First, some good news. The world’s love affair with interactive tools such as Prezzi is well and truly over. We have had the pleasure of designing presentations using most of the available tools. For functionality, ease of use and universality, we feel Microsoft PowerPoint is the least worst tool available. So, let’s consider our hand as being dealt. You will be using PowerPoint for your presentations. But how you use it and the level of quality you bring to your presentations is in your own hands. Like learning to play the guitar, PowerPoint is very easy to do, badly.
Here are 3 PowerPoint presentation design tips that will help you add a layer of slick professionalism to your deck.
Consistency is key – use the format painter tool
When designing and juggling developing content it can be difficult to maintain consistency – especially if you are not using developed slide masters. In this instance, the format painter tool is your best friend – allowing you to achieve consistent styling for text and graphic elements. Watch the video to see how.
Flow is key – use the morph transition
You have to bring your audience with you on a journey, the morph tool can be a great way to link slides (and thinking) together. It’s rarely used, so can add creative nuance to your dec. Watch the video to see how easy this is.
Enrich the experience – use animations (wisely)
Animations can help in many ways. Firstly, they are a great way of walking your audience through complex or content-heavy slides. They can also add real dynamism and help engage your audience. But just as animation can engage your audience, too much animation can be a real turn off, so use the plethora of available animation effects sparingly and appropriately to draw just enough attention to what you want to say.
Like good comedy, the secret to good animation in PowerPoint is timing. Experiment with customising the duration of an animation effect to speed things up or slow them down. You can use the start with previous, and start after previous options to combine effects and add a little extra showbiz. You can also assign animations to trigger when you click an object on slide.
Got an animation you like? You can copy it and quickly apply it to different objects in your presentation using the animation painter tool, which works in the same way as the format painter tool mentioned earlier.
We hope you have found these tips to be both useful and practical. If there are any other PowerPoint presentation tips or tricks you’d like us to demonstrate or explore please let us know in the comments.
Let’s work together
In addition to providing presentation development as a service, we offer a range of enabling supports such as template development, PowerPoint training, and assessment of presentations. If you’d like to talk to us about your presentations or would like more PowerPoint presentation design tips, please contact me on [email protected] or through our social channels.
