The power of a beautifully crafted presentation shouldn’t be overlooked, as it shows you took the time to curate something custom. A mix of familiar imagery and colors, intertwined with a fresh perspective, makes viewers feel at home. As an art director who has created countless presentation decks, I wanted to share a few simple tips and tricks to get your decks looking flawless.
BRAND GUIDELINES: The first thing I do when preparing a presentation for a client is learn their basic brand principles. I immediately source their logo, find their brand font, and create their color palette in a fresh deck template. CSS Peeper is a great Chrome extension to use to do this. It instantly pulls this information from any website with a simple click.
VISUALS: One of the most important parts of a great deck is imagery. If you’re going to use Google, make sure the images you are pulling are high-res. You can do this by selecting Tools > Size > Large. Most company websites also have images you can easily drag to your desktop, or take a peek at their Instagram. If all else fails, Unsplash is a great resource for free stock imagery to add a bit of texture.
PLAY WITH HIERARCHY: This may sound complicated, but it’s really quite simple. Play with font size to make sure your headings and titles stand out from the rest. Bold or italicize the important phrases or keywords in a paragraph. Now you can easily see the meat of the slide with just a quick glance.
You can also incorporate visuals to split up the slide and add dimension. A simple way to do this is to split the slide in half, putting a full bleed image on one side and text on the other. Ensure the text has room to breathe so it doesn’t get lost. Having a few more slides is better than cramming it all into one. No one wants to read a novel in size 8 font.
DON’T BE AFRAID OF COLOR: Decks don’t have to be black and white. Try adding in a background color from the brand color palette. This is especially useful for divider slides. Nothing breaks up text-heavy slides like a nice pop of color. You can put a heading or title into one of the brand colors. This instantly makes the deck look branded with a relatively minimal lift.
Just like seeing an old fling while out with your new bae, nothing is more awkward than forgetting an old logo in a new presentation. Make sure you double check for any ghosts of clients past including imagery, fonts, colors, and names.
It also helps to get a second pair of eyes to help scan. It’s amazing what you can miss after staring at the same thing for an extended period of time.
Now you are ready to add some spice to your future presentations. If you’re interested in learning more about our creative services, get in touch at [email protected].
Written By: Erika Hedgecock, Senior Art Director
