how to create visual presentation

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Blog Graphic Design

15 Effective Visual Presentation Tips To Wow Your Audience

By Krystle Wong , Sep 28, 2023

So, you’re gearing up for that big presentation and you want it to be more than just another snooze-fest with slides. You want it to be engaging, memorable and downright impressive. 

Well, you’ve come to the right place — I’ve got some slick tips on how to create a visual presentation that’ll take your presentation game up a notch. 

Packed with presentation templates that are easily customizable, keep reading this blog post to learn the secret sauce behind crafting presentations that captivate, inform and remain etched in the memory of your audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a visual presentation & why is it important?

15 effective tips to make your visual presentations more engaging, 6 major types of visual presentation you should know , what are some common mistakes to avoid in visual presentations, visual presentation faqs, 5 steps to create a visual presentation with venngage.

A visual presentation is a communication method that utilizes visual elements such as images, graphics, charts, slides and other visual aids to convey information, ideas or messages to an audience. 

Visual presentations aim to enhance comprehension engagement and the overall impact of the message through the strategic use of visuals. People remember what they see, making your point last longer in their heads. 

Without further ado, let’s jump right into some great visual presentation examples that would do a great job in keeping your audience interested and getting your point across.

In today’s fast-paced world, where information is constantly bombarding our senses, creating engaging visual presentations has never been more crucial. To help you design a presentation that’ll leave a lasting impression, I’ve compiled these examples of visual presentations that will elevate your game.

1. Use the rule of thirds for layout

Ever heard of the rule of thirds? It’s a presentation layout trick that can instantly up your slide game. Imagine dividing your slide into a 3×3 grid and then placing your text and visuals at the intersection points or along the lines. This simple tweak creates a balanced and seriously pleasing layout that’ll draw everyone’s eyes.

2. Get creative with visual metaphors

Got a complex idea to explain? Skip the jargon and use visual metaphors. Throw in images that symbolize your point – for example, using a road map to show your journey towards a goal or using metaphors to represent answer choices or progress indicators in an interactive quiz or poll.

3. Visualize your data with charts and graphs

The right data visualization tools not only make content more appealing but also aid comprehension and retention. Choosing the right visual presentation for your data is all about finding a good match. 

For ordinal data, where things have a clear order, consider using ordered bar charts or dot plots. When it comes to nominal data, where categories are on an equal footing, stick with the classics like bar charts, pie charts or simple frequency tables. And for interval-ratio data, where there’s a meaningful order, go for histograms, line graphs, scatterplots or box plots to help your data shine.

In an increasingly visual world, effective visual communication is a valuable skill for conveying messages. Here’s a guide on how to use visual communication to engage your audience while avoiding information overload.

4. Employ the power of contrast

Want your important stuff to pop? That’s where contrast comes in. Mix things up with contrasting colors, fonts or shapes. It’s like highlighting your key points with a neon marker – an instant attention grabber.

5. Tell a visual story

Structure your slides like a storybook and create a visual narrative by arranging your slides in a way that tells a story. Each slide should flow into the next, creating a visual narrative that keeps your audience hooked till the very end.

Icons and images are essential for adding visual appeal and clarity to your presentation. Venngage provides a vast library of icons and images, allowing you to choose visuals that resonate with your audience and complement your message. 

6. Show the “before and after” magic

Want to drive home the impact of your message or solution? Whip out the “before and after” technique. Show the current state (before) and the desired state (after) in a visual way. It’s like showing a makeover transformation, but for your ideas.

7. Add fun with visual quizzes and polls

To break the monotony and see if your audience is still with you, throw in some quick quizzes or polls. It’s like a mini-game break in your presentation — your audience gets involved and it makes your presentation way more dynamic and memorable.

8. End with a powerful visual punch

Your presentation closing should be a showstopper. Think a stunning clip art that wraps up your message with a visual bow, a killer quote that lingers in minds or a call to action that gets hearts racing.

9. Engage with storytelling through data

Use storytelling magic to bring your data to life. Don’t just throw numbers at your audience—explain what they mean, why they matter and add a bit of human touch. Turn those stats into relatable tales and watch your audience’s eyes light up with understanding.

10. Use visuals wisely

Your visuals are the secret sauce of a great presentation. Cherry-pick high-quality images, graphics, charts and videos that not only look good but also align with your message’s vibe. Each visual should have a purpose – they’re not just there for decoration. 

11. Utilize visual hierarchy

Employ design principles like contrast, alignment and proximity to make your key info stand out. Play around with fonts, colors and placement to make sure your audience can’t miss the important stuff.

12. Engage with multimedia

Static slides are so last year. Give your presentation some sizzle by tossing in multimedia elements. Think short video clips, animations, or a touch of sound when it makes sense, including an animated logo . But remember, these are sidekicks, not the main act, so use them smartly.

13. Interact with your audience

Turn your presentation into a two-way street. Start your presentation by encouraging your audience to join in with thought-provoking questions, quick polls or using interactive tools. Get them chatting and watch your presentation come alive.

When it comes to delivering a group presentation, it’s important to have everyone on the team on the same page. Venngage’s real-time collaboration tools enable you and your team to work together seamlessly, regardless of geographical locations. Collaborators can provide input, make edits and offer suggestions in real time. 

14. Incorporate stories and examples

Weave in relatable stories, personal anecdotes or real-life examples to illustrate your points. It’s like adding a dash of spice to your content – it becomes more memorable and relatable.

15. Nail that delivery

Don’t just stand there and recite facts like a robot — be a confident and engaging presenter. Lock eyes with your audience, mix up your tone and pace and use some gestures to drive your points home. Practice and brush up your presentation skills until you’ve got it down pat for a persuasive presentation that flows like a pro.

Venngage offers a wide selection of professionally designed presentation templates, each tailored for different purposes and styles. By choosing a template that aligns with your content and goals, you can create a visually cohesive and polished presentation that captivates your audience.

Looking for more presentation ideas ? Why not try using a presentation software that will take your presentations to the next level with a combination of user-friendly interfaces, stunning visuals, collaboration features and innovative functionalities that will take your presentations to the next level. 

Visual presentations come in various formats, each uniquely suited to convey information and engage audiences effectively. Here are six major types of visual presentations that you should be familiar with:

1. Slideshows or PowerPoint presentations

Slideshows are one of the most common forms of visual presentations. They typically consist of a series of slides containing text, images, charts, graphs and other visual elements. Slideshows are used for various purposes, including business presentations, educational lectures and conference talks.

2. Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. They combine text, images and graphics to convey complex concepts or data in a concise and visually appealing manner. Infographics are often used in marketing, reporting and educational materials.

Don’t worry, they are also super easy to create thanks to Venngage’s fully customizable infographics templates that are professionally designed to bring your information to life. Be sure to try it out for your next visual presentation!

3. Video presentation

Videos are your dynamic storytellers. Whether it’s pre-recorded or happening in real-time, videos are the showstoppers. You can have interviews, demos, animations or even your own mini-documentary. Video presentations are highly engaging and can be shared in both in-person and virtual presentations .

4. Charts and graphs

Charts and graphs are visual representations of data that make it easier to understand and analyze numerical information. Common types include bar charts, line graphs, pie charts and scatterplots. They are commonly used in scientific research, business reports and academic presentations.

Effective data visualizations are crucial for simplifying complex information and Venngage has got you covered. Venngage’s tools enable you to create engaging charts, graphs,and infographics that enhance audience understanding and retention, leaving a lasting impression in your presentation.

5. Interactive presentations

Interactive presentations involve audience participation and engagement. These can include interactive polls, quizzes, games and multimedia elements that allow the audience to actively participate in the presentation. Interactive presentations are often used in workshops, training sessions and webinars.

Venngage’s interactive presentation tools enable you to create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact and enhance audience retention. By incorporating features like clickable elements, quizzes and embedded multimedia, you can captivate your audience’s attention and encourage active participation.

6. Poster presentations

Poster presentations are the stars of the academic and research scene. They consist of a large poster that includes text, images and graphics to communicate research findings or project details and are usually used at conferences and exhibitions. For more poster ideas, browse through Venngage’s gallery of poster templates to inspire your next presentation.

Different visual presentations aside, different presentation methods also serve a unique purpose, tailored to specific objectives and audiences. Find out which type of presentation works best for the message you are sending across to better capture attention, maintain interest and leave a lasting impression. 

To make a good presentation , it’s crucial to be aware of common mistakes and how to avoid them. Without further ado, let’s explore some of these pitfalls along with valuable insights on how to sidestep them.

Overloading slides with text

Text heavy slides can be like trying to swallow a whole sandwich in one bite – overwhelming and unappetizing. Instead, opt for concise sentences and bullet points to keep your slides simple. Visuals can help convey your message in a more engaging way.

Using low-quality visuals

Grainy images and pixelated charts are the equivalent of a scratchy vinyl record at a DJ party. High-resolution visuals are your ticket to professionalism. Ensure that the images, charts and graphics you use are clear, relevant and sharp.

Choosing the right visuals for presentations is important. To find great visuals for your visual presentation, Browse Venngage’s extensive library of high-quality stock photos. These images can help you convey your message effectively, evoke emotions and create a visually pleasing narrative. 

Ignoring design consistency

Imagine a book with every chapter in a different font and color – it’s a visual mess. Consistency in fonts, colors and formatting throughout your presentation is key to a polished and professional look.

Reading directly from slides

Reading your slides word-for-word is like inviting your audience to a one-person audiobook session. Slides should complement your speech, not replace it. Use them as visual aids, offering key points and visuals to support your narrative.

Lack of visual hierarchy

Neglecting visual hierarchy is like trying to find Waldo in a crowd of clones. Use size, color and positioning to emphasize what’s most important. Guide your audience’s attention to key points so they don’t miss the forest for the trees.

Ignoring accessibility

Accessibility isn’t an option these days; it’s a must. Forgetting alt text for images, color contrast and closed captions for videos can exclude individuals with disabilities from understanding your presentation. 

Relying too heavily on animation

While animations can add pizzazz and draw attention, overdoing it can overshadow your message. Use animations sparingly and with purpose to enhance, not detract from your content.

Using jargon and complex language

Keep it simple. Use plain language and explain terms when needed. You want your message to resonate, not leave people scratching their heads.

Not testing interactive elements

Interactive elements can be the life of your whole presentation, but not testing them beforehand is like jumping into a pool without checking if there’s water. Ensure that all interactive features, from live polls to multimedia content, work seamlessly. A smooth experience keeps your audience engaged and avoids those awkward technical hiccups.

Presenting complex data and information in a clear and visually appealing way has never been easier with Venngage. Build professional-looking designs with our free visual chart slide templates for your next presentation.

What software or tools can I use to create visual presentations?

You can use various software and tools to create visual presentations, including Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, Adobe Illustrator, Canva, Prezi and Venngage, among others.

What is the difference between a visual presentation and a written report?

The main difference between a visual presentation and a written report is the medium of communication. Visual presentations rely on visuals, such as slides, charts and images to convey information quickly, while written reports use text to provide detailed information in a linear format.

How do I effectively communicate data through visual presentations?

To effectively communicate data through visual presentations, simplify complex data into easily digestible charts and graphs, use clear labels and titles and ensure that your visuals support the key messages you want to convey.

Are there any accessibility considerations for visual presentations?

Accessibility considerations for visual presentations include providing alt text for images, ensuring good color contrast, using readable fonts and providing transcripts or captions for multimedia content to make the presentation inclusive.

Most design tools today make accessibility hard but Venngage’s Accessibility Design Tool comes with accessibility features baked in, including accessible-friendly and inclusive icons.

How do I choose the right visuals for my presentation?

Choose visuals that align with your content and message. Use charts for data, images for illustrating concepts, icons for emphasis and color to evoke emotions or convey themes.

What is the role of storytelling in visual presentations?

Storytelling plays a crucial role in visual presentations by providing a narrative structure that engages the audience, helps them relate to the content and makes the information more memorable.

How can I adapt my visual presentations for online or virtual audiences?

To adapt visual presentations for online or virtual audiences, focus on concise content, use engaging visuals, ensure clear audio, encourage audience interaction through chat or polls and rehearse for a smooth online delivery.

What is the role of data visualization in visual presentations?

Data visualization in visual presentations simplifies complex data by using charts, graphs and diagrams, making it easier for the audience to understand and interpret information.

How do I choose the right color scheme and fonts for my visual presentation?

Choose a color scheme that aligns with your content and brand and select fonts that are readable and appropriate for the message you want to convey.

How can I measure the effectiveness of my visual presentation?

Measure the effectiveness of your visual presentation by collecting feedback from the audience, tracking engagement metrics (e.g., click-through rates for online presentations) and evaluating whether the presentation achieved its intended objectives.

Ultimately, creating a memorable visual presentation isn’t just about throwing together pretty slides. It’s about mastering the art of making your message stick, captivating your audience and leaving a mark.

Lucky for you, Venngage simplifies the process of creating great presentations, empowering you to concentrate on delivering a compelling message. Follow the 5 simple steps below to make your entire presentation visually appealing and impactful:

1. Sign up and log In: Log in to your Venngage account or sign up for free and gain access to Venngage’s templates and design tools.

2. Choose a template: Browse through Venngage’s presentation template library and select one that best suits your presentation’s purpose and style. Venngage offers a variety of pre-designed templates for different types of visual presentations, including infographics, reports, posters and more.

3. Edit and customize your template: Replace the placeholder text, image and graphics with your own content and customize the colors, fonts and visual elements to align with your presentation’s theme or your organization’s branding.

4. Add visual elements: Venngage offers a wide range of visual elements, such as icons, illustrations, charts, graphs and images, that you can easily add to your presentation with the user-friendly drag-and-drop editor.

5. Save and export your presentation: Export your presentation in a format that suits your needs and then share it with your audience via email, social media or by embedding it on your website or blog .

So, as you gear up for your next presentation, whether it’s for business, education or pure creative expression, don’t forget to keep these visual presentation ideas in your back pocket.

Feel free to experiment and fine-tune your approach and let your passion and expertise shine through in your presentation. With practice, you’ll not only build presentations but also leave a lasting impact on your audience – one slide at a time.

Engage your audience with powerful visual presentations.

Visual tools are critical to have in any presentation as they’re one of the key presentation aids that will help enhance your overall presentation .

We’ll give you tips on how to develop a sense of good presentation design whether you’re using PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides or any presentation software under the sun. The secret to creating a great presentation does not lie in a superior software, but understanding a few universal design concepts that can applied for all types of visual presentations.

Don’t be afraid to use a few presentation templates – there are ways to make the presentation ideas in those templates your own ideas and advance it in several different ways. Let’s make your next presentation on point and designed beautifully.

Presentations Are The Visual Communication Tool To Your Story

In the age of information, people remember facts faster through stories. Keep your bullet points and information short. You can use a rule of thumb to not put more than a paragraph and 3 points per slide to start.

Make your presentation the visual component of your story, but not something your audience has to read. Something that is short and succinct on screen will capture your audience’s attention and make sure they retain the main points of your message.

This does not mean incomplete slides. A common mistake presenters make is putting too little information on a slide in the name of simplicity when in fact they’re leaving out the main context.

A well designed visual presentation has a great story behind it and a well rehearsed voice telling it as well. Engaging the audience is also a great way to associate meaning or connection to the content of your slide decks. Ask questions and tell stories while showing off a great visual presentation! Think of writing the copy like writing for social media – you only have a certain amount of characters to use and a short audience attention span.

General Tips For Visual Presentations

Before you begin creating your presentation, you first need to know what makes effective presentations – storytelling. Such presentations target the audience’s emotions leading to a stronger connection to the audience member and the main point of the presentation.

Below are some storytelling tips for your slides, but remember to keep the presentation itself simple and practice makes perfect. And again, these are more for your spoken component that accompanies the visual component. These tips can be useful because they can be applied to all your presentations in general.

Step 1 is to ask yourself who your audience is and how to convey the key message you have in mind to them. Once you settle on your message, you can start designing your slides with that direction in mind.

You may wonder how to connect with an audience with your slides. Look to your own experiences, your own speaking style and tailor your message to what you know. Not many people want to hear others recite facts with no real meaning driving the story. Ask yourself, “Why does this matter to the audience and why should they care?”.

There is a lot of trust that can be built when the audience has a genuine connection to the presenter. Overall, if you have something that can solve a problem or teach someone complex things, that is enough to form a connection with your audience.

Think of the last app you used, the last email you read or perhaps the last business you purchased from. What was the content or visual elements that pulled you in?

Are you making a PowerPoint, Prezi or other form of visual presentation but it’s taking too much of your time? Enlist the help of Presentation Geeks and consider outsourcing your presentation design . Outsourcing your presentation slides allows you to free more of your time while still getting the results of an interesting presentation. You’ll have the support of expert slide designers who know what presentation visuals work and don’t work thanks to years of presentation feedback and background knowledge.

Color Design Tips For Presentation Slides

When designing your presentation, make sure you take into consideration the colors you’re using. We’ve listed a few background color combinations you might want to consider when developing the overall slide deck and the font to use.

Color Wheel Alignments:

Primary Colors: Red, yellow, blue

Secondary Colors: Green, orange, purple

Tertiary Colors: Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green

Analogous Colors: These are any three colors which are side by side on a color wheel. (Think green, lime green, yellow)

Complementary Colors: These are colors that are directly opposite of a color wheel. (Think green vs. purple, red vs. blue)

Monochromatic Colors: This is when you use one color and various shades or hues of it. It works well for minimal looks.

Color moods:

Red/Orange/Yellow: Generally these convey a sense of energy, are warm colors and catch your attention. Yellow is a happy warm color on one end and red is very striking and can warn of danger, and symbolizes importance, passion and sometimes violence.

Blue/Purple/Green: These colors are calming, reserved, elegant and often used for corporate slides. Think of how indigo blue is used for many large corporate entities. Green often is branded with earth or medical brands. Purple often conveys a sense of royalty, money and creativity.

Use The Power Of Photography Or Video

Pictures and videos are great visuals to incorporate into any presentation. Remember the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, it’s true! Photos help visualize complex information. You’ll often come across a lot of photos in research presentations as they help the audience understand examples better.

They can also save you from having to put a thousand thoughts into the PowerPoint presentation slide!

The first tip we can give to make a great visual presentation is to choose all your photos before you start. This way you can keep the consistency of the images across your slide deck and make sure they’re somewhat alike in terms of composition, mood and brand.

Use free stock photos

You don’t have to take the photos or videos yourself.

There are plenty of free resources and web pages for stock photos online – Unsplash , Pexels , Pixabay , Free Range , Creative Commons and some photos from Freepik are free to use with some accreditation.

Effective photo use

Make sure you pick an image that will focus on the main theme of the slide. One image is usually enough if the image choice is very relevant to the slide. If you have multiple photos, avoid poor or loose placement of photos all over the slide. Try to use a grid or gallery placement and it will immediately enhance the layout of the slide.

If you pick great images, making presentations can be faster. Instead of having to create an elaborate template with multiple elements, a photo with a couple of bullet points can go a long way in terms of capturing attention and making your presentation slides look professional. This is true on any presentation design platform – whether its PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.

You can also embed videos whether they’re located on your computer, YouTube, Vimeo or other major video streaming sites. If you’re feeling nervous about your presentation or have a complex message that would be hard to condense in one slide, a video is a dynamic way of conveying your message in any type of presentation.

The Typography You Use Matters

Typography is how you will arrange and present the words in your presentation. An audience can engage when text is readable, functional and works well with the other elements in the presentation. Fonts and sizing are a good place to start establishing the tone of your presentation.

Overview of Font Choices

Elegant fonts often denote a sense of luxury or lifestyle tone. Use script fonts sparingly, but as titles they immediately give this polished and high-end look. This should not be used as body text or something lengthy to read. Think about if you sent an email in that text – it would be tedious to read. However, maybe if it were a title or a way to name email, the choice may be more correct.

Corporate fonts often are traditional, serif fonts or clean sans serif fonts that evoke a sense of trust and a clear message. Think of the fonts Lato, Helvetica or Arial – they’re go-to fonts that are easy to read, and work across many systems. This is especially helpful if you are working across teams when creating content or having to approve the content, idea or visuals.

Of course, you can incorporate more stylistic or playful fonts if you want to give your presentation a personal feel. Much like the scripted font, when used sparingly but in large titles, this choice of font can be very effective at conveying a certain personality.

Adding Symbols & Icons To Your Presentation

You can consolidate information by using symbols or icons to direct your eye to information such as an arrow symbol. What if you used a symbol instead of a bullet point? Think of symbols as anchors for the eye to quickly find information. You can collect symbols off free stock sites or use the built-in ones in PowerPoint that are free to use!

Depending on if your presentation is formal or informal , you may also want to consider adding emojis! Emojis are fun ways to express different emotions and can help connect with a younger demographic.

Overall Branding, Tone of Voice & Consistency

Another tool you may have at your disposal is if your brand, business or company has brand guidelines. It will be the guide and compass to your presentation’s information that goes within it. By keeping consistent you can achieve a polished look even if it looks very simple.

Use your business voice to communicate ideas and set the tone for your presentation. Are you in an investment banking business and want people to rely on the information given to you? That would inform perhaps using blues and purples, which are calmer colors and a cleaner look. Are you an influencer who’s buying power and spending choices matter to your audience? Maybe choosing bright colors with personal touches will make the connection. Are you designing an innovative app? Maybe more interactive slides would do the trick.

Use these questions to make sure your text and tone is consistent as this is a foundation of a well articulated brand or personal identity.

Consistent Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is how you will arrange objects and text in relation to one another to guide your user and not confuse the objects and how they should read them in your slides. Setting rules helps differentiate and prioritize what’s important in order.

Look at the difference between these two.

Snoop Dogg just launched a wine and it’s coming to Canada

Daily hive branded content | aug 11 2020, 6:30 am.

Australian winery 19 Crimes recently announced that its new Cali Red wine, created in collaboration with Entertainment Icon, entrepreneur, and hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg, will be hitting shelves across Canada later this summer.

The collaboration offers a refreshing take on celebrity partnerships as the apparent shared values and history between the brand and famous rapper make for a perfectly organic pairing.

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You can see a clear distinction in the example below:

Think of hierarchy of a form of narration or story structure. Your eye goes to the title, then to the subtitle, then to the body copy in a logical manner. Where the eye travels is one of those things we don’t think about often. But you can also utilize eye lines in photos. Is your subject in the photo looking left or right? Consider placing text to where your subject is looking and see how effectively your eye travels to that text.

We’ll look at hierarchy strictly as sizing of words for now, but note you can establish hierarchy with type, white space, alignment, etc. As a general rule of thumb, you should have consistent sizing for your Header (or title slide / slide title), your subtitles and your body text. That’s it! If the sizing in your PowerPoint is consistent, your words will look uniform and clean. Everything will be much easier to read and the eye will be trained to move each slide.

Don’t Forget Your Own Style

Also don’t forget to incorporate your own style and what kind of visuals you like. Even if your early visuals may seem simple, build up that design muscle with the basics and design techniques that look clean and consistent.

You’ll find as you design these basics, you’ll probably start noticing other visuals and things you like in other mediums and presentations. Keep a note or screenshot the presentation that inspired you. Create a mood-board that you can refer to in the future for quick idea inspiration. Copying gets a bad rap, but learning how to design something you like even if it’s a clone copy will teach you many things about design. Build a collection of images that informs everything you do: for your color scheme, your designs, the cadence of images, etc.

That being said, you can also use free stock websites like Freepik for some design layouts inspiration. Creative Market is a paid website but the site offers a ton of design inspiration. This site has design templates for what’s currently in and trending. You can subscribe to an email newsletter on either site to get bite sized design influence each day that goes straight to your inbox.

However, don’t be afraid to try something new!

Once you get to a level of comfortable designing, these new ideas will be much easier to execute with the technical knowledge you amassed when you started. You could even try using a new app to design your ideas to keep your knowledge fresh! (Keep in mind that most online apps like SlideShare use cookies to improve functionality and performance.)

Ask your friends or people at your organization to give you feedback and critique, as that’s also crucial to honing your design skills. The people around you also represent different audiences!

The above image looks boring, right?

That’s because there are no visual elements!

Powerful visual presentations can engage audiences psychologically with both the presentation itself and the energy of the presenter. By understanding a few universal design concepts, you can begin your journey creating wonderful visual presentations and becoming a better presenter ! Thanks for reading this blog post, tell us your tips in the comments below.

Author:  Content Team

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Article • 12 min read

Creating Effective Presentation Visuals

Connecting people with your message.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Apple® founder Steve Jobs was known widely for his great presentations. His unveiling of the iPhone® in 2007 is considered to have been one of his best presentations ever, and, if you were one of the millions who watched it online, you'll know why. The presentation was engaging, and passionate.

Jobs was particularly well known for building his presentations around powerful visual aids. He knew that slides are most effective when they tell a story rather than convey information, so his visuals were simple, elegant, and image-based. They complemented and reinforced his message, and they never competed with him for his audience's attention.

You don't have to be Steve Jobs to give a great presentation, but you do need great visuals. They convey a powerful message about your ideas and your brand, so it's essential to get them right. In this article, we'll look at how you can create effective presentation visuals – slides that connect your audience with your message.

Why Simplicity Speaks Volumes

The saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" is popular for a good reason: the human brain processes information more effectively when it is accompanied by images, or by short, memorable statements. This means that when you use simple, image-based slides to support your message, your audience can better grasp the information you're communicating.

However, many people use too many slides, or they build presentations around visual aids that are word-heavy or excessively complex.

These kinds of visual aids can negatively affect your presentation. Let's look at some examples:

• You're trying to convince the board to support a new product idea. Your slides are made up of graphs, numbers, and blocks of text from top to bottom, and board members spend most of their time reading the slides instead of listening to you. The result? You don't make a real connection, and your passion for the project is lost on them. They vote unanimously not to take the idea forward.
• You're pitching to a promising potential client. You spent a lot of time creating your slides, using many colors, animations, and fonts. However, the slides are so complex that your client has trouble understanding them. She leaves the presentation feeling overwhelmed and tired, and avoids using your firm because she fears, subconsciously, that dealing with your firm in the future could be similarly draining.
• You're giving a presentation to your department to highlight its good work. You want to feature everyone, so you make a slide detailing each person's accomplishments. Your department has dozens of people, so by the end, your team cares more about leaving than their results.

Now think about what happens when you use simple and engaging visuals. Instead of generating confusion or exhaustion, your slides create a positive connection with your audience. People might not remember exactly what you said, but they will remember a powerful image. They'll recall the positive emotions that they experienced during your presentation, and they'll start to associate your brand with clear, intelligent communication.

The results will be profound. You'll win new clients, convince colleagues to act on your ideas, and earn recognition for your team members' hard work. In short, you'll make positive impressions that will remain in people's minds long after the details of your presentation have faded.

Creating Great Visuals

Your visual aids have one job: to support your presentation . However, it takes considerable time, creativity, and effort to develop slides that do this well. Use the tips below to make the most of your preparation time.

1. Be Consistent

A common mistake is choosing different colors and fonts for each slide. This can confuse your audience and divert attention away from your message. Stay consistent with your slides, so that they form part of a seamless whole.

First, choose colors carefully, as color will affect your presentation's mood and tone. Also, think about the space that you'll be presenting in. If the room will be dark (with lights off), choose a darker background color, such as dark blue, black, or gray, with white or light-colored text. If the room will be light (with lights on or plenty of ambient light), choose a white or light-colored background, with black or dark-colored text.

You also need to match color with the tone and message of your presentation. Bright colors convey energy and excitement, while darker colors may seem more conservative and serious. Align the color palette you choose with your subject matter.

Microsoft® PowerPoint and Apple's Keynote are the most widely used presentation packages. They feature useful templates and tools, and most people are familiar with the layout of their presentations.

However, cloud-based presentation tools have features and templates that might be new to your audience, increasing the potential impact of your presentations.

2. Consider Culture

Before you create your visuals, make sure that you understand your audience. This is especially true if you're presenting to a culturally diverse group.

For example, not everyone reads from left to right, and people from some cultures may consider a particular color offensive or bad luck in business settings (look out for examples of this in our Managing Around the World articles). Additionally, jargon or slang may cause confusion with your audience.

When designing your visuals, use images and photographs that reflect the culture to which you're speaking. If you're presenting to a culturally diverse group, use pictures and images that reflect this diversity.

And keep graphics and phrases simple; remember, not everyone in the room will be a native English speaker. Whenever possible, use images to replace bullet points and sentences.

Our article on Cross-Cultural Communication has more tips for communicating with an ethnically diverse group.

3. Use Images Intelligently

When Steve Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air® , he needed to show just how small this new laptop was. The audience wasn't going to remember that it was 0.68 x 11.8 x 7.56 inches; those numbers don't create an emotional response. Instead, he showed them that the MacBook Air would fit easily into a standard manila envelope. This was a powerful way to show its size.

This kind of creativity is essential when choosing images. Your audience has probably seen plenty of bad clip-art and too many pictures of cross-cultural handshakes. Brainstorm creative, clever approaches with your imagery, and look for photographs or illustrations that tell a story in a less obvious way.

Thoughtful images will keep your audience engaged, reinforce your professionalism, and make a lasting impression.

4. Break Complex Data Down

When you have to communicate complex data or large chunks of information, avoid putting it all on one slide, as your audience may struggle to take in all of the details. Instead, either summarize the information, or split it up over several slides.

You can also use handouts to communicate complex information. Handouts allow your audience to look at data closely. This is especially important when you're presenting to analytical people, such as engineers, scientists, or finance professionals. They are trained to be skeptical about data, and a handout will give them a closer look. Once again, this kind of attention to the needs of your audience will highlight your professionalism and support your message.

5. Keep It Simple

Each slide should focus on one idea or concept. This allows your audience to grasp quickly what you want to communicate. Keep your text to a bare minimum (10 words or fewer if possible), and, where you can, use an image to convey a message rather than words: for example, consider using a graph instead of a list to show changing trends. Each slide should take three seconds or fewer to process. If it takes longer, the slide is probably too complex.

It can sometimes be helpful to follow a clear structure when creating your presentation; for example, if it is focused on a document or process with which audience members are familiar. This will help them make connections between your content and their existing knowledge.

Avoid bulleted lists whenever possible; they make it too easy to put several ideas on one slide, which can be overwhelming for your audience. If you do need to use bullets, don't use sentences; instead, simply list the fact, statistic, or idea you want to communicate. Then use your narrative to educate the audience about what these mean.

To simplify the wording on your slides further, highlight the key word in every sentence.

Next, look at the layout of your slides. Aim to use a plain background and plenty of blank space: this will help to focus audience members' eyes on your message. Avoid decorating slides with background pictures, logos or patterns that could distract attention.

Last, consider using blank slides when you need the audience's complete focus; a blank slide is equivalent to a pause, and it will add drama, tension, and focus to your words.

Many people underestimate how much time they need to set aside to prepare for a presentation. They'll spend days creating content and visuals but only a few hours practicing. Allow extra preparation time to hone your message and feel fully confident in your presentation.

First, take our interactive quiz, How Good Are Your Presentation Skills? to get an idea of how well you speak. Our articles on Delivering Great Presentations and Better Public Speaking contain tips and strategies that will help you communicate with clarity and intention.

When you practice your presentation, use your visuals. You should be able to glance at each slide and know exactly what you want to say.

If you're not confident in creating your own slides, think about outsourcing the task to a professional. This can be a smart option when a lot is at stake, or when you don't have the technical skills to create the type of presentation you want.

Consider using an outsourcing service such as Elance , Guru , or PeoplePerHour to find a suitable professional.

If you do, keep in mind that managing a freelancer requires a different approach from managing a regular staff member. Be clear about the project details, communicate your goals for the presentation, and set deadlines that give you plenty of time to revise and add as necessary.

Presentations that are too complex or lengthy can undermine your message. To create better visuals, do the following:

• Stay consistent.
• Consider culture.
• Use images intelligently.
• Break down complex data.
• Keep it simple.

If the stakes are high with your presentation and you don't feel confident with your technical skills, consider outsourcing slide preparation.

"iPhone," "Apple," "MacBook Air," and "Keynote" are trademarks of Apple Inc. (see www.apple.com ). "Microsoft" and "PowerPoint" are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation (see www.microsoft.com ). We have no association or connection with these organizations.

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How to Create an Inspiring Presentation for your Workshop

Have you ever been at a presentation or workshop and found yourself forcing your eyes to stay open? 

Bored out of your mind, and struggling to focus, the host is bleating on… and on. The concepts are too hard to follow, the words becoming a meaningless, tiresome cloud. Next time you struggle to sleep, it’ll be this guy’s waffling drivel that’ll send you to the land of nod.

Together, we’ll discover how to put the “Pow!” back into PowerPoint.

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Join the 150,000+ facilitators 
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A step-by-step guide to planning a workshop, how to create an unforgettable training session in 8 simple steps, 47 useful online tools for workshop planning and meeting facilitation.

In this article we’ll explore: 

• Why visual presentations are important
• What to consider when planning presentations

How to design an engaging visual presentation

• How to choose an engaging format
• Which tools are best for designing presentations
• Tips on how to deliver your workshop presentation

Why Are Visual Presentations Important?

The purpose is to share brilliant ideas with an audience. This might be a piece of work or an educational concept in a workshop; the aim is to communicate with people, make them feel something , and take action. We all want our audience to leave an event feeling motivated and inspired, and that the workshop was of value.

The importance of visuals is often overlooked, either due to a lack of confidence in working with visual design, lack of time or both. For a workshop facilitator, using visual aids could actually save time, better represent our ideas and concepts to a group, and help you present more confidently. “How?”, you ask.

When it comes to saving time, a picture is really worth a thousand words. There is no need to type up your presentations or make wordy bullet points on every slide when a simple image can share the message for you. 

Visual presentations put across an immediate message. Images are emotive and can deliver a story much faster than words, visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text . An image that can share an idea, can be more memorable than trying to remember very specific terminology. 

Creating visuals becomes part of a wider conversation in inclusive communication. Images are universally understood, and the eyes can “read” a picture with less effort than reading and comprehending several paragraphs. Imagine describing the color blue as a phrase. It is much easier to present it as it exists. 

Graphics are easy to share, and 65% of us are Visual learners . For anyone who has missed out on the meeting, a visual booklet can do the job of sharing the subject with them, and the added benefit of being able to view it in their own time. The power of social media also plays a huge part in the spreading of information and well-designed infographic slides can take your presentations and workshops outside of the room, with the potential to make a global impact. Sharability goes further with visual elements.

For me, a visual presentation is a lifesaver! Using slides has saved me a lot of time and made me feel more confident whilst presenting too. I don’t fumble around with notes, as the visuals can act as a prompt to remind me of where I’m at in my talk.

When presenting online, I find the value of visuals and slides even more important. It takes the attention away from my actions, and onto the graphics themselves. The participants can hear what I’m saying, but their eyes focus on the visual information which helps in retaining information and ideas beyond the workshop.    

What to consider when creating a visual presentation

I’m naturally quite a visual person, and I’ve often wondered if I could make a visual presentation without planning first what it is that I want to say. As an experiment, I gave it a go and it was a huge struggle. So, if you think that designing visuals is something that only designers can do and that they find it easy… it doesn’t and they don’t. 

As a starting point: get out a pen and paper and write down everything you want to say. This ensures you have all of the ideas and information out in black and white . I find that by leaving space between the writing and structuring, coming back at it with fresh eyes is a perfect way to work without feeling rushed. I rarely add to what I’ve written, it’s mostly about removing.

Recently I had written a LOT of information for an event. A day later, I took a second view to edit. A lot of writing is quite self-indulgent, so it helps to consider the audience . I cut up sections of the paper, keeping only what was the most necessary information , and collated it together. The rest of the sentences didn’t make the cut. You can try the editing exercise here . 

Less is More- an exercise in editing   #presentation   #presentation skills   #writing   #workshop   #meeting design   This exercise is ideal for editing written content in a hands-on way. A simple and effective exercise for editing workshop content or presentation text for talks. Use it when you have to write for a specific audience and want them to stay focused on the most important information.

As an expert in your field, it’s likely you’ll have a lot of content, and editing is so valuable to ensure your audience has relevant details. Don’t bore their socks off 😉

So now that you have an idea of your core content, you can move along the process, considering these factors before jumping into the design stages:

 Let’s start by asking, “ who is your audience? “

• if you are being commissioned to present a topic to a pre-determined group, then you’ll need to cater to their understanding of the topic. You’ll want to ensure that the information will be relevant and meets or goes beyond their expectations.
• if the topic is of your own choice, and the angle you’ve chosen to take, who do you want to take part? Finding them, and attracting them to the workshop will be part of your marketing efforts, as well as how you plan your structure and content.

We wouldn’t plan a workshop for ten-year-olds in the same way we might for adults. Consider what tone of voice you might use, the style in which we present how we use slides, and the content itself. You won’t be able to do this for each and every individual, but how you determine and empathize with your listeners can be done by creating a persona, or several personas . 

Create an overarching idea of who might be present, then consider how to engage them and meet their needs by asking yourself the following in more depth:

Why are they there?

Let’s look at their reason for attending your event. Have they come to learn from you in particular? If you are a specialist in your field and the workshop is an area of great interest to people, you’ll most likely have a deep understanding, and along with that, expectations to be filled. 

Have they come to gain a better understanding of the topic? Are they there to challenge themselves and their existing views, or perhaps yours?

How much do they know already?

Are your participants already proficient in the topic you’re delivering? You’d hopefully know this in advance of your workshop so you can adapt your material, and create a pitch in line with the group’s knowledge. If their experience level is unknown, an opener to your discussion might be to ask about their subject knowledge, ideas and expectations. That way you can tailor your language and approach.

It helps to be well versed in your workshop, to select sections you can skip out in favor of diving deeper into more advanced information. Improvisation isn’t usually a skill you’d immediately connect with presenting, but with practice, learning how to improvise can become an empowering tool to have.

For beginners, you’ll most likely take an introductory approach. This doesn’t mean it has to be dry or boring. Make it more interesting and engaging by weaving in an interactive exercise, or team debate within your presentation design. That way, the participants can gather more hands-on experience to support their understanding. This can of course use visual handouts, such as a workbook, or include a well-designed visual exercise on an interactive whiteboard.

What is their background and communication style?

Your presentation style, language, and cultural references should be considered in the writing and designing process. I recently attended a workshop on how we can create better inclusion for diverse audiences by considering the language we use. It really made me think about how we often lean towards using English as a “default” language, and how words often hold different weights and contexts in other languages.

Remote workshops and presentations mean we may have a very diverse audience than if we were presenting in-person, in one location. Online could mean 140 people in different time zones across different countries with different backgrounds. Being aware of differences makes it easier to use inclusive, easy-to-understand language in your presentation so that no one feels alienated. Speaking with clear articulation will make a big difference in how you are understood. 

You might have the best workshop on the planet, but if you don’t communicate in the style of your group, the impact will be lost. Do they want a short and snappy talk with a clear outcome at the end? Some audiences appreciate a motivational and inspirational talk that is led through emotional storytelling. Knowing their communication preferences can win over or lose your audience.

Before you begin designing your presentation, it’s important to consider what your purpose is. This is your mission statement, your project brief and your raison d’être. Here is where you want to ask yourself, what is it that you want your audience to think, feel or do? Are we creating an emotional impact or an educational goal?

Be as clear as possible with your core message, making it as specific as possible, so that you can keep this in mind throughout the process of writing, editing, designing and delivering presentations. This will keep your focus sharp, and avoid any unnecessary derailments taking your viewers away from what it is you hope to achieve.

Common purposes are to: inspire, inform, persuade or entertain .

• I want to inspire the audience to help reduce food poverty by leading a cookery workshop using supermarket waste.
• I want to inform the group about the future of rural tourism, so they might consider how they could adapt their own farming businesses to host visitors. 
• I want to persuade my team to reduce our use of plastic in the fashion industry, by presenting a viable alternative made from mushrooms.
• I want to entertain by pretending to be a Martian visiting Earth for the first time . My purpose is to help the participants understand their product from a new perspective!

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home   #creative thinking   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   #brainstorming   #energizer   #team   Use Craig Raine’s poem A Martian Sends a Postcard Home to spur creative thinking and encourage perspective shifting in a group. After a warm-up, you can then use this martian perspective to describe your product or service and gain new insights and ideas.

I recently designed a workshop called Design Thinking for Beginners and ran a SessionLab show and tell session aimed at facilitators who would like to run the workshop for teams new to design thinking. If you missed it, you can watch it back here. My purpose was to inform the attendees of the challenges newbies have with design thinking, and how they can make it a fun and digestible process.

I chose to relate each stage of design thinking to an everyday project of choosing or baking a birthday cake. My presentation was broken down into manageable chunks. Describing design thinking could be a laborious task, but keeping the text definition simple, with plenty of white space highlighted the point in one sentence. 

For the workshop itself, I incorporated interactive exercises throughout the process to lock in the understanding of design thinking and how we generate ideas. For the ideate stage of design thinking- I created a game show style exercise called the Ideas Vault where I chose to create a fun layout like a 90s computer game. The design process worked by gathering inspiration using a mix of pre-made Canva templates and adding my own twist. I talk more about Canva and design tools here .

The way you choose to structure a visual presentation will depend wholly on the purpose. The way you communicate your key message should be crafted in a way for the audience to follow along easily and act on those all-important takeaways at the end.

A solid structure will also make sure your points are clear so that you stay calm and on track when presenting. The structure of your topic, when written down and broken into manageable chunks will help hugely when it comes to creating the visual elements later. (we’ll get to that in the next section!)

Some common ways to structure your presentation could be

• Problem > Solution > Impact. Which you might use if your purpose is to inspire the audience to take action on a topic, by showing them a viable solution.
• You may start with an informative session and create a workshop as we mentioned before, to lead people through a learning process.
• A creative structure might be through storytelling , which might inspire and entertain. Once upon a time, this event happened, followed by the outcome and moral of the story.
• In any case, your presentation could follow the classic layout of: introduction, main body & conclusion, and you’d have a good foundation for your content.

Introduction

You have the first few seconds to grab people’s attention. First impressions are just as important as they’re made out to be! The introduction is the most important part, where the group will connect with you and decide if they want to listen to you or not. What would be a great hook for the audience to immediately buy into your presentation from the start?

Some people introduce themselves at the beginning- but you don’t have to. If you’re beginning with a story, this can be a very effective way to warm up your participants and make sure they’re really listening to you. Then you can introduce yourself when you know they have your attention, and they value what you have to say.

A quote or a provocative question or fact can get people thinking. You may use a thought-provoking image, which could be a prop, a video or a photo that introduces your presentation from the get-go. If you are offering a solution, go straight to the problem in your introduction.

Main body of presentation

Now that you’ve got your audience’s attention, and they have gathered an understanding and are intrigued to learn more, we can delve into the juice of your subject.

The main body involves presenting the data, and the important pieces of information. If you are offering a solution to the problem you introduced, expressing this with a visual, we place the subject right in front of them, and they don’t have to work so hard and use their imagination.

The main body doesn’t have to be a one-sided conversation. Listen! You might ask the group to interact, asking for their perspective. A talk or workshop can be a dialogue between the presenter and the group.

Your conclusion should be as snappy and engaging as your introduction. It may even loop back to the provocative question, or challenging problem. You’ll want to consider the impact on the attendees and most importantly, what you want them to do next! What action do you want them to take beyond the workshop?

What are the key takeaways? Highlight them as  Problem  > Solution  > Impact.

An effective class should tie up the opening question and objective, but still leave space for further exploration and discussion. Like a great film! They should not be saying, “I’m glad that’s over”. If it’s been designed with the audience in mind, they should feel something- energized or excited.

Now that you’ve written the content and designed the structure, here are our top tips to get you creating impactful visuals to complement what you present verbally. We’ll cover:

• How to design your slides and what information to include
• How typography impacts accessibility and design 
• Making smart color choices for both emotional connection and accessibility

Designing your slides

When approaching a blank canvas, it can be hard to know where to start. Some people start with deciding how many slides they’ll use- the question, “How many slides are too many slides?” crops up regularly in these types of articles. Expert presenters say not to go over 20 visual slides, but this will of course depend on the length and complexity of your subject. Another tip is not to spend more than a minute on each slide to keep it snappy and people engaged.

If I am creating a presentation from scratch, I’ll start with the first slide, and keep it very simple before moving on to the next one. Always asking “what is this slide saying? ” The first slide will be the title of my discussion, which will be visible to everyone joining the room. It sets the tone for what the topic will be about. If we were creating one around the topic of designing workshop slides, it might look like this:

I think the most important thing to remember is that each slide should have its own purpose, and not be overloaded with text. Where possible, use an image rather than words and think about how we might convey this message visually. Always start by defining the message and asking what the key takeaway for participants is. You can always further explain verbally.

When choosing an image, consider the audience and their context- a local photograph they can relate to, or a familiar face will often have more to say than a generic stock image.

Text will likely be used on your slides, and how much text is too much? If you begin planning your content by writing it all out and keeping only the most important parts, designing your slides will be a lot easier. I’d always recommend editing continuously throughout the process to create a meaningful message. If you can say something in 3 bullet points rather than 10, please do! Your audience will have a much easier time retaining the information.

“Good design is invisible”

Unless the subject of your presentation is about typography, it’s probably not the best time to be cracking out your most recently found, favorite font that’s “a bit different” or unusual. Stick to standard, trusted and most legible fonts that audiences can read and are familiar with. Otherwise, they’ll distract from the content. And content is King. 

“Good design is invisible”, a true and very useful phrase from Dieter Rams, who considers functionality in design as honest, long-lasting and with as little design as possible. This is a good theory to take throughout the design process. When looking for the right font, consider the tone you are using throughout your delivery too, and the overall message you are giving.

Good typography is your best friend for a presentation. When creating visuals for screens, as mentioned before, we are not typing out our speech word-for-word. Any text that is visually presented will have a very definite purpose as to why it is being displayed. This might be a quote, some data or the title of a book along with some further information in short form. Presentation slides are not a book.

Legibility is the most important thing when it comes to designing your visuals. Sans serif fonts are typically the best option for reading on a screen. Help your audience understand what you are communicating as quickly and easily as possible by ensuring the font sizes are easy to read. 

Create contrast and visual interest by choosing two fonts, one for headers and one for any body text. The contrast should still be harmonious, and not jarring to the eyes. Font hierarchy can help the audience differentiate between key points and more specific information. By choosing different weights and sizes, you can ensure your message is clearly heard and understood. 

• Minimum font size for main copy and bullets: 18 points
• Preferred font size for main copy and bullets: 24 points
• Preferred font size for headers or titles: 36 to 44 points

Personally, I like to choose font sizes slightly larger than recommended for body text. When we have a text-heavy page, I prefer to give the text plenty of surrounding white space and edit the copy as much as possible. From a design perspective, it helps legibility; and from a content perspective, it doubly ensures only the relevant text is presented on screen. I would definitely edit again at this stage. In this example for screens, the body text is 28pt and written in Open Sans, and the “Ideate” heading is 44pt in Agrandir wide.

Before creating any printed material for presentations, consider if it will truly be used and the environmental impact. I’d usually opt for sharing a digital version for people to refer back to after the workshop. It’s good practice to create a black and white version so that if it is printed out, the printing costs will be lower. There are of course digital accessibility issues, and some people might prefer a printed version. If so, select a serif font for any long text in a workbook or feedback form, with a minimum font size of 10-12pt.

Key points:

• Use Contrast

Deciding on the color scheme for a presentation is one of my favorite parts! Of course, you may have been given a branded color scheme to use, but if you have free reign in color choice and you enjoy the creative process, it can be a lot of fun.

For my show and tell on Design Thinking, I used the analogy of baking a cake and I felt that they conjure up an image of pastels. I used a gradient on the background so that I could use an array of colors without it being overbearing. I selected five key pastel colors for each stage of design thinking and to evoke a playful feel throughout. I was careful not to allow the colors to take over, so you’ll primarily see black and white use of color at the forefront for legibility.

Here are the key elements of how to choose a color scheme to complement your content :

The first, and most important point when choosing colors, is to use contrast. Make sure your text and graphics stand out from the background and are easily seen. Contrast is the difference in opposing colors so that they don’t blend in together A light background should use dark text and perhaps one or two bold accent colors to highlight key points. A dark background should use light fonts.

If you’re unsure of how easy a slide is to read, there are an array of online tools that can check the contrast for you by following the web accessibility guidelines. On Contrast Checker , you can enter the HEX code of the background and foreground colors, and you’ll get an idea of legibility. The sliders in the tool can be used if you need to improve the contrast and amend the color choices. There are also resources to guide you in how to select the color with an online eyedropper tool in case you’re not familiar with the HEX color codes.

Another contrast checker tool also shows the background and foreground with text examples and gives a rating to the accessibility of the text. This website has a whole host of tools, and can even pick a suitable palette for you.

If you’re working with a client, they may already have their own brand packaging and presentation template, including their colors. You may feel that this removes your choice of colors as it has been decided already, for example, they may use an in-house color language to refer to particular data on a graph. But the opposite may be true and might mean further considerations for visuals. It is important to know how to choose because when you create graphics or diagrams because you may have to select colors so that explanatory text can be seen on top of a shape or part of a graph.

When working with a client, it is important to share any documentation with their design team, and the best way to do this is by providing editable files. Working with a designer can massively lift the load on creating your presentation visuals. If there is no design team, but you are given design assets to work with, sharing both your visuals and your presentation agenda for collaboration and sign-off is a must. Create your agenda in SessionLab , and attach your visual presentation for ease of sharability. 

Studies have shown that color has an effect on expressing or feeling emotions. It will help to consider the tone that you are using throughout your presentation, the message you are delivering, and how you might want your audience to feel.

Warm colors, in the middle of the color spectrum, that aren’t too bold or too light create a warm and comfortable feeling. Bright reds and oranges can feel energetic and powerful. Or even create a sense of danger. In contrast, cooler colors such as greens, blues and purples can feel calm or evoke a sense of sadness.

We have an exercise that can help identify emotions and grow a better emotional vocabulary, the feelings wheel . It includes a visual attachment displaying the emotions in a range of colors- this may help select a tone for your color scheme. 

The Feeling Wheel   #emotional intelligence   #self-awareness   #icebreaker   #team building   #remote-friendly   By growing our emotional vocabulary, we can better identify our emotions, and check in with ourselves. Doing so can help bring a level of self-awareness, and a better understanding of others.

How to choose an engaging presentation format

We are almost there! The content is edited and your visual slides are ready, the next stage is to consider the format in which you’ll deliver your workshop or meeting. This is when you can consider any additional tools that you can use to your advantage when presenting. This might be video, photography or visual data. Or even props. Consider which other visual aids may help people to better understand the process or story you are conveying.

What presentation method will keep them engaged? How will you inspire and capture their imagination?

I’d recommend simplicity, and not try to include every form of media. Consider the purpose and message and select which format delivers it most effectively. Used with intention, video can be great. But animated graphics or flashy text is unnecessary and will add to the cognitive load of your audience, especially if they have any visual impairments.   

Video can be very effective, so long as it’s kept brief. If it’s longer than a minute, you may lose the attention of the audience, and the momentum of your presentation. A film clip should be creative and add another dimension, not an infomercial or promo piece, it’s a tool to say something that you cannot put across otherwise.

Films can have great benefits of showing a story. In a TED Talk about the intelligence of crows, the scientist showed a clip of the crow bending a hook to create a tool and fish a piece of food out of a tube. It put across his point better than anything he could’ve said.

I use recordings in situations like this, to demonstrate a case study. It’s often more powerful to have the original storyteller sharing their experience than me giving a second-hand account of the tale. Bringing in other voices in this way can add further diversity to your workshop.

Still images

JPEGs are compressed files and are used for photo formats. When a photo is taken, it is a RAW file that is editable. Once it’s compressed to a JPEG, it retains around a tenth of the information, meaning it is a smaller and less detailed file. JPEGS are used in photography, but not in vector graphics (drawings, typography, graphs, etc), as the detail lost can create pixelation if you aim to blow the image up to a larger size.

PNGs retain detail and are editable. They are still compressed files, but the pixels aren’t lost. Any graphics you create should be saved as a PNG, as you’ll be able to keep the image sharp, regardless of the size.

The photography you choose must be relatable. I’m definitely not against stock imagery per se, it’s amazing to have access to a library of searchable images to strengthen what you are saying. But, often you’ll see the same images repeated in different workshops and presentations and they’ll start to lose their meaning, or become too familiar. There are great free resources like Unsplash and if you spend time looking for a more unique way to put your point across, there are lots to choose from.

I’ve also had an Adobe Express subscription which gives access to photography and graphics and templates which you to customize in editing with little design skills. Ideally, being able to take your own photographs, or work with a professional photographer to capture exactly what you want is going to give your audience a far more unique experience. This is often a luxury.

As facilitators, a way around this could be to create our own library of photos that we capture at each presentation. When I’ve run crafting workshops, it feels quite natural to take photographs of the work we are creating. And those who are camera-shy, they’re more open to photographs of their hands in action. Over time, we’ll have a whole collection of resources.

If you enjoy photography, having a good camera as part of your kit might intrigue people, invite people to take photos of each other and the workshop process. This could be an exercise that you do to open or close your talk. Or in some cases, especially if it’s a visual presentation, and not too distracting, invite people to take their own photos and share after with a #hashtag (promo and photos in one!) And of course, get everyone’s signature attesting they are OK with photos.

Visual data & symbols

Visualizing data makes it more interesting, engaging and memorable than cold hard figures. For the majority of audiences, it’s easier to understand in a visual format than in a list of forgettable numbers. By creating charts, graphs or maps, we are able to see patterns and understand the context of the statistics. A pie chart displaying percentages in corresponding colors tells our brain quickly which section has the largest number.

Even when we analyze word-driven data, a visual representation is easier to see straight away. When I’ve worked with community groups in the design thinking process, we’ve often used Google surveys to capture written evidence. This type of qualitative data can be a challenge to sift through, so for an initial overview, a tool like word cloud can show how many times a particular word or phrase appears and turns it into an image. The more times a word appears, the larger it is on the image.

The use of icons and emojis (sparingly! And in context 😉) can add another element of visual understanding to presentations. Illustrations and hand-dawn symbols might better express your point than a photograph too. An opportunity to work with a live scribe or graphic facilitator whilst presenting could add an interesting dimension to a talk. If it involves audience participation, having someone on hand to capture the conversation visually can keep engagement and attention going!

The best tools for designing your presentation

Canva has become a much more powerful tool than it was. You can even edit your workshop recordings with it now! It’s perfect for anyone with little design knowledge as it has great templates for presentations, lots of which are free. It has social media templates too, which are perfect for advertising your upcoming workshop.

Adobe Creative Suite

I do love Creative Suite , and it still is a great package of tools for designers. Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are the industry standard for design tools and have all the capabilities you’d need as a graphic designer. If that package is beyond your scope, Adobe Express is a great option for pre-made templates and stock imagery. Like Canva, it also works well as an app on a smartphone.

Keynote 

Keynote comes as standard with MacBook and has had a whole new upgrade including being able to use the camera on your Mac or an external camera to show yourself directly on the slides. Super handy for an online event! You can also show the screen of a connected iPad or iPhone and it now has co-hosting capabilities. 

Of course! SessionLab is where you can keep all of your presentation notes, and break down the agenda into blocks, so if you decide to switch up parts of your presentation- you can drag and drop to a different section of your talk. It is a much easier process, as it will also keep any other attachments or exercises in that block neatly collated in one place. It’s easy to share with any co-hosts or clients before the presentation day arrives!

How to deliver a workshop presentation with visuals

Some people memorize their speech word for word, which can work well if you’re a dab hand at amateur dramatics. 

On the other hand, that might feel too stressful or rigid. Bill Murray is famously known to read a script once and throw it away! For you, it may be better to consider the key points you’d like to make, and really know your subject matter so whatever arises, you’ve got it covered. Your visuals might act as a prompt for you too, the main message will be communicated visually, and you can feel free to go into more depth.

The best way to ensure that you nailed the slide design for your session is to practice. It’s important to practice noting your timing, that you’ve covered all the important points, and that each slide transitions smoothly from one to the next. You want the presentation to be as seamless as possible. The best way to practice is in front of someone and gather feedback.

Before our design thinking for beginners show and tell, I rehearsed in front of my fellow team members, instructing them to wear their “facilitator’s hats” whilst listening, so they could hear from a facilitator’s perspective and give constructive feedback.

Afterward, you can continue to add and edit, removing some sections, and making room for more key discussions to be had in-depth. If it is an informal presentation that you will run more than once, it could develop over time. If it is a one-off very important meeting, it’s vital to get as much preparation practice as possible.

Expect nerves

If I get nervous, I purposely talk slightly slower than I usually would naturally, and it calms the nerves down. There’s also no harm in mentioning that you’re nervous, it’s an honest approach and can create an authentic connection.

We’re all human. And no one would expect you to not be nervous. Nerves, to an extent, can be a good thing. They bring a bit of energy and focus to your talk, and a little adrenaline. If you know your subject matter inside out, all you really need to do is breathe, and talk. 

Speaking with one of our community members, Yvonne Chin Irving on the subject of nerves, she suggested diaphragmatic breathing, or more a more fun term, “balloon breathing”:

Belly breathe. Slowly. Imagine your tummy has a balloon that fills up when you breathe. Exhale all the air. Notice your tummy as it flattens. Next, breathe in slowly and fill your “balloon” with breath 🎈. Do this a few times to help calm yourself down. You can start this on the way to your session, do it in the car or while you’re setting up for your session. (It really works) Yvonne Chin Irving

We’d love it if you joined the conversation in our SessionLab community!

Having a technical rehearsal beforehand can help avoid blips. Ensure the right people have screen-sharing abilities, and that screens in the in-person space work. Iron out any microphone issues or problems with echo prior to the big presentation! On the day itself a technical disaster could strike, so here are some practical tips to circumnavigate these and stay professional:

• Create different formats for your presentation. If it’s a Keynote or Powerpoint, have a PDF version available in case of any tech issues you’ll still have a high-quality version available.
• If including video, have backup screen-shots as images to demonstrate your points in case the video doesn’t run.
• Be analog ready. Know your presentation without the use of slides- or print them out so that if there is a complete technical breakdown, you can confidently present. This might include creating printed handouts for people to refer to when you direct them to do so. Or, if they have their own smartphones, send them the link to your visuals or any important videos to watch back after your talk, to avoid distractions as you speak.

Accessibility

Ensuring your audience has the best experience, requires being aware of accessibility needs. Is access to the building easy for anyone with physical disabilities? Are the seats comfortable, and allow for ease of viewing for people of different heights? 

We’ve discussed the best way to use typography for ease of reading for anyone with visual impairments, and when setting up your screen, it is a good idea to see how it will look in the actual event environment. Additionally, you may share larger-print handouts on yellow paper for anyone with dyslexia. This is another reason why knowing your audience in the planning stage will make sure your presentation is enjoyable and accessible for everyone.   

Agenda planning

SessionLab is an agenda planning tool that makes presenting a lot smoother! You are able to allocate time to each section of content to keep yourself on track throughout. In your preparation stage, you can attach all of your materials to your SessionLab agenda, knowing exactly when you’ll use each of them. It’s so neatly organized and easy to edit and shift blocks if you decide to change the order of content for a future session.

In conclusion

I hope you have found this guide valuable, and that it inspires lots of ideas when planning your next presentation! There are a wealth of resources dotted around this article, and I’ll include a few more here that I highly recommend:

Lean Presentation Design A whole website by Maurizo la Cava dedicated to presentation strategy

Ted Talk: How to Write Less, but say more is an excellent talk by Jim VandeHai about short and effective communication.

Five Things to Know About Your Audience Before You Present if You Want to Be Successful useful tips on how to empathize with your group for a more successful presentation.

Let us know below in the comments if you have any questions, or any tips of your own to add to the conversation!

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Going from a mere idea to a workshop that delivers results for your clients can feel like a daunting task. In this piece, we will shine a light on all the work behind the scenes and help you learn how to plan a workshop from start to finish. On a good day, facilitation can feel like effortless magic, but that is mostly the result of backstage work, foresight, and a lot of careful planning. Read on to learn a step-by-step approach to breaking the process of planning a workshop into small, manageable chunks.  The flow starts with the first meeting with a client to define the purposes of a workshop.…

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by Tom Rielly • May 12, 2020

When giving presentations, either on a video conference call or in person, your slides, videos and graphics (or lack of them) can be an important element in helping you tell your story or express your idea. This is the first of a series of blog posts that will give you tips and tricks on how to perfect your visual presentations.

Your job as a presenter is to build your idea -- step-by-step -- in the minds of your audience members. One tool to do that is presentation graphics, such as slides and videos.

Why graphics for your presentation?

A common mistake is using slides or videos as a crutch, even if they don’t actually add anything to your presentation. Not all presentations need graphics. Lots of presentations work wonderfully with just one person standing on a stage telling a story, as demonstrated by many TED Talks.

You should only use slides if they serve a purpose: conveying scientific information, art, and things that are hard to explain without pictures. Once you have decided on using slides, you will have a number of decisions to make. We’ll help you with the basics of making a presentation that is, above all, clear and easy to understand. The most important thing to remember here is: less is more.

Less is so much more

You want to aim for the fewest number of slides, the fewest number of photos, the fewest words per slide, the least cluttered slides and the most white space on your slides. This is the most violated slide rule, but it is the secret to success. Take a look at these examples.

As you can see in the above example, you don’t need fancy backgrounds or extra words to convey a simple concept. If you take “Everything you need to know about Turtles”, and delete “everything you need to know about” leaving just “turtles”, the slide has become much easier for your audience to read, and tells the story with economy.

The above example demonstrates that a single image that fills the entire screen is far more powerful than a slide cluttered with images. A slide with too many images may be detrimental to your presentation. The audience will spend more mental energy trying to sort through the clutter than listening to your presentation. If you need multiple images, then put each one on its own slide. Make each image high-resolution and have it fill the entire screen. If the photos are not the same dimensions as the screen, put them on a black background. Don’t use other colors, especially white.

Your slides will be much more effective if you use the fewest words, characters, and pictures needed to tell your story. Long paragraphs make the audience strain to read them, which means they are not paying attention to you. Your audience may even get stressed if you move on to your next slide before they’ve finished reading your paragraph. The best way to make sure the attention stays on you is to limit word count to no more than 10 words per slide. As presentation expert Nancy Duarte says “any slide with more than 10 words is a document.” If you really do need a longer explanation of something, handouts or follow-up emails are the way to go.

Following a “less is more” approach is one of the simplest things you can do to improve your presentation visuals and the impact of your presentation overall. Make sure your visuals add to your presentation rather than distract from it and get your message across.

Ready to learn more about how to make your presentation even better? Get TED Masterclass and develop your ideas into TED-style talks.

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The Visual Communication Guy

Learn Visually. Communicate Powerfully.

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How to Design a PowerPoint: A Visual Guide to Making Slides with Impact

Home > Speaking > How to Design a PowerPoint

A quick Google Images search for “worst PowerPoint slides” proves two very clear realities: 1) anybody can create a PowerPoint; and 2) many don’t know how to do them well.

That’s understandable, though. Unless you’ve recently taken courses or training in design, data visualization, and public speaking, you likely haven’t had any more education on how to create an effective slide deck than a ten-year-old.

And you’re not alone.

Bad PowerPoints are everywhere: professor lectures, science conferences, human resources trainings, team meetings, sales review gatherings, thesis and dissertation defenses, product pitches, job interviews, you name it. Some of the brightest people in the world have created some of the most awful PowerPoints. For most, it’s just not a natural skill.

That’s unfortunate, too, because a well-designed slide deck can make a tremendous difference in the reception of the message you’re trying to convey.

To start designing excellent slide decks right away, follow my quick guide to designing better PowerPoints right after this paragraph. To get a whole workshop’s worth of information about how to design better slides, scroll below. 🙂

Click image to enlarge.

The question is, does designing a nice PowerPoint actually matter?

Well, if you’ve made it this far, you already know my opinion. But the short answer is, YES! Effective slide decks can make a HUGE difference in the outcome of your presentation. Why? Because slides—which should be used to supplement and enhance your well-prepared script (not be the presentation, as we often see in slides that are nothing more than bulleted lists)—significantly improve engagement during the presentation and recall after the presentation.

Basically, if you want people to both pay attention AND remember what you said, good slides can make all the difference. Plus, research has shown that people trust information more when it’s well-designed. In sum, good slides will cause your audience to:

• Pay attention more and stay more engaged;
• Remember the key messages from your presentation better;
• Trust you and your information more; and
• Believe you are super smart and awesome. (I mean, you already are, but good slides will seal the deal.)

Bad slides, on the other hand, are not only distracting, but they can actually damage a person’s ability to understand and follow your message.

At best, poorly designed slides will make you look less professional. At worst, they’ll encourage people to not listen to anything you have to say. Bad slides (which are caused by a whole range of things, including being too text-heavy, too busy, too inconsistent, or too color crazy, etc. [see my article on 40 Ways to Screw Up a PowerPoint Slide ]), overwhelmingly distract from your presentation.

If a slide has too much text, people try to read it and listen to you at the same time—which damages their ability to do either well. If your slides are too busy, your audience won’t be able to understand the information quick enough. If it’s ugly, well…people just tune out and ignore (and judge you, to boot).

Okay, so enough of the why . Let’s get to making better slides!

The 9 Steps to Designing a Better PowerPoint Slide

Step 1: empathize with your audience.

The term “empathy” in this context comes from a relatively new theory called “design thinking,” in which you can apply the mindset of a designer to a variety of contexts. So, whether you’re creating a toothbrush, a video game, an automobile, or…a PowerPoint, you need to be thinking a like a designer—which starts with empathy.

Empathizing with an audience is like applying the Golden Rule: present unto them as you would like to be presented to. Of course, the content of presentation itself comes first and foremost, but the design of your slides should support and enhance your content, so you’ll be thinking of your script and your slides at the same time. To begin, it’s best to start with a few concrete questions about your audience:

• Why are they there? Are they at your presentation because they want to be, or because they have to be? Is your presentation the only one of the day, or is it one of many (like at a conference)? Are they expecting to learn, be entertained, be inspired, be trained? In essence, you want to know their state of mind before coming so you can plan to accommodate that as best you can.
• Why would they care? Dig deep here. Does your audience actually care about the topic as much as you do? And…if you don’t care, why don’t you? If the topic isn’t meaningful and you can’t make it feel that way, then why even present? But…if they do care, know why they do. What will they hope for and expect out of it? What can you do to meet and exceed their expectations?
• What do they need to know? And what DON’T they? How much about your subject do they already know? Are they novices, experts, or a blend of both? Does it make more sense to break your topic into separate presentations on separate days, rather than giving it all at once? Is it focused and narrow enough to make an impact? Can you leave anything that is irrelevant out?
• What will keep them engaged? Consider your content and your big takeaways. Consider the personalities and knowledge base of the audience? What can you do to keep them engaged? Now…remember that “engaged” doesn’t mean “entertained” (though it can). If you’re a scientist presenting on bacterial infections in the liver, entertainment is obviously not appropriate. But…if you don’t engage them, they may not appreciate your research, no matter how valuable it is. What will they want to see, hear, and know and how can you display that to them in a way that will keep them interested?

Once you have clear idea about your audience’s needs and desires, you can begin to develop slides (along with the content of your script) that will give them exactly what they’re looking for rather than wasting their time (and yours).

Step 2: Define the Story

Think of your presentation as a story and you, the presenter, as an author in real time. As you deliver a presentation, you are creating the tone, setting, and plot for what happens. Your execution of the presentation will, if done right, create a climax/conflict and an important resolution. Consider how your slide development functions like the five components of a story, then write down how you plan to control (define) that story:

• The Setting. You create a mood and presence by the way you enter the room, interact with the audience, and display your title. While you may not have full control over who comes and what the room looks like, you do have relative control over the tone and ambiance and how they will react to your message. Consider the title of your presentation. Does it capture your message while also creating a buzz about your topic? Can you add a photo on the title slide that will intrigue your audience? What colors will you use? How do you plan to interact with the slides and how will you keep the audience involved?
• The Characters. You may not know all the people in the room, but you should know as much about them as possible (start with Step 1). Still, you have a way to shape their interest and engagement in this topic. Characters in this story are stakeholders. Your ultimate goal for giving should be one of three things: help them think about something in a new, meaningful way; learn something valuable they didn’t know before; and/or act as a result of what they learned. If you can’t get them to one of those three points, you’ve never really developed the characters.
• The Plot . A plot in storytelling is a series of events that build towards a conclusion. A plot needs to have direction, with clear and meaningful series of events. As you develop your script, you should be thinking about your rhetorical progression of ideas—your building towards a final outcome or conclusion. The development of slides can help you with this and they can help your audience stay on track. The key is, you need to make sure your audience is following the plot. If the plot starts to feel loose, disconnected, fragmented, or…all over the place, you’ll lose them faster than a 0-star rated movie.
• The Conflict. There must be some reason why everyone is there to see you presentation. It’s possible they don’t fully understand it themselves, but you, as the presenter, must make their purpose evidently clear. You must make them care. The more and more you pull them into your subject matter, the more you have effectively built a climax, which is the key to any successful story.
• The Resolution . The resolution is the takeaway—it’s what resolves the conflict. If you’ve built a strong climax, you now need to make sure your audience leaves with something valuable. If they leave thinking in a new, meaningful way; if they have learned something valuable that they can apply today; or if they are ready and knowledgeable about how to act, then the resolution is there and you, the author, have done your job.

Step 3: Brand Your Message

Jeff Bezos is famous for having said, “Brand is what others say about you when you’re not in the room.” You might think similarly about your presentation. How will your audience feel about your presentation afterwards, when you’re not around?

That can be an intimidating question to ask. And, it may seem a little odd to think about your message as a “brand.” But…applying brand theory to messaging makes a lot of sense. You want people to get on board with what you have to say. To do that, you have to establish what they value, what motivates them, and what you’ll have to do meet or exceed their expectations.

Brand experts use a lot of terms to describe and define brands. Let’s address a few, and apply them to slide design:

• Differentiation. How yours is different from the rest. What can you do to make your message stand out from a world of clutter and information? What makes yours unique? Is it your approach, the stories you tell, your language, your humor, your ideas, something else?
• Authenticity . How much you genuinely care. Audiences can tell if you’re passionate or not. They know if you care about both your topic and them learning it. If you fake it, the message gets diluted. Use your slides to help showcase how much you care.
• History . What people already know about you, your topic, or your experience. Do you need to establish credibility, or do you already have it? Do you have experience you can lean into? Does your audience already like/agree with this topic? Is it totally new and unfamiliar to them? How can you bring the history of your topic and yourself into the presentation? Will you audience need a primer on the history or does it matter?
• Simplicity. Making the most important things stick. Good brands almost always have simple logos, simple taglines, and simple brand positioning statements. Many also focus on limited products—they focus on what they do well. Your message can work the same way. Can you simplify your entire message into 2 – 5 key points? Can you reduce the amount of information that has to be taken in all at once? Can you help organize and chunk information to be clearer and simpler to follow? People generally have a hard time remembering complex information all at once—determine what the real purpose of your presentation is and what your audience can reasonably get out of it, then simplify to make sure that happens.
• Visual Identity . Your message, like a brand, can be enhanced if people resonate with the overall look and feel. Just like with buying a brand of shoes, people will be drawn to the design of your information. If it looks static, cliche, poorly design, or just plain ugly, you’ve created an undesirable visual identity and people will have a harder time buying into it. But if you can take your message and harmonize with strong design and imagery, people will be more likely to be attracted by, latch onto, and “buy in” to what you have to say. What should your visual identity look like, considering your topic?

Step 4: Select Your Fonts

The choice of your font may seem a small thing, but it can make the difference between a sleek, professional presentation and one that is static, boring, or, worse, painfully obnoxious.

If you’re not a professional designer, being font savvy may not come natural. Fortunately, there just a few rules you can follow to help you make your choices:

• Avoid the Defaults . In PowerPoint (as in MS Word), the default font is Calibri. Before 2010, the default was Times New Roman. Other programs use Arial or Myriad Pro as the default. What’s wrong with defaults? The fonts themselves are actually fine fonts—that’s why Microsoft went with them. BUT…because they’re the defaults, they are so widely used that they’ve become dull. If you just leave the defaults, your audience will subconsciously feel that you didn’t design your PowerPoint (because you probably didn’t). Just changing the font can bolster your PowerPoint’s professionalism quickly.
• Stick to Simple, Modern Fonts. Okay, so you don’t want to use the defaults, but what DO you use? Something simple. Don’t go crazy. Find something that is similar to the default, with just a little variation. Find something that is super easy to read and looks clean, simple, and sleek. Nothing distracting. Remember: you want people to focus on your story and message, not the lettering. Look at the graphic above for a list of some good, simple, modern fonts. Avoid, at all costs, the notoriously ugly or cliched fonts: Comic Sans; Chiller; Papyrus; Algerian; Curlz MT; and so forth.
• Make Sure Your Fonts Are on the Computer(s) You’re Presenting On. Remember: fonts are installed on individual computers, not attached to a program. A misunderstanding that many people have is that a font comes with PowerPoint (or any other program you’re working on). That’s NOT accurate. Fonts are installed on your computer. So…if you use a cool font that was on your desktop PC, but you are presenting your slides on a MacBook laptop, you’ll want to check that both computers have the font you’re using. Some fonts are pretty standard and you’ll find them on pretty much all computers: Palatino Linotype, Century Gothic, Segoe UI, Garamond. Others, however, are proprietary and may not be on other computers: Acumin Pro, Raleway, Helvetica. If you know you’ll be presenting on multiple different computers, find a standard font. One I’ve always liked to use is Century Gothic.
• Consider Using Two Fonts . The “two-font rule” suggests that designs will be more attractive if they use two fonts—one for headings and titles, the other for body text. You can get away with just one font if you make your headings stand out in some way—by size, weight, or color—but it’s often a nice aesthetic to use two. Just be sure that the two fonts are obviously different from each other (don’t use both Arial AND Century Gothic—they’re too similar, which will look like an accident) and that they harmonize well together. It’s often good to use a serif font (the type with little “feet” like in Palatino Linotype) paired with a sans serif font (the kind without “feet,” like Century Gothic).

Step 5: Narrow Your Colors

A hallmark of any good design is a simple, consistent color scheme. Keep your slide designs to fewer than four colors. Often, it’s good to use black, white, gray, and then one or two accent colors. Years ago, when I was new to design, I had someone tell me that a brochure I created looked like a clown exploded on the page. You DON’T want your slides to look like a clown exploded! To avoid that, find your color scheme in advance and stick to it.

Color can be tricky. If you work for a company that already has a pre-established style guide and color scheme, definitely use it! Not only is that important for your company’s brand, it makes your life a whole lot easier. If you do have to choose colors yourself, though, consider going to this website first: color.adobe.com . You can type things into the “explore” bar and you’ll be led to color schemes that look nice.

What you want to look for are colors that are a bit muted and won’t overwhelm the eyes of your viewers. Remember that you want to keep a high contrast so it doesn’t strain your audience members’ eyes. So…stick to black or really dark gray for text. Keep a white or very light background. Use the accent color for headings or important pieces of content. And…just make sure the colors match your topic or industry.

Step 6: Divide into Sections

Good presentations are well organized. Your slides should visually reflect your organization by using different slide “types” for different parts of your presentation or content.

All presentations should have at least three slide types: a title slide, a body slide, and a closing slide. Most presentations will have a fourth: a section slide. Section slides are used to transition your presentation from one major topic to the next. Many presentations can also benefit from callout slides, which are used to designate unique types of content that show up periodically—like for direct quotes or polling questions to audience members.

If you’ve ever taken a college course on public speaking, you probably remember your professor telling you to use “signposts.” A signpost is a metaphor for visual or oral cues that let your reader know where they’re at in the journey. Signposts keep your audience oriented. Sectioning your slides provides a visual signifier to your audience that you are shifting gears—plus, it just makes your slides feel cohesive, professional, and organized.

Take the time to design your slide types first. Then, fill in the content from your presentation script.

A quick note about body slides, though. These are going to be the most frequently used slides, the ones that you put the majority of your content on. Note that body slides don’t all have to look identical. They need to be consistent in design—repeating the same fonts, colors, photography style, highlights, etc.—but the layouts can change. Providing some visual variation is good for your audience.

Step 7: Visualize Every Slide

One of the biggest errors inexperienced presenters make is believing that audience members need to be able to read a lot of text to understand the message.

The reality is, when you put a lot of text on the screen—even if it’s in a bulleted list—you end up creating more difficulty for your audience. They’ll try to read while also trying to listen to you, creating a conflict of noise that will eventually cause them to only catch about half of what you wanted them to. Plus, a lot of text is boring and not efficient for the human brain.

Research has actually shown (and there is significant evidence to prove this) that making information visual is good for humans for four reasons: engagement, cognition, trust, and recall.

• Visual information is more engaging . Most all people will tell you that they are “visual learners.” The reality is that pretty much all humans are. We pay attention to visual information because our brains are designed to process visual information faster. When you provide visuals—photographs, charts, diagrams, icons, etc.—people will pay far more attention than if you just have text. In fact, if you just have text on a screen, people will likely zone out.
• Visual information is easier to understand. If designed well and related to the topic, people will understand visual information faster than they will from reading. Even as you read this article (assuming you’re still here!), the information that is really going to help you are the visual examples and explanations I’ve added for each section. That’s the stuff where you’ll say, “aha! now I know what Curtis is telling me to do.” All this text—it’s just ancillary stuff to provide more detail. But the photos/graphics are what you’ll really learn from.
• Visualized information builds trust. For better or for worse, humans are wired to trust information more when it has been visualized, especially when it looks professional. If you take a table of data and turn it into a data visualization that is professionally design, people will tend to trust it more. Something about taking the time to visualize information makes people assume you know what you’re talking about. Now, that said, you have to make sure your data visualizations are accurate. The real pitfall here is that people will tend to trust it more, even if it’s misleading. If they discover any flaws, your entire argument (and credibility) will go out the window.
• Visual information is easier to remember . Research studies have shown that visual information will be retained more than six times better if visuals are attached to it. If you actually want people to remember your presentation you must do two things: tell stories and use pictures. If you simply regurgitate information and make it very text-heavy, your audience will forget almost everything you said within three days. If you add pictures, though, they’ll have mental images to trigger memory, helping them retain your message much longer.

Find ways to visualize every chance you can, making sure that your visuals emphasize, clarify, or enhance the content you are talking about. Look at the examples above. Find ways to reduce text and enlarge graphics; turn bullets into images or icons; and use simple, easy to understand graphics that draw attention to the most important point.

Step 8: Play with Photos and Layouts

This is the one that takes the most practice, but it can be the most fun and rewarding. Recognize that your body slides can take multiple forms and that there are endless ways to organize, crop, and adjust visualizations, photos, headings, and designs. As long as you keep your color scheme, fonts, and highlighting techniques consistent, the slides will still feel uniform and professional, while giving variety to your slides.

Some things to think about as you play with the design of your slides:

• CONTRAST: Make sure you use high contrast in colors, especially for areas where you have text (black text on white backgrounds almost always work best). In addition, make sure that things that are different actually look significantly different. If two fonts are different sizes, make them obviously different sizes. If you’re using two colors, make them completely different colors. When two things look similar, there isn’t much contrast, which looks accidental and/or visually dull.
• REPETITION: Repetition is all about consistency in design. Repeat design elements throughout: fonts, colors, highlights, logos, shapes, styles, etc. Repeat the same visual feel for photos. Use the same types of icons and graphics. The more unified the design, the strong the appeal and the more professional you look.
• ALIGNMENT: Make sure everything on your slide is aligned with something else. Nothing should be “floating,” or placed arbitrarily. Align photos to titles, words to other words, rules/lines to other elements. Keep it all tightly aligned and crisp.
• PROXIMITY: Put things that are related close together and things that aren’t apart from each other. The brain will automatically assume that, if two things are next to each other (like a photo and a caption) that they are connected. Avoid confusing your audience by separating things that are different and connecting things that go together.
• Move Photos to the Bleeds . The term “bleed” is a graphic design principle that describes moving photos to the edge of page (where the ink “bleeds” off) in order to reduce visual noise. An old design principles developed by Josef Albers, 1+1=3, suggests that when you insert two objects, you automatically create a third—the space between. When you insert a photo, you end up creating a margin of white space around the edges. If that white space isn’t necessary, just make the image larger and push clear to the edge of the screen. This will remove the margin and the noise. Plus, it just makes slides look simpler and more professional and it really draws the eyes to the photo.

Step 9: Orient Your Audience

In addition to creating section slides (see Step 6 above), you can help your audience—and yourself—stay organized by giving visual cues and textual information in footers, slide counts, and headers or sidebars.

These orienting features of a slide deck can be especially valuable if you’re giving a long presentation, workshop, or training.

Start by creating a footer. These aren’t required and you don’t need them on every slide, but in most costs, presentations will benefit from some information in the footer. Some of the most common things to include in a footer:

• Company logo
• Company name
• Name of presenter
• Name of event or conference
• Title of presentation
• Copyright information

Beyond the footer, you can also include a slide count (in example above, look at the bottom right of the slide). While some argue that this can be distracting, most would say that a slide count will help audience members know how much more to expect, putting their “I’m being held hostage by this presenter!” fears away.

If your presentation is particularly long (like, say, 45 minutes or more) or you’re giving a workshop, you can really help your audience by giving them a sort of contents or guide, so that they know where they’re at in relation to everything else. You might, for example, create a small sidebar on the left that includes the section they’re in with the subsection. Or, as in the example at the top (see top left of example), you might just include which section you’re on and a summary title of that section.

There is no one or perfect way to orient your audience members. Just make sure it’s on the forefront of your mind as you work to build empathy into your slide design. The presentation is for them, after all, not you. Give them as much as you can to help them appreciate the message you’re delivering.

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How to create visual presentations and eLearning

• Written by: Richard Goring
• Categories: PowerPoint design , Visual communication
• Comments: 4

Most presentations are a cascade of text-heavy Death-by-PowerPoint slides, while online learners suffer the torture of wading through page after page of brochures converted to click-through-eLearning. However you look at it, a wall of text doesn’t work to engage people or compel them to action, so it really can’t be effective. That’s why most people now recognize that using visuals is the way to go. But how do you create visual presentations and eLearning that works? We think there are six steps you need to follow.

Step 1. Understand the audience

To know how to make a presentation effective, you need to understand the person on the receiving end and also decide what you’re trying to achieve. Are you trying to inform the audience of something – i.e. give them information they don’t have and help them understand it. Or persuade them to do something or change their behaviour – i.e. convince the audience the reasons to act in a certain way are stronger than the reasons not to. (Selling is typically a subset of this).

And it’s worth noting that a lot of the time, when you’re trying to inform people of something as your primary objective, you’ll also need to do at least a little persuasion, to get them to believe that your information is valid, valuable, and worth acting upon. Likewise, if you’re persuading people, you need to inform your audience so that they understand enough to be able to buy into your ideas.

When informing, you should have a clear idea of what exactly you are trying to inform about, and note it down in a couple of words so that you can easily refer back to it throughout the process.

If you’re persuading people, the same thing applies, but more specifically, we find it most helpful to think about this in terms of how the audience will benefit. What’s in it for them?

The options are many and various, but something short and punchy helps you to focus your story on what’s important to your audience and will make the story worth listening to.

Step 2: Identify key message or story

Now you need to decide what information to present to your audience in order to achieve your goal. And assess how much your audience already know about the topic, so you don’t repeat unnecessarily.

Typically, anything you’re attempting to visualise into a visual presentation has a lot of detailed content with relatively little structure. So to help, we recommend you simplify down to the core message in a nicely structured way that’s easy to understand, which then helps you to pick out what detail is most important and how to bring everything together.

Then take the necessary pieces of information and organise them into a story that flows, so it’s easy to follow. Often the framework of Problem -> Solution -> Impact is a good one to follow.

• Problem sets up the context and shows why this is something people need to know and pay attention to. It helps to frame the rest of the story.
• Solution is the details of what happens, or how something works.
• Impact is the end result – that will often lead to the outcome that your audience will achieve.

Step 3: Identify key objects

The next job, within these short sentences, is to identify the objects that are crucial to telling the story.

Person, role, company – Typically these are physical things, like objects or people. You can easily spot some of these – any mention of people, groups of people, job roles, or companies, could be represented by a photo of someone, or a silhouette, or a logo.

Object, product – You may have things that aren’t people, but are still easily recognizable entities, like objects – a computer, a phone, a bicycle, a hippopotamus – or a product or service, which might be a little bit more abstract, like ‘consulting’ or ‘water treatment’ – but still a concept that you can easily put a label on. Pretty straightforward visually, you could use an icon if you just want to get across the idea of a deliverable, or a photo of the product, or a label of the product or service, or you might even have a logo for it, especially if it’s something fairly abstract.

Quote – If you want to show a direct quote from someone, try to keep it short and to the point. It should really speak for itself, which means you’re going to have to keep quiet and let the audience read it.

Location – Then you might have locations – a point on a map, like a city, or maybe a type of building, like a hospital or office tower, or it could be an office floor plan. It could be something more abstract like an objective or a target you’re aiming towards.

Data, measurable – And then you might be able to pick out some data, like figures, percentages, dates, costs, that sort of thing, or some kind of measurable quantity, which are similar but they’re more vague – concepts that you can quantify, but that don’t really have any ‘number’ attached to them – things like a level of risk, or confidence, or effort.

That’s a starter gallery of different types of key objects. What these things all have in common is that they can all be represented with some sort of visual device that can be easily recognized, so you don’t have to do too much explanation and the audience doesn’t spend too long trying to figure out what it is. You might be using pictures, or icons, or labels to represent these things to create your visual presentation, or they might make up part of a diagram, which is what we’re going to look at in the next part of the process.

Step 4: Establish relationships

Once you know what’s involved in the story, start to look at the relationships between each of the key objects, and how they interact, which will give you the layout of the slide, the framework, or the diagram. There are plenty of options, but there are a few reliable regulars that you can draw on.

First you’ve got your different types of graph , which will probably be the first choice if you’re showing data. You could make an XY graph , two axes, and the data might be bars or lines, or an XYZ graph that shows a three dimensional data set, which might shrink or stretch across the three axes.  A pie chart , to show proportions – this might be useful if you have percentages, as long as they all belong to the same category. Or you could have a Matrix arrangement, showing where elements are placed in different regions.

Then you’ve got a few ways of laying out elements that are distinct from one another. If you’ve got a sequence of dates in your information, a timeline might be a good choice, or if you haven’t you could just show a process diagram . You might just want to lay out the elements in a two dimensional space , or play around with the proportions to make a three dimensional scene , to add focus in on some elements and put others in the background. A hierarchy arrangement can show how elements are ranked in layers, useful for organization diagrams , or you could use a mind-map style layout to show connections between one big idea and a few other ideas that are linked up to it, or to each other.

A few other options for showing how things relate to one another might be a cluster or Venn diagram , to show connections or intersections between ideas, a jigsaw if you’ve got a number of things that fit together to form a larger picture, or just to get the idea across that a couple of things are well-suited to one another, and if you’re talking about a causal relationship, where one thing directly affects another, a balance diagram might work well, or a sequence that shows a push-pull relationship between two things.

This is a fairly small selection of the types of layouts you could come up with to create a visual presentation or eLearning, and a lot of slides might use two or more of these at once in order to get a complex idea across. To work out which ones to go for, you’ll have to look at your information and think about how you’d explain it, the order you’d point to your key objects, and how those key objects are related to one another. Crucially, you also have to think about the overarching message that the slide is supposed to be getting across, which you established in steps 1 and 2.

Step 5: Create visuals

Now is the time to bring everything together. The individual key objects that you’ve got, with the layouts that show the relationships between them. Think about the order you want the story to be told, which will inform the layout of your visual slides, but also the sequence in which you’ll want to use the individual elements. And animations are a real help here, as they can pace the flow of information and ensure that you keep the audience focused on the right thing at the right time. They can also be a key part of actually telling the story, to make things happen, change elements, and emphasize the relationships between your key objects.

So if you’re introducing new ideas you can add things onto the slide. If you’re simplifying a diagram or removing things you don’t need, you can remove . You can make things grow , or shrink to show changing amounts, or changing importance, and you can make things move around to new locations. If you want to combine elements together you can merge them into one, or connect them together. You can highlight something that’s especially important, for your key message, and show something being passed along from one person to another, or data being transferred. You can also change something into something else, by replacing it.

Again, there are countless examples of these, and you’ll probably want to use a few of them for each slide, but this should give you a few good ideas of ways to move your key objects around, change the relationships, and end up with the right kind of visual punchline. These things can all be done with native PowerPoint animation (and check our animation articles  and masterclass schedule for a lesson on animation if you’re not already a master at it!).

Step 6: Design

What you should have now is an idea or sketch of everything that’s going to happen on your slide to tell the story. You ‘just’ need to bring it to life and share your ideas. That’s not always an easy task, but if you check out this post by my colleague Bethany on some practical tips to achieve good presentation design , this post on some of our favorite websites for free design resources , and this one on presentation design in general, you’ll have a good head start. And of course the various PowerPoint tutorials and master classes are a wealth of information to help you out.

And if you’d like to see some examples of presentations that we’ve developed using these ideas, and then created in PowerPoint, you can draw inspiration from our presentation portfolio , showing you that pretty much anything is possible in PowerPoint.

Richard Goring

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Presentation design principles for better PowerPoint design

• PowerPoint design / PowerPoint productivity
• Comments: 17

By applying some key principles of presentation design, you can make your PowerPoint design really standout and deliver both a more ‘popping’, but also more effective presentation.

How to print multiple slides on one page

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Thank you very much, you are helping me to understand how to produce presentations so my students will want to see and learn from.

Great Estrella, lovely to hear that it’s working so well.

Its really helpful, thanks for providing such informative data in a unique way.

Just came across this while searching for Colour-Vision-Deficient-friendly PowerPoint tips. Aside from giving excellent advice, it’s wild that you’ve got graphics of what looks like Coronavirus in an article from 2017 – did you know something we didn’t 🙂 ?

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A Short Guide To Making An Outstanding Visual Presentation

Using PowerPoint or any form of visual presentation is key to attracting potential business. A good picture or visual can attract and keep attention almost like nothing else. Keep reading to see how you can own these visual presentation skills.

The easiest exact procedure to follow to get your message through to your audience and have your brand stand out from the rest is to have amazing visual presentations.

Visual presentations will almost certainly lead to positive feedback and great responses from your audience. We’ve all been through one of those presentations that you wish would end already. So let’s learn how to avoid situations like that.

The purpose of a PowerPoint presentation is to, well, make your point powerfully . And how do you do that? By being visually compelling and, accordingly, making the viewing process enjoyable.

Why Are Visuals The Stepping Stone For An Impactful Presentation? 💁🏻‍♀️

So how can you make the most of your presentation 🗒, take away 💁🏻‍♂️.

Important disclosure: we're proud affiliates of some tools mentioned in this guide. If you click an affiliate link and subsequently make a purchase, we will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you (you pay nothing extra).

Visuals Are Attention-Grabbers 👀

We all know the saying— Show, don't tell.

It's a common mistake to include a lot of text in your presentation but rather include meaningful visuals (make sure the picture conditions are great to better the viewing experience) for a higher rate of participation in your presentation.

Carefully selected imagery is the key to engaging with your public. Sometimes, it's significantly easier to explain complex concepts through a short video or an infographic .

Overall, shorter presentation times can often lead to your audience understanding complex ideas, even if they have no prior background knowledge of the subject.

The normal viewing times of videos or presentations of your audience are decreasing day by day, which is why the visual display of your presentation is so important to keep their attention.

The pair of images that you choose to use isn't there to undermine your point. Their purpose is to make your audience attentive and to emphasize what you have to say.

Images Are Action-Inspiring 🙌

Using a visual display in your presentation will make your audience react. You can use them to raise awareness about a certain topic or to inspire your public to take a specific action.

More often than not, messages delivered visually receive a more powerful reaction and a higher rate of participation from people.

Is All That Text Necessary? 🧐

You can try to follow the 6 x 6 guidelines for one slide as a general rule. This means you should have a maximum of 6 key points, each with six words. This way, you can keep everything succinct, organized, and easy to understand.

Even when you're preparing an audio-visual presentation (which can be a better choice for people with learning difficulties), your focus should still be to keep the text short and sweet on each of the individual images.

Having no more than 140 characters on your slide will leave you with a lot of white space. This will make your presentation look more clean and organized. But also, it will help your audience focus on the key points you're trying to make.

Make sure that your background color combinations emphasize the key points and don't take attention away from them.

Use Straightforward And Precise Fonts 𝘼𝙖

While you might be tempted to break the mold with your presentation, fonts are not the place to do this. Try to use standard sans serif fonts, like Open Sans, Tahoma, Verdana .

These are easily recognizable and look good on the viewing window. Try not to use more than 2 or 3 different fonts in your presentation. The key to having an outstanding slide deck is organization and consistency.

Using too many different elements will distract and confuse your audience.

Any feedback activity from your audience will also result in this conclusion, and if your audience is confused, your rate of participation from the audience declines.

Say No To Poor Quality Images 🙅🏽‍♂️

Needless to say, high-quality images will make your presentation look professional . Try as much as possible to color-coordinate your visuals with the color scheme you’ve chosen for your slide deck.

Their purpose is to enhance and underline, not to overwhelm the slide, so make sure the picture conditions in your presentation are top-notch! Using binary image classification might also be a good idea to simplify complex concepts.

To avoid bad quality on your pair of images used in your presentation, make sure that your laptop display resolution agree with your presentation.

Another thing you should keep in mind: not using too many individual images . Generally, it’s good to try and use a single picture—or 2, if they’re relevant. Your presentation isn’t a photo album.

Use Contrast For Emphasis And Grabbing Attention 💁🏻‍♀️

You can use contrast cleverly in your presentation. First of all, it can help your message "pop" with a high-level contrast between your background and your text.

You can also add a bar of color behind your text —to make it more legible and bring it to the center of attention. Binary image classification is also a great way to emphasize the contrast between concepts.

Contrast can also be used to highlight your key points . Choose a color from your palette to emphasize important text on your slide. Make sure that your key points are a few times larger than the supplementary information given.

By making your key points a few times larger than supplementary info, you're creating contrast and thus pointing your viewers into the right direction of where to look, helping those with possible learning difficulties.

Nevertheless, it will lose its power if you use this trick too often. So use it wisely. Using an arrow symbol during your presentation will also emphasize the important points.

Limit Your Color Palette 👈🏽

Yes, rainbows are really pretty, but not in your presentation . Be mindful of what colors you choose and if they come together harmoniously.

There's no need to go overboard—you can grab attention without using complex textures or gradients. You can, for example, use a background of blocks to emphasize the message in front of it.

Even though it's tempting to make an art-inspired presentation, keep this for a more fitting audience and not for business proposals.

To choose the right colors for your presentation, you can use tools like Kuler or coolors.co . Using these can help you learn a bit about which colors go together and which ones don't.

Additionally, suppose you want to do this right. In that case, you can even look at an analysis of color theory to see how your palette can influence your audience's emotions.

Doing this avoids the risk of presenting a pair of images and evoking the wrong response from your audience.

Data Visualization Is Your Salvation 📊

Project management presentations or anything with a lot of numbers and data to present can be dreadful.

Luckily, you can use a lot of elements to make your life easier in your individual images — charts, graphs, radials , binary image classification, and more.

By doing this, you can simplify complex information or even a lot of information in a short period of time, even if the audience doesn't have prior background knowledge of the subject.

Shorter presentation times often work better for explaining complex ideas. Additionally, you can always look online for some free timeline templates to showcase progress or presumptions, or learn how to make your own timelines in PowerPoint.

The key is taking all the data and putting it into individual images that are easy to remember and understand.

Skip The Bullet Points 📝

Ideally, you should focus on a single idea for each slide. This means that instead of having five bullet points, you should have five slides focusing on each key point to do an in-depth analysis.

This way, you can make sure that people remember what you say, and your audience will be able to draw comparisons between the five slides. Also, bullet points are kind of old , aren’t they?

Surely, you can find more attractive ways to structure information within a slide. Try content boxes, bubbles, all sorts of frames—just don’t go overboard with your elements.

Mind The Visual Hierarchy 🎨

Even if you have no background knowledge in graphic design , you can still organize elements on your slide or picture, depending on their importance.

The purpose of this procedure is to let your audience know where their eyes should go first on each picture, and then second, and so forth.

You can do this by making use of size, the correct laptop display resolutions, white space between elements, or proximity between elements. Another smart thing to do is to use repetition to your advantage in your visual display.

Having only one element in your viewing window will make it pop—so your audience will know that is the main point. When your audience is viewing your presentation, they shouldn't wonder where to look on your PowerPoint.

Audio And Video Elements 🎙📹

Choosing tasks using video and audio elements can help you explain complex concepts so much easier. An audio-visual presentation is also a great way to create interaction with your public.

Using these gives you a break from talking and your audience a new point of focus. Embedding a video into a PowerPoint presentation is not hard if you decide to go this route.

However, make sure not to pick a 10-minute video, but rather use shorter presentation times.

You should use these items as a short, fresh breath of air—not let them have the presentation for you.

Additionally, make sure this content is relevant not only to your content but also to the audience— or you will lose their attention, as this is a big feedback influence.

What Do You Think About Interactivity? 👨🏾‍💻

No matter how good your presentation is, there is always going to be a low-energy moment . A good way to recover from this is to directly interact with your audience and strive for a high rate of participation.

For example, you can make them vote on subject comparisons, stand up for some reason, or conduct a short quiz.

To make this more interesting, you can add links to your presentation —either between slides, on the middle image of the presentation, or elements.

This way, when they choose and answer, something happens. Creating a unique slideshow can help you keep your audience attentive and create longer viewing times for your audience.

Transitions And Animations

You either love transitions, or you hate them. There’s no in-between. The safest route is to go all static and grab attention through colors, textures, and so forth.

This way, nobody gets distracted, and we all remember something at the end of your presentation.

However, if you want some pizzaz on your slides, you can use animations and transitions to become memorable.

However, keep them consistent and don’t get too excited . Not every element on your slide has to move. Use motion as an emphasis, not as a distraction.

Have An Interesting Cover Style 😍

The cover slide should be the one to grab your public’s attention and curiosity. It should say something about the subject but still be mysterious.

You can think of it as a movie trailer—you give people a taste of what’s to come, but without spoiling the whole thing. These slides are your chance to be creative and inventive. You can’t afford to be boring on this one.

Here, you should draw inspiration from an art-inspired presentation. However, as with any part of your art-inspired presentation — don’t go overboard.

Using too many elements or too many colors can put your whole slide deck in a bad light.

Reserve A Couple Of Slides At The End To Summarize Your Main Points

By doing this, you emphasize them and make sure that they will be remembered.

You don’t have to go through everything once more — just some keywords to jolt the memory of your public.

However, be careful. If your presentation is already quite lengthy— you might want to skip this one or make it short. If your speech is too long, the only thing your public will want is to escape and go home as fast as possible.

Accordingly, the attention span and the desired viewing times of the audience will be low.

It might sound easy, but building a visually compelling presentation is not that simple. There are a lot of factors and small details that can either make or break your whole work.

For example—using colors, but too many of them, a pair of images, but making sure the picture conditions are great, using the right type of font, but at the wrong sizes, and so forth.

However, if you check all the points made in the article—and maybe do a little research and analysis on your own , you’ll be just fine, and your feedback will surely be positive. Most rules are basic common sense for anyone who has seen a presentation before.

The most important thing here is to feel comfortable with your presentation in a way that it seems as though you have background knowledge on the subject.

If you’re happy about it—and passionate about the subject you’re talking about, then you can’t go wrong. Feelings are contagious, so your audience will sense your happiness.

If you find yourself pressed for time or lacking the necessary expertise to create a visually stunning presentation, you can explore options such as SketchBubble to access professionally designed PowerPoint templates that you can download.

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How to Create Stunning PowerPoint Visuals without Being a Designer

Published on: 02/05/2024

By Scott Winstead

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PowerPoint has always been one of my favorite instructional design tools . Like other instructional designers , I use it all the time when creating my courses , and I can tell you, there’s a lot that goes into creating a great PowerPoint presentation, whether it’s for an eLearning course, a school project, or even a work presentation. You need to have a strong and memorable message, compelling information, and, of course, great visuals.

The last part is where most people fall short. Unfortunately, it’s also the most important part. Your PowerPoint visuals are what people will remember most about your presentation, so you want to make sure they’re as effective as possible. If your graphics and images are low quality, generic, or just plain boring, your whole presentation will suffer and your message will get lost.

But don’t worry, I have good news — you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create great PowerPoint visuals. There are a few simple principles you can follow and free tools you can use to make sure your visuals support your message and help you deliver a more impactful presentation.

11 Tips for Taking Your PowerPoint Visuals to the Next Level

1. use powerpoint add-ins to create better graphics.

There are some excellent free and cheap  PowerPoint add-ins  and tools that can help you create better visuals without any design experience.

PowerPoint add-ins are plugins that add new features and functionality to PowerPoint.

There are all sorts of add-ins available, but for visuals, I recommend looking for ones that help you create charts and graphs, infographics, and other types of graphics.

My personal favorite PowerPoint add-in is Office Timeline , which helps you easily create professional timelines and Gantt charts right inside PowerPoint.

It has tons of professional templates and graphics that you can customize to fit your presentation perfectly.

But that’s just one example — there are loads of other great add-ins out there that can help you take your PowerPoint visuals to the next level.

2. Find high-quality stock images

A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. And that’s especially true when it comes to PowerPoint visuals.

Images can help you add emotion and personality to your presentation and make complex concepts easier to understand.

But not all images are created equal. When it comes to PowerPoint visuals, you want to make sure you’re using high-quality, professional images.

Low-quality images will drag down the overall quality of your presentation, so it’s important to be selective about which ones you use.

There are a few different ways to find great PowerPoint visuals.

You can buy professional stock photos, search for free stock photos, or create your own images.

If you’re going to use stock photos, I recommend spending a few bucks to get high-quality ones. They’ll make a big difference in the overall look and feel of your presentation.

3. Incorporate video and audio

Video and audio are powerful presentation tools that can help you engage your audience and deliver your message more effectively.

Adding video content or audio to your PowerPoint slides can help you add emotion, drama, and impact to your presentation.

And with today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to incorporate video and audio into your PowerPoint slides.

You can insert videos directly into PowerPoint slides or embed them from online video sites. You can even add YouTube videos to PowerPoint .

If you’re going to use video or audio in your presentation, make sure it’s high quality and relevant to your message.

Adding random videos or audio clips will only distract from your presentation and could make it harder for people to understand your message.

4. Use PowerPoint templates

PowerPoint templates are pre-designed slide decks that you can use as a starting point for your own presentations.

Templates can help you save time and create a more professional-looking presentation with minimal effort.

There are all sorts of PowerPoint templates available online, from simple designs to more complex, creative ones.

When choosing a template, make sure it’s compatible with the version of PowerPoint you’re using and that it matches the overall tone and style of your presentation.

5. Have a consistent color scheme

Color is a powerful design tool that you can use to make your PowerPoint visuals more effective.

The colors you use in your presentation should be consistent with your brand and the overall tone of your presentation.

And while you don’t need to use a lot of color, I’ve found that a few well-placed accent colors can really make your slides pop.

When choosing colors for your presentation, I recommend sticking to a limited color palette and use light and dark shades to create contrast.

If you’re not sure where to start, there are plenty of great resources that can help you create an effective color scheme for your presentation.

6. Don’t overcrowd your slides

One of the most common mistakes I see people make when creating PowerPoint visuals is cramming too much onto each slide.

This not only makes your slides look cluttered and unprofessional, but it can also make them difficult for your audience to understand.

When in doubt, less is more.

Don’t be afraid to leave some negative space on your slide so that it’s easy on the eyes.

And only include information that’s absolutely essential to your presentation.

If you have a lot of information that you want to include, consider breaking it up into multiple slides.

7. Use easy-to-read fonts

The font you use in your PowerPoint visuals can make a big difference in how easy they are to read.

When choosing a font, stick to simple, easy-to-read fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri.

And avoid using more than two different fonts in your presentation.

If you want to add some visual interest to your slides, you can experiment with different font sizes and colors.

But most importantly, make sure that the font you use is still easy to read.

8. Use the right kind of charts for your content

Simple, clear charts work better on PowerPoint presentations than detailed infographics.

When choosing charts for your presentation, make sure they’re easy to understand and that they effectively communicate the data you’re trying to present.

There are all sorts of different charts you can use in PowerPoint, from bar charts to line graphs to timelines (like those offered by Office Timeline ).

And if you’re not sure which type of chart to use to communicate your information, there are plenty of resources available online that can help you choose the right chart for your data.

9. Animate your slides sparingly

Animations and transition effects can be a great way to add visual interest to your PowerPoint visuals.

But if they’re used too often or in the wrong way, they can be distracting and make your slides look unprofessional.

When using animations and transitions, less is more.

And make sure that the animations you use are relevant to the content of your presentation.

For example, if you’re presenting data, using a transition effect to highlight important points could be effective.

But animating every element on your slide will likely just be confusing and distracting for your audience.

10. Change bulleted lists into visual elements

Bulleted lists are a great tool for quickly communicating key points, but you can jazz them up by turning them into visual elements.

Rather than just presenting your bullet points as plain text, you can use shapes, icons, and even photos to make them more visually appealing.

This is a great way to add some visual interest to your slides while still communicating the key points of your presentation.

11. Use the rule of thirds

When creating visuals for your PowerPoint presentation, I like to follow the rule of thirds.

This is a design principle that suggests that you should divide your slide into a grid with nine equal sections and align your content along these lines.

Doing this can help create balance and visual interest in your slides.

Final Thoughts

Creating PowerPoint visuals doesn’t have to be difficult—just follow these simple tips and you’ll be well on your way to creating visuals that are both informative and visually appealing.

Remember to keep your slides uncluttered, use high-quality images, and choose a color scheme that you’ll stick to throughout your presentation.

And don’t forget to take advantage of tools to create visuals that are both professional and eye-catching.

With just a little bit of effort, you can easily take your PowerPoint visuals from drab to fab, even if you’re not a designer!

Have any questions about improving the quality of your PowerPoint visuals? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

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Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, audiovisual presentations made easy(-ier): tips for creating an effective powerpoint, prezi, or keynote.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by E . Jonathan Arnett

At some point in your academic or professional life, you’ll have to stand in front of people and give a talk about a subject, and quite often, you’ll be asked to prepare visual materials to accompany your talk. You might prepare handouts, but odds are, you’ll be asked to prepare materials that you can project on a video screen.

The classic version of these projected materials is the overhead transparency, a thin sheet of clear plastic that you can run through a laser printer or write on with special markers; this medium is slowly disappearing, but it’s still around. Sometimes, you might be able to prepare paper documents and project them to a screen via a document camera, but doc cams aren’t entirely common, and they can only present static images. Instead, you’ll usually be asked to create a dynamic presentation using software such as PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote. Many other programs exist, including what Google has to offer, but these are the three most common presentation programs.

Each program has its own special abilities and strengths, but they all share common basic principles that you can manipulate to create memorable, effective, and interesting presentations. Here, you’ll learn basic principles to

• select an effective presentation format
• choose readable typefaces
• place visual elements onscreen
• choose colors
• select appropriate backgrounds
• choose visual and audio effects
• deliver a memorable, effective presentation 

Three Major Presentation Formats

You can choose from three basic type of format for a presentation based on PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote:

• bullet points
• illustrated points
• speaker’s prop

The format you choose should fit your audience and your presentation’s subject.

Bullet Points. The bullet point format is the default layout that most PowerPoint users and viewers are familiar with. Slides created in this format commonly include a title across the top and a cascading series of bulleted lines of text inside a slide’s main text box. An example of this kind of slide appears below, in Figure 1.

 Figure 1: PPT slide using bullet point format

Bullet point-format presentations have several benefits:

• They are easy to prepare. Just type, press Enter for a new line, and press Tab to create a smaller bullet or Shift+Tab to make a larger bullet.
• They are useful for highlighting important words or naming concepts that an audience needs to learn.
• They project a serious tone.

However, bullet-point format presentations also can be boring, and an overload of words will make your audience cringe. You have probably endured at least one bad PowerPoint in your life, and odds are, that bad presentation used the bullet point format.

Illustrated Points. The illustrated points format is similar, but slides created in this type of presentation focus on pictures, and text appears in a supporting role. An example of this kind of slide appears in Figure 2.

 Figure 2: PPT slide using illustrated points format

Illustrated points-format slides have several benefits: 

• They are excellent for showing conceptual relationships or demonstrating physical relationships between objects.
• People often respond positively to pictures, so illustrated points-format slides also tend to capture viewers’ interest more than all-text presentations do. 

These slides require more detailed preparation, though, and they tend to be more visually “busy,” so if your audience has problems concentrating, or if it’s vital that you highlight important words, you may want a more text-based approach.

 Illustrated points-format slides can also be combined with bullet point-format slides inside the same presentation. See Figure 3 for an example of a PowerPoint that includes both types of slide. 

Figure 3: Combination of bullet points (top) and illustrated points (bottom) slides in one PowerPoint

Speaker’s Prop. The speaker’s prop format is similar to the illustrated points format, but a speaker’s prop almost entirely consists of simple pictures that flash onscreen in rapid sequence. Any text that appears is usually very short, uses a large font, and only appears for a moment.

A speaker’s prop is appropriate for abstract subjects (e.g, the nature of free will), and if it is done well, it can be fascinating and will engage an audience.

However, this type of presentation is often more complex and time-consuming to prepare than a presentation in the other formats, and you run the risk of making it so entertaining that the audience may remember the presentation but forget what you said.

A well-done example of a speaker’s prop presentation appears in this video:

Figure 4: Screen capture of speaker’s prop presentation 

Whichever format you choose, remember that the presentation software is your servant; don’t let it tell you what to do. Always modify a template to suit your needs.

As an excellent example of what not to do, consider Peter Norvig’s classic Gettysburg PowerPoint: http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/ . It’s a satirical example of how an excellent speech—in this case, Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, widely considered one of the classic speeches in the English language—can be ruined by using presentation software default settings and following a built-in template without modifying it.

How to Choose a Typeface

When you create a presentation, make sure that the fonts you choose are 

• appropriate for the subject and audience
• readable from anywhere in the room
• compatible with the computer you’ll be using for the presentation 

Appropriateness. Each typeface projects a visual “personality” of some sort, and you should match the font with the audience and subject you’re addressing. For example, Comic Sans is a cheerful, happy-looking font and projects a somewhat childlike ethos; it’s a good match for an upbeat subject for a younger audience. In contrast, Times New Roman is a much more serious-looking font and would be appropriate for an older audience discussing a serious subject.

Readability. Not all fonts are equally readable, and you need to pick typefaces that allow your audience to read what’s onscreen from the back of the room. You should choose fonts that 

• have relatively tall lower-case letters
• don’t use extra-thick or extremely thin lines
• have large, open spaces inside the loops, and
• (for a serif font) have large, blunt serifs. 

See Figure 5 for examples of typefaces available in PowerPoint, and consider which fonts are most and least readable onscreen.

Figure 5: Examples of readable and unreadable font choices

Of these twelve fonts, the fonts that are most readable onscreen are Tahoma, Georgia, Trebuchet, and Verdana. In fact, Georgia and Verdana were designed for use onscreen. Of the rest, only Book Antiqua is workable, but the letters’ thin parts can be hard to see onscreen, particularly if the background isn’t a single flat color.

Sans-serif fonts are usually easier to read onscreen than serif fonts are, so consider using a serif font for headings and a sans-serif font for slides’ main text. Also, limit yourself to two fonts. If you use more, the screen will look very busy, and the visual clutter may distract your audience.

Most programs have built-in lists of fonts that you can use. For example, PowerPoint 2013 includes the list of combinations that appears in Figure 6.

 Figure 6: List of built-in font combinations in PowerPoint 2013

Here is a link to a brief YouTube video that demonstrates how to access PowerPoint’s built-in list of font combinations: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/812erramvb8lvjk/AADwNcH2rqBrl_FjJgcxL3gsa/PowerPoint%20built-in%20font%20combinations.mp4?dl=0 .

Feel free to use one of these combinations, but remember that just because they’re built-in doesn’t mean they’re well-chosen or appropriate for your needs. You should always consider changing the default settings.

Compatibility. Not every typeface is available on every operating system, so find out what kind of computer you’ll use while delivering the presentation and choose fonts that will work on that computer.

For example, Helvetica is available on Mac, but it is not available on Windows-based systems; the Windows equivalent to Helvetica is Arial. Thus, if you create a PowerPoint presentation on a PC and then open the file on a Mac, or vice versa, the fonts may not transfer over, and your PowerPoint’s appearance will change, often for the worse.

Here’s a link to a list of fonts shared by Mac and PC versions of Microsoft Office: .

How to Think about Layout

When you place text or pictures onscreen, make sure you 

• apply the CRAP design principles
• avoid clutter
• avoid text overload  

CRAP Principles. The CRAP design principles are Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. In brief, they work like this:

Contrast: If things aren’t in the same category, make them look very different (e.g., use different fonts for slide headings and main text).

Repetition: Make visual elements consistent throughout every slide (e.g., use consistent colors, callout shapes, font sizes, picture and text box locations, background images).

Alignment: Place things on the screen with a purpose. Don’t just plop images and text in random locations (e.g., equalize spaces between multiple pictures, consistently center or left-align text, line up bullets and numbers).

Proximity: Place related items close to each other (e.g., use a narrow space between a name and job title, a picture and its caption, a main bullet item and its related sub-bullet items).

(The CRAP acronym was invented by a graphic designer named Robin Williams [no, not that Robin Williams] and explained in her book The Non-Designer’s Design Book. If you’re interested in visual design, you might find it fascinating.)

When you design your PowerPoint, you should consider using the built-in Master Slide tool to make sure the visual design elements (e.g., fonts, colors, backgrounds, bulleted items’ alignment) follow the Repetition principle. Here is a link to a YouTube video demonstrating how this powerful function works:

Clutter. Keep your presentation’s design and contents relatively simple. 

• Include spaces between lines of text.
• Include spaces between images or other visual elements.
• Make sure that the text is readable.
• Use simple graphics.  

If you overload the screen, your audience will feel overwhelmed, and they won’t be able to follow your ideas.

For example, Figure 7 demonstrates a cluttered information graphic full of “chartjunk.” Its 3-D design is unnecessary, the forced perspective prevents the audience from seeing the towers’ actual heights, the callouts overlap, the towers’ transparency doesn’t provide any information for the viewer, and the beveled edges and shadows are distracting.

Figure 7: Cluttered infographic

Figure 8 shows the same data in a simple, clean infographic that an audience can follow.

 Figure 8: Uncluttered infographic

Similarly, avoid stuffing slides full of text and creating a “wall o’ words” like in Figure 9. Too much text makes a slide difficult to read and will intimidate your audience.

Figure 9: Wall o’ Words

Try to limit a bullet point-format slide to no more than seven bullets, with relatively short entries under each bullet. Of course, you can actually use as many bullets as you want, but only if you follow the CRAP principles very well. (See Figure 10 for an example of a slide that contains ten bulleted points but is still readable.)

Figure 10: Almost but not quite a “wall o’ words”

How to Choose Good Colors

Black-on-white presentations are easy to read, but they’re often very stark-looking, and your audience may not wish to stare at a bright white screen. Thus, you probably will want to use color in your presentation, and you need to choose your presentation’s colors carefully.

Contrast. Pick colors with high luminance contrast—in other words, one color should be much brighter than the other—so that your viewers will be able to read text quickly and with minimal eyestrain. Avoid extremely high color contrast, though, because extremes in color contrast can make text very hard to read. See Figure 11 for examples.

Figure 11: Examples of color and luminance combinations

Similarly, you probably want to avoid pure white text on a black screen; it’s OK for special cases, but for an entire presentation, it’s overwhelming. See Figure 12.

Figure 12: White-on-black slide design

Emotional Impact. Also consider the emotional effect of colors that you choose. The “cool” colors (darker green, blue-green, light blue, dark blue, blue-violet, purple) are calm and soothing, while the “warm” colors (red-violet, red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green) are stimulating. Choose colors that are appropriate for the subject and emotional impact of your presentation. See Figure 13 for an example.

Figure 13: Emotional effects of colors

How to Choose Appropriate Backgrounds

Always make your presentation’s background relate to its topic. PowerPoint, Prezi, and Keynote all allow you to choose from built-in or downloadable background “theme” templates; insert and customize solid colors, gradients, or patterns; or import your own image to use as a background for your presentation. You can use any of these options, but whatever option you choose, the background absolutely must mesh with the topic.

For example, if you are speaking about a computer-related subject, the “Organic” PowerPoint theme template would be a very poor choice. (See Figure 14.) It looks like a sheet of paper attached to a piece of wood by a ribbon, and its text uses a serif body font; there’s nothing about the template that suggests “computer technology.” The same theme template would look entirely appropriate for a food-related subject, though.

 Figure 14: Inappropriate and appropriate backgrounds

Also, consider whether the audience has seen the background before. There are only so many built-in theme templates, and chances are that your audience has seen the same background used for a different presentation or has used that same template themselves. In fact, if an event features multiple speakers, sometimes more than one presenter will use the same template, and the audience may get confused and not remember who said what. It is always a good idea to import your own image as a background or to customize templates to fit your needs. See Figure 15 for an example.

 Figure 15: Customized “Apex” template from MS PowerPoint 2010

This brief YouTube video demonstrates PowerPoint’s built-in slide designs and how to access and use its Format Background tool: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/812erramvb8lvjk/AADoikR7jSjHHObIwOKX1qCOa/PowerPoint%20built-in%20backgrounds.mp4?dl=0  

(As noted in the “How to Think About Layout” section, it would be a good idea to use the Master Slide tool when you customize backgrounds in order to make all the slides look uniform.)

Visual and Audio Effects

You can and should use between-slides transitions, within-slide animations, and sound effects, but don’t go overboard. Instead, use subtle effects, use them sparingly, and only use them to support your points.

Visual Effects. Transitions and animations can help you emphasize points, show connections between ideas, or simply capture your audience’s attention and prevent their eyes from glazing over. (See Figure 16 for a screenshot of the animations menu in PowerPoint 2013.)

Figure 16: Expanded list of animations available in PowerPoint 2013

However, if you overload your slideshow with visual effects, or if you choose splashy effects, you will likely encounter several problems:

• Your audience will pay more attention to the moving images than to the subject you’re talking about.
• Your audience won’t be able to tell if an effect means they should pay special attention or if it’s just another effect.
• Effects will take longer than you expect to finish running, or you’ll forget to cue them. You’ll then go silent as you wait for the animations to finish, and your audience will realize you screwed up.
• Effects will introduce a lighthearted note into your presentation and detract from your professional ethos or undermine a serious subject. 

Here is a link to a video that demonstrates how to use PowerPoint’s built-in Animation tool and Animation Pane:

These same cautions apply to Prezi, but Prezi has its own special problems. Instead of switching between slides, you set up a flat “canvas” on which you place text and images, and when you present your talk, Prezi’s camera traces a path between those elements and zooms in on them. (See Figure 17 for an example of paths in Prezi.) Thus, transitions and animations are part and parcel of Prezi, which means it’s doubly important that you control their intensity. 

• Prezi will let you place elements at peculiar angles and then “rotate” the camera to emphasize them. If you rotate the camera too frequently, you’ll make your audience seasick.
• You can locate text or images anywhere on the canvas and set up arbitrary motion paths between them. If you make the camera move long distances between elements, you’ll disorient your audience members.

Here is a link to a brief YouTube video demonstrating motion paths in Prezi:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/812erramvb8lvjk/AAC9SRhZy9v-CxNmAvQQtlf7a/Prezi%20sample.mp4?dl=0

Figure 17: Numbered sequence indicating a “path” in Prezi

Sound Effects. Audio cues have the same potential benefits and drawbacks as transitions and animations, but they also have several unique problems of their own: 

• Audio clips will sound distorted or tinny unless the computer you are using to present is connected to a good-quality sound system.
• If the audio clip is more than a few seconds long, you’ll need to shout to be heard over it.
• It’s almost impossible to talk over rock or hip-hop. Your voice just can’t compete with the backbeat.
• Music samples longer than a few seconds consume massive amounts of memory, and your file size will be huge.
• Song snippets may be so short that they’re unrecognizable.
• Nobody else likes your taste in music. 

In short, no matter what program you use, keep your presentation’s visual and audio effects relatively simple and use them to support your message. The effects should enhance the presentation; they shouldn’t be the presentation. 

Delivery Techniques

Your slideshow shouldn’t be the main focus of your talk. Instead, YOU and your message are the main focus, and the presentation should support your talk. Don’t hide behind the presentation or use it as a crutch.

Prepare Notes. Write down key phrases on notecards or, if you will have access to a speaker’s computer while you’re talking, the program’s Notes view. It’s not a good idea to write out a line-for-line script because if you read from a script, the presentation will sound stilted. The best presentations are thoroughly prepared but sound ad-libbed.

Whatever you do, DO NOT read every single word on the screen. Your audience members can read, and you’ll only annoy them. See Figure 18 for an example.

Figure 18: Example of Presenter View in PowerPoint

Practice. Run through your talk and slideshow before you stand in front of an audience. Start up the presentation, say what you intend to say out loud, advance the presentation to match your speech, and time yourself. If you don’t practice, your audience will know.

Face Your Audience. Turn your face toward the audience and make eye contact with them when you speak. If you do, the audience will be able to hear you, and they will be more likely to believe what you say.

When you create a PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote presentation, be sure to consider the principles discussed in this webtext. You now know how to

• choose an effective presentation format
• identify readable typefaces
• position visual elements onscreen
• pick appropriate colors
• choose relevant, useful backgrounds
• choose effective visual and audio effects
• present memorable, effective audiovisual materials

and you can create a successful presentation that will both capture your audience’s attention and provide the audience with clearly presented, easily-extracted information.

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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What is visual communication, and how can it revolutionize your workflow?

From emojis to GIFs and video calls to presentations, visuals have a strong influence on our everyday lives. But how can we use visual information as a communication process—and can this help productivity? Find the answers to these questions in this guide to visual communication.

In modern life, we’re surrounded by visuals—phone calls have been swapped for FaceTime and Zoom, social media is long past the days of text-only posts, and marketing has become increasingly reliant on images, videos, and illustrations to capture audiences’ attention.

These visual elements are also being adopted in communication strategies, particularly in the workplace. New digital technologies, such as screen capture tools for sharing information asynchronously , are harnessing the power of visual communication to help teams work in more flexible and productive ways.

In this article, we’re going to explain how you can use visual communication to improve team collaboration and streamline workflows. But first, let’s dive into the different types of visual communication and why visual information is so important.

What is visual communication?

Put simply, visual communication is the process of conveying meaning—be it ideas, instructions, data, or other kinds of information—through graphics rather than text or audio. For many, this is a more efficient and accessible way of sharing knowledge and adding context than written communication.

Visual communication can be achieved in a variety of different ways. Examples of visual communication include:

• Videos and photos
• Graphs, charts, infographics, and other types of data visualization
• Maps (such as mind maps and content maps)
• Illustrations and graphic design
• Slide decks and presentations
• Screen capture and recordings

These types of visual assets are commonly used in social media and content marketing, to communicate ideas and information where more text-heavy formats fail to make an impact.

Why is visual communication important?

According to research, 50% of people are visual learners , and prefer visual content to learn information more effectively. This means that visual communication doesn’t just matter in the workplace—it’s beneficial for wider society as well.

Presenting information visually allows you to convey your message with more impact than text can achieve. A visual communication strategy should be an essential part of your business activities—especially your content marketing .

Visual elements are crucial in the content creation process. On certain social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, text content simply doesn’t have the same impact as images and videos.

According to research, our collective attention span is narrowing and the always-on nature of digital life presents all kinds of distractions. Visual communication helps you cut through the noise and get your message across through high-quality, memorable content.

These aren’t the only reasons why visual communication is important. This form of communication:

• Attracts attention and boosts engagement
• Evokes stronger emotions from your target audience
• Improves information recall
• Saves time, as information is relayed faster and more efficiently
• Solidifies brand identity, ensuring a shared experience and a unified message

How visual communication can improve your workflow

It can be difficult to connect teams working remotely —and often it seems easier to set up a quick meeting over a video call to collaborate on ideas or discuss projects. But any virtual-first worker will tell you that video meetings can sometimes actually waste time rather than improve productivity.

With an effective visual communication strategy, you can reduce unnecessary meetings . The use of visual elements and visual aids enables you to relay complex information—such as instructions for using certain tools, or the specifics of a new project—in a more focused, engaging, and digestible way. In turn, this helps to streamline your workflows and simplifies any decision-making processes.

Because there are so many different types of visual communication, you can get creative with how you share information and collaborate with clients and colleagues. With innovative new technologies, you’re no longer restricted to pie charts and presentations for creating and sharing a visual message. 

In fact, visual communication can benefit your business in all kinds of ways:

• Make the employee onboarding process quicker and more efficient with narrated screen captures in Dropbox Capture
• Use Capture to create GIFs that explain organization systems, programs, and training tools
• Take screenshots of ideas and sources of inspiration to share with your team and refer back to when it’s time to use them
• Host async meetings to keep workflows on track and avoid wasting time in unnecessary or unfocused meetings!
• Tools like Dropbox Replay help you give clearer feedback, as you can pinpoint specific points of improvement in videos using on-screen markups

Tips for implementing visual communication in the workplace

The best visual communication strategy for your team will depend on a few different things, including the team size and goals. To facilitate this process and make the most of the benefits of visual communication, there is a range of things you can do.

Consistency is key

Firstly, you’ll need to be consistent with the styling and branding of your visual assets—and not just for external resources such as marketing materials. Value quality over quantity, so that everything you produce achieves its potential impact. Create templates , video tutorials, and brand guidelines, and ensure everyone on your team knows where these are stored and how to use them when creating visual elements. 

Don’t forget narrative

Additionally, you’ll want to consider your storytelling strategies and how you can weave narrative into the visual materials you create. For both internal and external communications, this will come down to knowing your audience. It may be beneficial to build audience personas in collaborative tools like Dropbox Paper , to guide your strategy for customer-facing content.

Prioritize ease of use and accessibility

Introducing software that is too complicated to use could discourage your team members from adopting visual communication into their day-to-day work. Make sure you only use collaborative tools that are accessible to everyone—this includes how you organize your visual assets. 

With Dropbox Capture , you can create screenshots, GIFs, or simple videos recorded right on your screen. Your creations will be saved to your Dropbox account , where you can easily share them with your colleagues to watch or review on their own time. 

Create team folders for templates, training videos, meeting minutes, and other communications, so that everyone in your team has access to the visual materials they need when they need them.

Harness the power of visual storytelling

With Dropbox Capture , you can clearly say what you mean without scheduling anything. Replace lengthy emails and meetings, streamline your onboarding and support processes, and walk through ideas, proposals, tutorials, and projects in a way that gives everyone the complete picture.

Say more, meet less.

Try Dropbox Capture