PowerPoint Design Tips

Design Choices For Effective Presentations

In designing a presentation remember: less is more. Keep wordiness to a minimum and don't crowd your slides. If you have a long list under a general heading, divide it into two slides or more and put a "cont'd" after your title in the succeeding slides.

Text choices:

Use fonts consistently. For example, use the same font for headlines in every slide. The body of your slide should have no more than two font types in it, unless you have a special logo or graphic you want to include. Use a typeface that is easy to read so you can get the message across quickly. It is tempting to try a snazzy font that may not be easily read or may not really go with your message. Don't clutter up your presentation with too many WordArt fonts or Autoshapes. Use special effects to emphasize one idea; Also, all caps are hard to read if placed within the main body of your text. Try to use all caps in the title only.

Color choices:

Keep things simple; don't use many different background colors. Unless you are doing a presentation for Crayola, keep to one color scheme. Often, gradient and semi-transparent fills can achieve a nice subtle effect between two colors on the background.

The contrast between text and background should be high to be readable. Think of light shining through your slide instead of shining on a piece of paper when you are giving a presentation. A dark text and light background combination is okay but I prefer light (white or yellow) text on a dark color background. You should take the following factors into consideration:

1. Your computer screen brightness
2. The distance you are projecting your slide; i.e. the room size.

The saturation of color will be directly proportional to the distance projected. If you are using a large room to show your material, your colors will be more diffuse than you are seeing them on your computer monitor. Remember that your monitor is a small screen, viewed by you at only 2 or 3 feet.