When it comes to presentations, there are often questions about how to make a presentation look good. It is a good question. But beauty is a subjective and tasteful category: some people will like it because it is trendy, while others will think that it is an "accordion" or "overweight".
Therefore, a more important criteria of presentation is comprehensibility: it helps a speaker to bring his ideas, puts accents and approaches the target action, and not just a visual feast.
If you have made a presentation simple and understandable, then you can add style. Or not add. Look at the context and relevance.
What makes a presentation neat?
A neat presentation can be achieved by simply wanting to keep it simple, and for every impulse to "Should I add this?", answer the question "Why?" yourself:
- why is this text here?
- why this image?
- why this graph?
- why do we need the logo in the empty corner?
- why are these colors here?
If you can give yourself a reasonable answer, leave these elements. If you can't, feel free to remove them.
A Few Simple Rules for Pretty Slides
Grid
Use a grid to align objects — it always adds visual order
Single Style
Use a single visual style for accents and presentation design. Some color is basic, some accent color, additional repetitive graphic elements are possible.
.jpg?table=block&id=d4ae8b97-eb0a-4320-a6f2-8d153606d27d&cache=v2)
One Slide — One Idea
Try to focus on one idea on one slide. Or at least put the main idea or statement in the title so that all other ideas, figures, and graphs are perceived through the prism of your main statement.
.jpg?table=block&id=46909755-ee1a-4f15-a9f6-132d49b65ff6&cache=v2)
.jpg?table=block&id=a14b6b21-5575-417f-ac18-999a5138ab63&cache=v2)
Consider the Context
If you know how and when the audience will study your presentation, you can take this into account in the presentation format itself: if it's a light room presentation, you can safely do a light presentation; if it's a dark room presentation (TEDx style conference), you can do a presentation in dark colors so it doesn't stand out as a white spot; if the presentation is viewed on a computer, send it in pdf so that your beautiful fonts don't come off, and if they carry it to the manager, make it on a light background (if they print a color presentation on a black and white printer, it will be sad), and if you know that the presentation will be viewed on a smart phone, why not make it in a vertical format so it will be convenient for the user to leaf through it?
.jpg?table=block&id=25ac9a65-8411-418e-a05d-7a1cf11257ca&cache=v2)
.jpg?table=block&id=bd1136d2-947c-4e4f-8646-3e4b6ed0b6fb&cache=v2)
Connect Your Presentation and Offline Space
If you're speaking in a room where the screen starts from the floor and you can use that in your presentation, do it. This combination can elicit a pleasant response from the audience and make your accents and conclusions deeper and more entertaining.
Main Mistakes in Presentations
Lots of Small Text
"Very much. In small print and two columns"
A presentation is a tool that helps navigate the attention of the audience and enhance the effect of the speech. The effectiveness of the tool depends on the purpose. Slides can contain a lot of text if we are going to send them to the audience to read. In that case, everyone can quietly and attentively read the slides whenever it is convenient.
In public speaking presentations, unnecessary text overloads a slide and creates extra stress for the viewers. It also distracts from the speaker's speech because it's hard to read and listen at the same time. So feel free to get rid of it, or split up large portions of text into different slides.
Tip 1: Separate paragraphs with a blank line
Tip 2: The headline must be clear
Ask yourself the question, "What is the main idea of this slide?" The answer is in the headline.
You don't need to entice a person to read the text. Clickbait headlines like "Just one product will help you lose 8 pounds in a week, and this product..." are unnecessary — your audience is already here and already listening to you.
Tip 3: Make a newspaper block layout
Divide the canvas of text into blocks, give them subheadings. This will make the text easier to read and navigate.
Expand choices for the audience: read the whole text on the slide, just the title, or the blocks of interest.
Tip 4: Use icons
They also will make it easier to see, and slides with them are easy to edit. And you can also use brand colors or one common background color.
Tip 5: Give information gradually
If a slide has a long list, its items can appear one after another. You don't need to be proficient in motion design to do this. You can create several slides that differ from each other by one element.
This way you will create a convenient scenario for the audience: the viewers' attention will be focused on the new element.
Typeface Overload
“Choose three or even four fonts”
Typography, font combinations, colors are the whole science. Understanding them on your own and finding the perfect match is difficult. If you are not sure about the design decision or effect you want to achieve with an unusual combination of elements on the slide - it's safer to stick to the minimalistic solutions.
One typeface per presentation. For accents, it's better to use font styles (bold, italic). If you want to take two or three typefaces, we advise you to focus on existing font pairs (there are a lot of them!).
Font pairing is visually matching fonts (usually two) that help structure the information on the slide and solve its task.
To select cool font pair, see here: https://www.fontpair.co/all
To find unique combinations of your own pairs, use this website:
It offers variations based on machine learning techniques and allows you to adjust the contrast of fonts using the slider at the top.
Color Overload
“Each slide with a new background. The brighter the better”
For one presentation it is better to take no more than 3-4 colors. It is important to make it visually easy and enjoyable for viewers to study the presentation. A unified style will help us a lot!
Matching shades can be found on special resources:
https://mybrandnewlogo.com/ru/generator-cvetovoi-palitry – to select ready-made palettes.
https://coolors.co/ – palette generator with the possibility of creating your own.
Stock Images
“Add pictures just to be there, it doesn't matter what quality they are or how you scale them. The main thing is to occupy the space”
Pictures clearly demonstrate parts of a speech, create atmosphere and grab the audience's attention. We are used to them being mandatory in presentations. But this is actually not the case: choice of pictures should be deliberate! For example, stock photos with office staff are often used to fill space and illustrate the 'seriousness' of the company.
But they don't really do the job: such photos are unnatural, don't evoke sympathy, don't make you more serious in the eyes of your viewers and certainly don't show the real process. It's better to use one real photo than five stock photos.
Important principles when choosing pictures for your slides
1. If the picture is in poor quality —
think about whether it is so unique and necessary to use here and now! The audience won't lose anything by not seeing it. But a pixelated screen will definitely have a negative impact on the impression of the slide.
2. Only proportional scaling!
Unless the goal is to create a comical effect, horizontally or vertically stretching out the photo with your boss is unlikely to help your presentation! Your visual will lose in level.
Gathered all the basics on Typography in PowerPoint presentation for you to download and use&share ⬇️
When do you NOT need a presentation to make a speech?
Think back, why do speakers need presentations? To visualize complex entities, to navigate the audience, and to support the content of the speech. They are for help, not embellishment.
In what situations are presentations detrimental to the performance?
In situations where, instead of preparing a speech, speakers spend time creating a presentation
One gets the feeling that the time was well spent — the job was done, the slides were in hand. But the result of real preparation is zero.
In situations where the audience is heavily distracted by the presentation and listens poorly to the speaker
Why does this happen? When there is a lot of material on the slides, the audience unwittingly focuses on it (studying the text, diagrams, and prototypes). As a result, they listen less and interpret the information in their own way, missing important elements of the story.
"Why listen? I understand everything perfectly from the lists on the slide!”
So what do we do now — perform without presentations?
It is worth adequately assessing your strengths at the start. Full preparation is a multi-step process, and presentation is only one step.
When is it better to say no to slides?
- When there is not enough time for the whole cycle of preparation — it is better to spend the last evening on the selection of relevant examples and a couple of rehearsals.
- When the presentation is not super long, up to 15 minutes. Use storytelling to explain complex entities and create understandable images in people's heads. This will help focus and hold the audience's attention.
Why is a performance without a presentation still interesting to listen to?
An example of a speech without a presentation that keeps the audience's attention:
- A simple narrative There is a clearly expressed main idea around which all content is built. The speaker uses clear examples and counter-examples to explain the idea, showing the different spectrum of the idea.
- Pleasant tone Friendly narration — not complicated, not overwhelmed by the speaker's expertise. Not speaking in front of the audience, but talking to them.
- Maintains dynamics Uses a flip chart — draws very simple sketchy images. The speaker creates the content himself, rather than reproducing it from a slide, or retelling the presentation. Asks rhetorical questions, appeals to the audience's experience — creates a sense of interaction, includes the audience in the story.
How to Thank Your Audience or to Finish Your Presentation in a Correct Way?
Firstly, it's not necessary to prepare a separate slide just to say “thank you”; instead, a few sincere thanking words would be more than enough.
Secondly, at the preparation stage, it's essential to anticipate the reaction of the audience after your speech is done. For example, eventually, you expect people to subscribe to your social media, or to click the relevant link, or just to save some useful checklist. Any of such goals would greatly and naturally fit the idea of your last slide, as well as accomplish your speech. Let’s look closer at 5 better ways to finish the speech.
Summing-Up
Every speech has its key messages — the thoughts a speaker wants to convey to their audience. The challenge here is that too much content or too many follow-up questions often blur the focus and make it difficult to identify the main points of the speech.
To bring the audience back to the main message at the end of the “show”, just sum it all up briefly and transparently.
You can achieve the necessary effect through a clear conclusion.
- "The main appeal of my presentation is: start courageously, proceed with discipline, and finish vigorously. This is your key to success!"
Or you can also use storytelling to link the beginning with the end of your performance by telling a story of some character.
- "Remember, at the beginning of my presentation, I told you about the student who wasn't doing well in her speeches? Within a couple of months, she passed an argumentation bot, took part in various debates, and completed a communications course. She also recently made a speech at TED talks! Let's check out the video and afterwards I'll answer all of your questions."
A tip: If you decide to use storytelling, we advise you to do the final slide in darker colors — it will help focus people on the narrative.
Otherwise, there is a risk that the light background, various pictures, and text will distract the audience from the speaker's speech ending.
Make an Outline of the Speech
At the beginning, speakers often make a summary, telling you point by point what their following speech will be about. The same technique can be used at the end of the performance in order to highlight the answers to questions that were revealed along the performance.
A tip:
Place a camera icon on the last slide and invite the audience to take a pic or a screenshot. In this way, your speech outline, condensed to the main points, will be saved and thus — more helpful.
The beginning:
What shall we talk about today?
1) How to begin a performance?
2) How to continue?
3) How to finish?
4) What's next?
The end:
What was today’s speech about?
1) To begin — make audience familiar with the context.
2) To continue, state the main point along with some arguments.
3) To conclude — sum it all up.
4) To give a hint of "what comes next," just explain what the goal and the benefits are.
Call To Action
The closure of the speech is the perfect place for a CTA.
What can you call for?
For interaction:
Place a QR-code or some links which will bring people directly to those communication channels where it’s really convenient for you to respond quickly and stay in touch.
For further study of the issue:
Present links to exact and verified sources (articles, videos, relevant projects)
For changes:
Tell your audience what steps they need to take in order to achieve the desired result. The format can be different: a timeline with major milestones or a piece of advice from personal experience.
Use Metaphor
- in quotes;
- in images;
- in visuals.
Metaphor is a great guide. By using it, one can easily incorporate stories and images into a speech, so that it sounds perfectly clear and natural. At the same time, metaphors also is used to put an impressive end to a speech.
The main thing is not to overdo with it, just as not to introduce any new topics when finalizing your narrative. This can dilute the focus, distract or even confuse.
It is also helpful to use a verbal or visual metaphor that has already been mentioned in the presentation, so that the last slide will summarize the speech and give you an opportunity to "quit" through a revealing image.
- Let's say the main part of your presentation was dedicated to the virtual assistant called Keanu, then it would be nice to insert a picture of him with a motivational phrase at the end.
Recall the Centerpiece
Here we suggest two ways:
First: recall the problematic that you started your presentation with. You can link it to the main idea of the presentation and conclude in one phrase:
- "If you want always to stay in a good shape and not feel thirsty, just drink healthy stuff!"
Second: If the main idea can be illustrated in a diagram or through some algorithm, it wouldn't go amiss to visualize it on the last slide and emphasize its importance.
- "Before the speech, I thought to myself: if you had an opportunity to memorize just one thing today, what should it be? So, I decided that, in such case, what I definitely would like you to keep in mind is this diagram. If you really understand it and learn how to implement it, then all the rest will start working just automatically. So, may your implementations be successful!"
We have suggested five helpful ways of substituting “Thank you for your attention” slide. But that's not the limit!
There certainly exist plenty of other ways to do it. The main thing is to keep in mind the goal of the speech and the utility of the final slide.
