The Basics of Slidedeck design!
Slides are something that are used in businesses, school, or even fun occasions. But an aesthetically pleasing slideshow can be a hard skill to learn and it can be frustrating if you don’t know what you’re doing. Plus sometimes you want your slideshow to be a little extra special compared to the same themes you’ve seen a hundred times over.
Here are some simple tips that take minimal effort, but can help you customize a stellar presentation!
I. Templates
Picking a good template that fits the theme of your presentation is a great starting place for any slideshow. Here are two of my favorite websites to find hundreds of slideshow themes: Slides go and Slides carnival
You can edit any template by going to Slide > Edit Master in Google Slides (you can do this in PowerPoint too!)
In this window, you can edit fonts/colors/design and it’ll apply to any slide that has that template.
I used an example from Slides go, but if I edited the colors (or even moved, deleted or added shapes if I felt fancy) it would make this basic template be different than other presentations even if someone used the same template as me. Even just editing the colors makes a huge difference! Again, all changes you make in the slide master will automatically appear to all slides that use that template.
II. Pictures/Graphics
Pictures and graphics can help enhance your slideshow, but you shouldn’t put so many that it’s distracting. Most importantly, they should relate to your content as best as you can. Here’s two websites I use that improved my slideshow graphics:
Unsplash.com: Unsplash has high quality images that are free to use. I usually enlarge the pictures to make a gorgeous background on my slide.
Flaticon: Flat icons are my go to in presentations because they help streamline the look of your slides (especially when you have multiple points). You can sign up for a free account and change the colors of any icon!
Here is a slide with images:
And here is a slide with flat icons:
See the difference?
Although the first slide isn’t too messy in this example (it definitely can get messier in real life with so many different images on one screen), the flat icons can simplify your slide and make it look more cohesive when you have multiple points on one slide.
III. Colors
It’s important to use colors that convey the emotions or relate to the theme of your presentation. For example, if your presentation is about marine biology, dark blues and mint greens can help convey that theme. If you’re not really good at picking cohesive color palettes a good rule of thumb is to stick to 2-3 colors max in your presentation (this includes the background color - which people often make white, but you could definitely experiment with another color!)
Make sure to use colors that compliment each other or an accent color that contrasts to highlight certain points in your slides! If you have trouble coming up with color palettes I always just Google or you can use Coolors.co to generate color palettes with a hit of the space bar.
IV. Fonts
There are two different types of font: Serif font and Sans Serif font.
Serif font has the little tick marks (think Times New Roman!) while Sans Serif has the more modern (no tick) clean look. There are some rules of thumb for when you would use one vs. the other, but it’s kind of in the nitty gritty of typography so I won’t get into it in this post (you can read about it here though if you’re interested!). Serif font gives a more traditional, established look while Sans Serif is more modern. So think about your message or the theme before you decide!
In terms of readability, the rule of thumb is generally serif fonts are better for print (that’s why the New York Times uses it) or for body text because the little ticks help guide your eye. And sans serif fonts are better for titles or text on a screen (often apps will use sans serif font because they’re on a screen!). Here’s another source that explains this in more detail because it can be more nuanced sometimes.
There are hundreds of combinations of fonts so it can be really hard to find the right pairing, but there’s plenty of people who have suggestions for good font pairings already! Here’s my favorite resource for font pairings (FontPair).
...
And there you have it! Four easy things that you can do to your slide shows in a few minutes that will help you customize a beautiful presentation!
I’ll be doing more posts about improving slide deck design and structure so follow my slide deck series if you want to see more!