you’ve got to say and support your speaking points.

That’s why I always recommend using Presenter view. More often than not, you’re going to have several displays. Presenter view shows your content on your screen, while your presentation is displayed on another screen.

50. Track Your PowerPoint Changes

One of my favorite PowerPoint design tips is to collaborate. Those who know you best will suggest compelling changes that are sure to help you succeed.

As you start collaborating on your presentation, it helps to keep track of proposed and included PowerPoint changes. Use this article to track changes made by others.

10 More Advanced PowerPoint Tips & Tricks

Really need to wow an audience with a good PowerPoint presentation? Give these tips a try to make an unforgettable impression:

51. Engage With an Interactive Quiz

A good PowerPoint presentation gets your audience involved. One of the best PowerPoint tricks is to do that with a quiz. By engaging audiences, a quiz makes your slides memorable.

By adding trivia, you’ll see how to present a PowerPoint in a way that people will love. Channel your inner game-show host today. MIDTEST is a  good PowerPoint presentation  with quiz slides.

52. Illustrate With Custom Image Masks

One of the top PowerPoint tips is to illustrate your slides. But you can go beyond simple, rectangular images on each slide.

The Burte template is full of  PowerPoint tricks , including custom image masks. Image masks shape photos into unique works of art. And thanks to premium templates, you can style photos just like this. Masks overlay your photos onto geometric shapes, instantly elevating your style.

53. Print Handouts With Extra Notes

Wonder how to give a good presentation PPT that audiences will remember? Give them a piece of it to take home.

PowerPoint makes it easy to print handouts with room for notes on the page. This way, audiences can keep copies of your slides, along with their own notes. This is the perfect way to ensure everyone engages with and retains your content.

54. Make Bulk Edits With Master Slides

When you think about how to present a PowerPoint, consider your branding. That means keeping your logo front and center in the eyes of an audience. But if you’re working with a lengthy slide deck, this could seem daunting.

That’s where master slides come in. They’re common in premium layouts, and they’re a leading example of presentation skills for PPT. Master slides let you make bulk edits fast.

55. Shrink File Sizes for Sharing

Many of the top presentation tips involve making your slides more accessible. Often, that involves sharing them with audiences online.

You’ll often find that email clients and cloud services limit the size of files that you share. This can be a problem with large PPT slide decks. But there are a few quick steps you can take to reduce PPT file size. Cut graphics, scale down photos, and more.

56. Map Processes With Flowcharts

As you consider how to do a good PowerPoint presentation, think of ease of understanding. After all, you’re trying to explain something to your audience.

The  Flowcharts in Infographics  template seamlessly illustrates ideas and processes. A flowchart maps out a process in a visual way. Instead of resorting to endless narration, try a quick illustration like this. It saves you time and effort, and your audience is sure to thank you.

57. Use Brand-Specific Colors

Using presentation skills for PPT helps form an association between your message and branding. There’s no better way to do that than with your brand colors.

PowerPoint makes it easy to change color themes, adding your brand colors and logo to each slide. This is one of the top PowerPoint tricks for marketing presentations.

58. Build Social Media Posts in PPT

A good PowerPoint presentation doesn’t have to be shared through a projector. Use the app and templates to build amazing illustrations to use anywhere.

A template like Soffee helps you learn how to present a PowerPoint easily with a pre-built design.

Try using PowerPoint to create social media posts. It helps you engage with your audience, with no need to design custom layouts from scratch.

59. Be Industry-Specific

One of the top presentation tips in 2024 is to be industry-specific. That means avoiding generic layouts and choosing something more customized.

This offers two key advantages. First, you save time by having layouts built for you. Second, you gain design inspiration for your specific topic. Themed templates are truly the best of both worlds.

The Medical and Health template is a good PowerPoint presentation with a set theme.

60. Design for Online (Virtual) Sharing

Last but not least in our list of PowerPoint tips comes virtual presenting. More and more often, slides will be shared with online audiences around the globe.

Why not design your slides for that very purpose? And then learn how to share flawlessly with a global team? It’s one of the top presentation tips for 2024. Embrace it today.

More Great PowerPoint Tutorial Resources

We’ve built a resource for Microsoft PowerPoint that you’re sure to want to try. It includes countless PowerPoint tips and tricks. It’s called How to Use PowerPoint (Ultimate Tutorial Guide) and has all the PowerPoint design tips you need.

Discover More Top PowerPoint Template Designs From Envato Elements for 2024

You’ve just seen our favorite powerful PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines to help you improve your speaking. We’ve also mentioned Envato Elements, an incredible all-you-can-download source for top PowerPoint designs .

Here are five of the best PowerPoint templates that you can use to create your best presentation yet:

1. Galaxi PowerPoint Template

Blast off to success with the help of this PowerPoint template! Think of the pre-built slide designs as pro PowerPoint design tips. They’re built by professional graphic designers. All the popular and modern slide styles that are perfect for your next presentation. Use Galaxi’s five styles and 30 designs to create a great presentation.

2. Masmax PowerPoint Template

We selected templates for this article that match the PowerPoint tips and tricks provided. Masmax fits the bill perfectly across its 234 unique slide designs. These slide designs are sure to align with the latest in design expectations.

3. STYLE Multipurpose PowerPoint Template V50

Style is subjective, but we can all agree that this template is stunning! The light and airy slide designs are built with fashion-focused designs in mind. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not perfect for most presentations. When learning to present a PowerPoint, remember that templates can be customized to suit your purpose.

4. Peachme Creative PowerPoint Template

Peachme has image-focused slides with splashy designs. The slides are colorful and perfect for a modern presentation. Don’t worry about remembering all the PowerPoint design tips because they’re included in the pre-built slides. Use Peachme’s designs for your presentation today.

5. Buizi Office Building Rent PowerPoint Template

Buizi markets itself as a real estate focused template. It’s ideal for that purpose because of the minimal, image-focused slide designs. But that also makes it a perfect choice for presentations in many fields.

We’ve just scratched the surface of PowerPoint design tips with these five options. Here are many more, bundled inside of the best roundups on Envato Tuts+:

How to Build a Good PowerPoint Presentation Quickly (In 2024)

You’ve already seen effective presentation skills PPT techniques. But you may be wondering exactly how to do a good PowerPoint presentation. It only takes a few clicks. Let’s learn how in just five steps.

For this mini-tutorial, we’ll use the Enjoy PowerPoint Template from Envato Elements. You’ll see that it’s a beautiful template that helps you learn how to present a PowerPoint by giving you every object and layout you need.

Let’s get started:

1. Choose Your Slides

As you can see, a template like Enjoy has dozens of unique slides inside. The key to how to give a good presentation PPT is to choose only the slides that you need.

One of the best PowerPoint tricks is to start by selecting slides you wish to use from your template.

In PowerPoint, scroll through the sidebar on the left to view different slide layouts. Right-click and choose Delete to remove unwanted designs. Plus, you can click and drag slide thumbnails to reorder them in the deck.

2. Add Text

Consider how to do a good PowerPoint presentation without investing a ton of time. That’s where premium templates come in.

One of our top presentation tips when working with a PPT is to lean on the pre-built text boxes for your content.

To add custom text, simply click and select the contents of any text box on your slide. Then, type in your own words. Repeat as needed throughout your slide deck.

3. Customize Fonts

With text selected, it’s easy to customize fonts on each slide. Find the Font section on PowerPoint’s Home tab. From there, you’ve got a variety of dropdown options.

Another of our top tips for presentation tricks is to use a custom font setting in your template.

Click to change the font, font size, and more. You can also use the buttons on the left to add bolds, italics, and more.

Need more custom font styles? As an Envato Elements subscriber, you’ve got instant access to thousands of custom fonts . Use them in your presentation with ease.

4. Insert Images

Slides like this one contain an image placeholder. That’s another advantage found only with premium templates. These make adding images a breeze.

Add images to your PPTX template for more visually interesting slides.

To get started, find an image file stored on your computer. Then, drag and drop it over the placeholder. PowerPoint will import it, sized and scaled for a perfect fit.

5. Change Colors

One of the top effective presentation skills is changing shape colors. This helps you control the look and feel of each slide.

With a shape selected, find the Shape Format tab on PowerPoint’s ribbon. Then, click on the Shape Fill dropdown. You’ll see a color chooser menu appear. Click on any thumbnail to apply it to the shape or browse through the Gradient and Texture options.

Start Putting These PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks Into Use Today!

Learning to write, design, and present a PowerPoint presentation is an invaluable skill, no matter where you use it. If you’re a good communicator of important messages, you’ll never go hungry.

Luckily, improving PowerPoint presentations isn’t as hard as it seems. Follow these tips for PowerPoint presentations to design and deliver with greater confidence.

Remember: Less is more (effective) . Use PowerPoint presentation templates for better design and more effective visual impact. And you can customize a PPT template quickly , with the right workflow.

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What is a Presentation Design?

The art and science of crafting visuals with engaging content, presentation designs are tools to communicate ideas in a slide deck efficiently. It goes way beyond putting together text and images. It’s about strategically using visuals to tell stories and provide clear information. It aims to engage your audience and achieve your presentation goals. 

Table of Contents

Why create presentation designs, key elements of a presentation design, the power of storytelling in presentations, typography and font selection, color palette and imagery, layout and composition, effective slide structure, best practices for presentation design, work with penji for your presentation designs.

Presentation plays a crucial role whether you’re educating, introducing a new product, or trying to get funding for your business. A well-crafted presentation design helps you with the following:

• Improved audience engagement: When you add compelling visuals, clear information, and a well-built narrative, you’ll succeed in keeping your audience interested and actively listening.
• Better information retention: Humans process visuals better and faster than text. An effective presentation design is an excellent way to help your audience remember key points and takeaways.
• Higher persuasion power: A well-designed presentation evokes emotions, builds trust, and makes your points more convincing.
• Stronger professional image: A polished slide deck is more than just a tool for communication; it’s a reflection of your professionalism. It enhances your credibility, reputation, and authority.
• Presentation goals achieved: Whether you aim to inform, inspire, convince, or educate, effective design can help deliver your message clearly and achieve your desired results.

Example #1: Made by one of Penji’s pro designers, this presentation design created for Skief Labs uses stunning visuals, clear layouts, easy-to-read typography, and eye-catching color combinations.

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If you want to create compelling and persuasive presentation designs, you need to understand its essential elements. They are the following:

People are wired to connect with stories . When crafting presentations, engage your audience with powerful storytelling. This reaches them on a higher emotional level while making your message more memorable. Here are a few tips for doing this:

• Craft a compelling narrative: Structure your presentation like you would a story, with a clear start, body, and end. Begin with a problem, present your solution, and leave with a takeaway.
• Cite examples and anecdotes: Use real-life stories, case studies, and personal anecdotes that your audience can relate to and add that human touch.
• Connect with emotions: Stories are great in eliciting emotions such as excitement, empathy, and inspiration, thus adding impact to your message,

If you aren’t familiar with it, typography is the art of using fonts and text styles. In presentation designs, selecting suitable and appropriate fonts is essential for readability and visual appeal. To help you achieve this, follow these tips:

• Readability: Choose clear and easy-to-read fonts. Remember that they will go on a slide that viewers will watch from afar. Make sure to avoid any complex font, such as decorative or script styles, that can be hard to read even on a large screen.
• Hierarchy: Using different fonts and sizes creates a hierarchy of information. Headings should be bigger and bolder than those in the body.
• Consistency: Use consistent font styles and sizes throughout your presentation for a coherent look. 

Two of the more powerful visual elements valuable to any presentation design are color palette and imagery. Here’s how to use them efficiently:

• Strategic use of color: Use a color palette that aligns with your brand or the message you’re imparting. Colors evoke emotions while setting the tone for your presentation.
• Limit text on images: Avoid placing text directly on your images. This can make the visual look cluttered and difficult to read.
• High-quality images: Use only high-resolution images, charts, and other graphics. Pixelated or blurry visuals can distract your audience and muddle your message.

Example #2: This presentation design was created by Penji for Jive, a PR and digital marketing strategy company. It embodies the right use of typography, color palette, imagery, and the power of storytelling.

The layout refers to the arrangement of the design elements on your slides. On the other hand, composition is the overall visual balance. Here are a few factors you need to understand if you want to achieve this effectively:

• Whitespace: Also known as negative space, these spaces are void of any design element. Use this to effectively prevent information overload while creating a sense of visual breathing room.
• Rule of thirds: Think of dividing your slides into threes. Place the key elements along the intersecting lines or points to achieve an excellent balance in your presentation slides.
• Alignment and balance: Make sure your texts, images, and other elements are aligned for an organized look.

To effectively guide your audience through your presentation, you need to build a clear and concise slide structure. Here’s how you can do it:

• Begin with a strong hook: Grab their attention using a captivating opening statement, question, or image on your first slide.
• Focus on key points: Make sure you focus only on the main points on each slide. Use visuals and concise text to support your message.
• Add clear calls to action: Tell your audience what you want them to do after presenting. Include clear calls to action on your last slide.

Aside from those mentioned above, below are a few more practical tips when crafting presentation designs :

• Avoid overloading with information: Do not bombard your audience with excessive text or complex visuals. These may confuse or overwhelm them. Instead, focus on your key points and support them with visuals.
• Use transitions and animations sparingly: While they can add visual interest, use them sparingly. Too many can distract and take away your audience’s attention to your content.
• Proofread carefully: Grammatical errors and typos can wreak havoc on your credibility. Ensure that you meticulously proofread your slides before you present.
• Keep it simple: Complex designs can be challenging to understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms and overly ornate images.

Example #3: Created for My Local Now, an ecommerce business, this presentation design exemplifies the excellent use of choosing the right color palette, ample white space, and keeping the overall design simple and easy to read.

To answer the question of what presentation design is, it is the art and science of crafting slide decks that impact viewers . It communicates your message using strategic visuals, storytelling, layout, and other design elements.

However, if you don’t have the time and design skills to create your own presentation designs, you can always turn to the professionals. Penji has a team of talented graphic designers who can craft presentation designs that truly shine. Watch our demo video here or click this link to get them working.

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Presentation Design

Silvia Alvarez

What is a Presentation Designer?

A presentation designer is an ever-evolving role, and therefore a presentation designer needs to be an individual who is consistently on the lookout for new presentation trends and always taking on new skills. They should have a strong eye for design, particularly when it comes to Powerpoint slides and presentation layouts.

This is a niche design role, and a presentation designer’s main responsibility is to uphold brand standards while creating effective, dynamic and well-thought-out internal and external presentations that are readable in multiple formats (e.g. tablet, computer, mobile).

What does a Presentation Designer do, typically?

A presentation designer will have experience designing templates and layouts and will be able to follow strict brand guidelines. They are quickly able to solve issues like blurry images, confusing layouts, and ineffective design. Their daily responsibilities can include:

• Intimate knowledge of presentation programs such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi and Keynote
• Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite programs such as Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator
• Ability to work under pressure and handle a wide range of tasks and projects at the same time
• Upholding brand guidelines and possessing a strong knowledge of design standards
• Working with internal and external stakeholders to ensure all brand presentation is of a high standard
• Having a good eye for design and aesthetics to create well-thought-out presentations

Misconceptions about Presentation Design services

While a presentation designer does need to have a good eye for aesthetics, they are not graphic designers. The focus of a presentation designer is purely on creating effective presentations for an organization and they will have extensive knowledge and experience in this particular area of design.

Important metrics for a Powerpoint Presentation Designer

1. time from initial idea to final product.

How long it takes for a presentation designer to create presentations and the cost for the amount of time it takes.

2. Engagement rate

This could be online or offline, as many presentations are used for public speaking engagements. It’s important to make sure the audience understands clearly the ideas that are being expressed and that online people are clicking through to the end of a presentation.

3. freelance powerpoint Presentation length

A good presentation should implement good design and reach a length that gets all of the important points across while keeping an audience engaged. A good slideshow should be three to four minutes long, with plenty of photos and videos to ensure a good flow.

Presentation Designer Salary

US Based, employer-reported data for a Presentation Designer:

• 25th Percentile $56.5K
• Average $64K
• 75th Percentile $71.5K

Presentation Designer Job Description

As a presentation designer, you will get to do more than just design slides. You will collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to create flawless presentations that make an impact. More specifically, you will:

• Possess intimate knowledge of presentation programs such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi and Keynote
• Be able to work with Adobe Creative Suite programs such as Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator
• Have experience working under pressure and be able to handle a wide range of tasks and projects at the same time
• Uphold brand guidelines and have strong knowledge of design standards
• Work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure all brand presentation is of a high standard
• Have a good eye for design and aesthetics to create well thought out presentations

4 tips to design better presentations

Whether presenting important updates at a board meeting, internally documenting information for an employee handbook, or sharing the new marketing strategy proposal — presentation design matters. Knowing how to design presentations that are both effective and visually stunning is a skill set valuable not just for designers, but for everyone in the modern workplace.

I’m one of Pitch’s senior visual designers, and one of my main roles is to oversee the design of our presentation templates. When creating presentation templates, I constantly need to keep in mind the balance between looks and usability. Something can look really nice, but if it doesn’t communicate the messages well, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is. From readability to presenting information effectively, I’ll share some of the basic principles of presentation design and my tips for designing better presentations.

1. Readability

Have you ever seen those slides that are filled with so much content and background noise you don’t even want to bother reading? A presentation that looks nice is great, but the viewer has to be able to easily read the slide and digest the content to make it useful. Here are a few tips for designing readable presentations.

White space is your friend.

Make sure there is enough margin around your text to keep it from feeling cramped.

When writing, try to be clear and concise.

Huge blocks of texts can be intimidating. If you’re writing paragraphs, limit it to 12 words per line for optimum readability (reading a long line of text causes fatigue).

Pay attention to height.

Typefaces with higher x-heights are much easier to read, especially at smaller sizes.

Proper line-height is also important.

Too tight makes it hard to read/claustrophobic. Too loose makes it feel like the paragraph is no longer a cohesive unit.

When dealing with readability, think about how people will see it. Presentations aren’t just for giving talks on stage or in meeting rooms.

Today, they’re often used for information sharing, internal updates, and company documentation. If you’re not there to present in person, good layout and structure are your best form of nonverbal, effective communication.

Making presentations for internal use is often easier because these presentations are essentially used as documents. When you’re working on a screen to be viewed on screens, what you see is pretty much what you get.

But, if you’re making a presentation for a conference, you also have to consider what it will look like on a big screen.

Is your copy readable from afar and from different angles? Is there enough contrast for your audience to see important details without squinting? Whether it’s for the big screen, mobile, or meant to be printed out — these mediums will all have different considerations that will impact your design decisions.

2. Presenting information effectively

Presentations don’t have to be filled with complicated charts and difficult-to-digest diagrams. Designed correctly, visuals make complex data or information easy to understand. Today, there are many options for presenting information beyond charts and graphs: You can embed videos, use GIFS, or link out to other resources to expand on your point.

Use the rule of 3’s when organizing information on a slide. You can easily turn a cramped slide of text into a well-organized visual simply by breaking apart the information into three main points. Use emphasis and hierarchy for the most important points. Visually highlight points you definitely don’t want your viewers to miss — by enlarging the font size, making it a different color, or bolding it. Don’t add extra visuals just because. Visuals should support, not distract from, your point. Too many causes a slide to look cluttered.

3. Creating visual consistency in your presentation

Slides don’t exist in a silo. When designing presentations slide by slide, you often end up with a bunch of slides that work individually, but lack cohesion as a unit. This can lead to painful revisions to content, layout, structure, and of course, design. It’s important to build visual consistency into your presentation from the get go, and to keep it in mind as you design.

Backgrounds and slide frames can help you create consistency across your slide deck. Whether solid or gradient, filled with shapes or photos or even patterns, keeping your backgrounds the same (or similar) across slides helps them feel more cohesive as people navigate through. Another way to achieve this is by framing your slides with a topbar or sidebar.

In Pitch, you can easily keep your slides consistent with styles. Simply create a presentation, or choose a template, add your brand elements — like colors and custom fonts — directly to Pitch, and create an on-brand design in minutes. Not only is this good for getting started, but it’s also great for collaborating with a team. Designers can easily update messaging, colors, and typography, and distribute them to others right away.

4. Consider the context

Last but not least…the best presentation design always depends on the context. Your audience and objective impact everything from font choice to colors. For example, if you’re designing an Annual Report for a long-established corporate bank, you might not want to use hot pink, but something more professional and serious, like a deep blue.

Keeping context in mind is important, not only in the beginning stages of coming up with a concept but throughout the process of designing a presentation.

That being said, here’s a quick recap of our presentation design tips, and the top takeaways to remember when you’re designing your next deck:

• Good layout and structure will be your best form of nonverbal, effective communication — keep your slides breathable, digestible, and scannable.
• Test your presentation in the actual medium it will be viewed from. This will vary from printed out documents to overhead/enlarged screens.
• Remember: A nice design is only part of it! Content and presentation are equally as important.
• Ask yourself: Is your content easy to scan? Will your audience be able to understand it without having to read over the content over and over again? Will a graph or diagram help?

Written by Silvia Alvarez

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June 25, 2024 /

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How to create an effective customer service presentation (+design tips)

Customer service is one of the most crucial elements of any business. You can have the best product or offer the lowest price, but if your customer service is subpar, it will be challenging to develop and thrive in a competitive landscape. On the other hand, excellent customer service can enhance your brand’s reputation, keep current clients happy, and help attract new ones through referrals.

This is where customer service training becomes a key strategy. And what better way to walk your team members through their responsibilities than with a customer service PowerPoint presentation? Let’s now break down the importance of this type of presentation and how it can help set your business up for success.

What’s a customer service training presentation?

Customer service PPT is a means of educating employees on the principles and best practices of effective customer service. It usually includes slides and visuals that explain how to handle difficult situations or client questions through calls, emails, or face-to-face interactions and explain the importance of good customer service.

Benefits of a customer experience presentation

A thorough understanding of client service expectations and guidelines can set your business up for success in various ways, including:

• More qualified customer support agents

The main purpose of customer service presentations is to train staff members who will be providing service to clients. When properly trained, your employees can complete their responsibilities to company standards and deliver exceptional service to your clients.

• Effective service for your clients

If a customer has a problem and needs someone to listen and help resolve it, but your support team lacks customer service training, it can lead to various issues, including losing them as a customer. On the contrary, when clients receive quality service from your employees across all channels, they feel valued and are more likely to come back or recommend your product or service to someone else.

• Improved brand reputation

Reviews from customers, whether on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Google, or sites like Sitejabber and Trustpilot, can have both a positive and a negative impact on your business. That’s why putting your customers first and providing excellent service to them can help build a strong reputation and establish your company as an industry leader.

What to put in your presentation on customer service

According to top experts at our PowerPoint design company , your slides have to touch upon the following topics:

• Conflict resolution best practices
• Product/service knowledge
• Communication styles
• Most common customer issues
• Reasons for customer complaints
• Understanding who has authority for specific tasks
• Approaches to building relationships with clients
• Ways to measure success

Here are some key components of a well-crafted PPT presentation on customer service:

• Introduction: An explanation of why customer service is important and how it affects the business.
• Company values & mission: How customer service connects with what the company believes in and aims to achieve.
• Customer service standards: Guidelines on how employees should act when interacting with customers.
• Communication skills: Tips and techniques for effective verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Customer experience: Ways to improve customer service quality and go beyond what they expect.
• Problem-solving: Top methods for resolving clients’ issues and dealing with common complaints.
• Role-playing scenarios: Examples and role-playing activities to help employees practice and get better at customer service.
• Performance metrics: Ways to measure customer service performance and why reacting to feedback is essential.
• Q&A session: An opportunity for employees to ask questions and discuss their concerns or uncertainties.

Now that you know the fundamentals, let’s move on to the top tips for creating an effective PowerPoint customer service presentation.

Expert tips to make your client service presentation more engaging

Creating an engaging presentation on customer services is not easy. If you want your employees to be interested and willing to do what you ask them to, you have to prepare your presentation very carefully and learn how to deliver it in the best way possible. The tips below will help you create slides that catch and hold your employees’ interest so they can engage with the material more effectively and retain the key information faster.

1. Start with a strong opening

This can be anything from a relevant story, statistic, question, or captivating anecdote. Remember, your goal is to hook the audience right from the start.

2. Keep your presentation simple and clear

Organize your thoughts logically, with an introduction, key points, and a solid conclusion. Avoid cluttered slides and complex jargon. Each slide should convey one main idea.

3. Select a consistent color palette and design structure

These should complement your message and branding, not compete with it. Ensure readability by harmonizing colors and employing suitable design elements to emphasize important content.

4. Keep your content concise

You can utilize bullet points, bold text, short phrases, or keywords to convey your message. However, avoid long paragraphs or any unnecessary data on slides.

5. Use visuals

Where appropriate, incorporate engaging images and informative charts to visually represent data and concepts. Remember, visual aids can make complex information more digestible and your presentation more interesting.

6. Include real-life examples

These can be case studies, customer stories, or any other examples your employees can relate to. This way, you’ll make your presentation easier to understand.

7. Engage your audience

Incorporate interactive elements like polls into your presentation. This way, you’ll encourage participation and keep your employees engaged.

8. End with a strong conclusion

Summarize the main points and give the audience a clear call to action. You can also add a memorable closing statement or a quote to reinforce your message.

9. Prepare handouts or resources

Provide handouts, cheat sheets, or additional resources for your employees to take away. This will offer reference material and help them further retain the information presented.

10. Polish your presentation

As the presentation day approaches, give your slides a final look. Review your talking points and make any final tweaks.

• Choose a sans-serif font, such as Helvetica or Arial. Fonts like Palatino and Times New Roman can be harder to read at times.
• Never use a font size of less than 24 points.
• All your headlines should have the same font.
• Use bold and different sizes of fonts for subheadings and captions.
• Every screen should have a clear label. For the title, choose a larger font (35–45 points) or a different color.
• Don’t use more than four fonts in your presentation.
• Choose larger fonts to indicate importance.
• Use different sizes, colors, and styles (e.g., bold) for impact.
• Don’t use too many punctuation marks.
• Avoid italicized fonts and long sentences.
• Refrain from using all caps (except for titles).
• Add a maximum of 6-8 words per line.
• Use the 6 x 6 Rule: one thought or 6 words per line and 6 lines per slide max.
• Either use light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background. However, light backgrounds are preferable.
• Put page numbers and other repeating elements in the same location on each slide.
• Don’t put too many colors on one screen.
• Use no more than four different colors on a single chart.
• Check colors on a projection screen before the presentation, as they can project differently than on your monitor.

Design and graphical elements

• Before designing your presentation, look for customer service presentation ideas online.
• Standardize styles, positions, and colors.
• Keep the details to a minimum and only include essential information.
• Use colors that complement and contrast.
• Keep the presentation background consistent.
• Use a single style for bullets throughout the slide.
• Use one or two large images instead of lots of small ones.
• Make all images the same size when appropriate.
• Arrange images horizontally or vertically.
• Use the same border for all slides.
• Keep the design uncluttered. Leave empty space around graphical images and text.
• Use quality clipart that relates to the slide’s topic.
• Use graphical images of the same style throughout the presentation.
• Use image repetition to reinforce the message.

Remember, a great customer service presentation comprises relevant information, product knowledge, and company-specific employee guidelines, so plan carefully.

If you require professional assistance with your customer service slides, the certified design experts at SlidePeak are here to help. Our dedicated team can tailor a fully editable customer service PowerPoint template for your company and employees so you can easily customize and update it as needed. Google Slides design experts are also available!

All initial consultations are free of charge and confidential, with no obligation to continue. Call now or fill out our online form, and we’ll get back to you in under 15 minutes!

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• Presenting techniques
• 50 tips on how to improve PowerPoint presentations in 2022-2023 [Updated]
• Present financial information visually in PowerPoint to drive results
• Keynote VS PowerPoint
• Types of presentations

• Guide & How to's

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