Creating a Professional Powerpoint Presentation to Compliment Your Next Speech

Presentations from any type of application adds visual emphasis to speeches and presentations. On the other hand, a bad presentation can do just the opposite. Slides with cluttered, confusing designs and too much text can irritate and confuse your audience.

Compose Slides

  • Keep designs simple and clean, so it doesn’t distract the audience from the main message.
  • Decide on a simple and easy to read font style.
  • Carefully decide on a font size for your headers in relation to the text size.
  • Leave room on slides for highlights or messages your audiences can easily come away with.
  • Keep decorations minimal but professional.
  • Limit the space your design layout takes up so to not restrict your original message.
  • Try to keep your font sizes large so they’re easy to read. 24 point font size is recommended, but if you must go smaller 18 is the absolute minimum. And of course, use good judgement. Not all font sizes will be exactly the same, what might be big in Arial may not be so in Times New Roman.

Be Consistent

  • Use the same layout, text, and colors throughout the entire presentation. Too much randomness and diversity in your presentation can distract the audience.

Colors

Poor color combination choices can break a presentation. When deciding on what colors go well together, use a site like ColorBlender to put together a color palette to best suit your needs.

Use Contrast

Black text on a white background will always be the best choice, but also the most boring. If you want to play with colors be sure to settle on something that can be easily read and looked at. You don’t want your audience straining to see what you’ve written on your slides. A simple, well organized color palette can hold your audiences attention and make the whole power point more interesting to look at.

Apply Brilliance

  • Carefully and smartly choose text colors to highlight and bring emphasis to your messages. It may not seem like much, but the phrase “Stop!” has much more power and emphasis when written in red text than it would if it were the same color as the rest of the text. Use this tool to highlight and emphasize important words, phrases, and key points in your presentation.
  • However, don’t weaken the color message by using too much in conjunction with each other. A little will go a long way, so use colored text sparingly.

Remember K.I.S.S

Follow these simple guidelines; Keep It Straight and Simple.

  • Keywords only.
  • Avoid long winded sentences and explanations.
  • Avoid just reading from your slides, talk freely and naturally.

Your slides are only there to highlight the important points of your speech, not replace it or speak for you. If you just read word for word from the slides slowly and mechanically, your audience will get bored and stop listening.

Take Home Message

Remember to always include a take home message in your presentation. The message should be a concise summary of your whole speech. Make sure it’s a highlight that stands out.

Images

Remember your audience has eyes and ears, include some relevant images to catch your audience attention and give them something to study while listening to your speech.

  • Try to have more images than text.
  • Do not use images to decorate your slides.
  • Images should reinforce or compliment your intended message.

Keep It Professional

Avoid the use of silly animations, effects, and gags. Things like that can take away from the seriousness of your presentation and give your audience the feeling that you aren’t passionate enough about your topic.

When giving any sort of presentation, remember to speak clearly and with confidence, but not too fast. Know your slides and be well versed on your topic. And most importantly, maintain eye contact with your audience. When you turn back from viewing a slide look an audience member in the eyes but don’t focus on them too long, rotate around or look at the audience as a whole. These tips and tricks will ensure your presentation is a successful one that will thoroughly get your point across and stick with your audience. If you would like to know more about powerpoint presentations, feel free to visit our website.

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