When creating a presentation, we usually focus on the text we are writing, without taking into account how we are presenting such text. The design of a presentation is almost as important as the content. And you do not have to be a design specialist to create something neat, readable, and visually appealing. In this blog, we will discuss different points to take into account when creating a presentation.
Typography
Each font of a typeface has a specific weight, style, condensation, width, slant, and italicization. That being said, it is best to use the same typography throughout the presentation to create a sense of uniformity. You can highlight different parts of the text without having to resort to another typeface. Here at Intraway, we use Roboto.
Pro tip: While Comic Sans is absolutely adequate in designs for kids or designs related to comic books, it has no place in business or professional usage. If you’re presenting to a professional audience, you’d better stick to the classics such as Arial, Century Gothic, or Helvetica.
Margins
Margins are essential to a clean design. Always try to leave a considerable space between the text and the edges of the slide, so the text does not seem stuck and has “air”. Having content too close to the edge of your design can look unprofessional.
You can use ready-made templates to make sure everything is aligned and consistent with margins for every slide.
Text Alignment
Throughout the presentation, there must be a coherence when it comes to justifying the texts and aligning the elements, especially among the different categories. If a title is centered on a slide, all the titles should be centered, or if it is justified on the left, all text should be done in the same way.
At Intraway, we keep titles, text, and elements centered. It is important that all the elements that are related are aligned: subhead, an image with a text, etc.
Color
When choosing colors, we must take into account those used by our company or brand and try to choose two or three matching colors more and use them in different ways through the presentation. If more than 3 colors are needed, we can use the same colors but with different saturations so we don’t need to add a new one. For example, if we use blue, we can add lighter blues but within the same tone. Grays are also a good way out when we have to add more colors. In fact, for long texts, it is better to try a dark gray than black as it is usually used, and try to use the same color in all the slides.
At Intraway, the 3 main colors of our presentations are orange (for titles and graphics), light blue (for graphics, bullets, and highlights), and blue (for covers and graphics).
Readability, Unity, and Hierarchy
We have to know that the presentation is a whole that has to be coherent. Texts that we are going to use must be the same in each slide and must have a graphic relationship. As we said before: color, typography, alignment, and sizes. We have to decide what and when we will use each resource and stick to it.
It is important to have a rule for each type of text. We can choose different sizes for title, subtitle, normal text, clarification, etc. When we use different sizes of text within a slide, we are hierarchizing, which allows a better reading of the information. Putting everything in a similar size means that the reader does not know where to look. When we rank, we create a path of reading. And something we should know is that it is not necessary to put huge titles since the presentations are usually created to be seen on large screens.
Less is More
Last but not least, we have to take the spaces into account. Filling the slide with a lot of information does not help to create a good presentation. We do not know where to pay attention and we cannot finish understanding what the key message is. That is why BLANK SPACES are key to the design of slides. Do not be afraid of blank spaces, because they generate air and allow us to pay attention to what is important and that information can be read correctly. Sometimes it is preferable to separate the information in different slides with few elements in each, than to try to put a lot of content into one, making it really unclear and overwhelming.
