Power Point Design

What Clients Who Need PowerPoint Presentations Tell Me

Janet — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:08:36 +0000

In the last few years since I’ve been designing PowerPoint templates and presentations a common theme seems to repeat itself. The potential client calls or emails me and says “I have a presentation to put together but I can’t do PowerPoint.” And they say it in such as self-effacing way, as though they should apologize for not knowing the software. This seems to go with our attitude in today’s business world that we should be able to do everything. It’s not realistic.
It also makes me chuckle when I think of this scenario played out in other professions. You wouldn’t think to tell your doctor that you need a diagnosis because you’re not good at medical stuff. You also wouldn’t apologize to your plumber because you haven’t quite mastered the tools to fix a leaky faucet. If you’re determined to learn PowerPoint, I can tell you that it’s not hard. One resource I still refer to occasionally is a site called Lynda.com which has step-by-step tutorials in PowerPoint, as well as tons of other kinds of software. And there are search features on the site, so if you know the program fairly well, but run into a little snag, you can get help on specific features. You also need to realize that PowerPoint is just a tool. You can learn how to make all the bullet points red and all the headlines 36 point type, but the tricky stuff is making your presentation compelling, or as I like to say, “not look like PowerPoint.” That’s the thing that takes practice. What I would suggest for that is going online and looking at presentations other companies have done. If you see something that grabs your attention, you may be able to imitate certain aspects of it such as colors, types of graphics or imagery. It’s what I do constantly to expand my thinking and keep things fresh.

All I need is a PowerPoint Template

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:52:03 +0000

This is a line I’ve heard more than once. There are people who think that the purpose of a PowerPoint is to make the information they’ve written look organized and professional, which in turn makes a good presentation. Well, they are partly right. Most intelligent people expect to get information in a logical and orderly way. If they’re reading the newspaper, they want a directory on the first page, pointing them to their favorite sections. If they’re online, they want to know where to click without getting confused. The same holds true if they’re sitting through a PowerPoint Presentation. They expect it to look neat. If the headlines jump around from one slide to the next, that’s not neat, it’s annoying. If one slide contains charts that are shades of blue, and the next slide has charts that are simply outlined in black, that’s not neat, it’s distracting. We think, why does this now look different? And then we lose our train of thought. And that’s not what you want to have happen during a PowerPoint Presentation. So, to sum up, a PowerPoint Template is a good thing, because it sets up order. However, it’s doesn’t insure that your content will be engaging. For example, the slide below started with a template, which dictated that headlines would always be white and centered on a red bar with a shadow under it. The template also positioned the logo on the lower right and page number on the lower left. A standard template might feature all the key points in bulleted text but we wanted to kick things up a notch by finding just the right photo to represent two colleagues at Hodge Partners. The photo also needed a clean area to the right where the text could be superimposed. It’s easy to see how this would make you look at it longer than a template full of bullet points. And that kind of finessing will make a presentation go from neat and organized to engaging.

Creating a color scheme around a logo in PowerPoint

admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:15:26 +0000

I have put up a YouTube video explaining one of the easiest ways of assigning a color palette to a PowerPoint presentation. PowerPoint comes loaded with a wide variety of color schemes, and many of them would work fine if you were starting with a completely blank slate. However, most presentations have a company logo that needs to be featured prominently on all the slides. And well established companies may have a corporate palette, which means their color scheme is pretty well set. However, if the logo is the only element you have to dictate color, there’s an easy way to use those exact colors to customize charts, graphs or any artwork you create for the PowerPoint template. The example I use on the YouTube video demonstrates an exercise using a three-color logo (blue, green and yellow). That doesn’t mean you need to stop there with your color palette. You can match the colors exactly, as shown in the video, or you can vary the colors by turning them into gradated colors. For example, a bar chart using a dark blue from the logo might look even cooler if the bar had a subtle gradation to it; say 100% blue on one end of the bar and 50% blue on the other end. You could also create a gradation using two of the colors from the logo, such as blue and green. As one color merges into the other, a third color is created in the middle that is a beautiful shade of aqua. And because it’s part of the same logo-color family, chances are it will blend in very well with the rest of the presentation.You can view the YouTube video by clicking on the link that follows. Designing A Color Scheme Around A Logo

How to Work with a Professional PowerPoint Designer

admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:08:03 +0000

In the almost three years since I’ve been designing PowerPoint templates and presentations, I’ve had a wide variety of clients. And going along with that has been a unique set of working styles and relationships. Some clients like to begin with a phone call to set up the nature of their business and the type of presentation they’d like to create. This usually gives me the opportunity to ask questions, such as who is your audience and what would you like to have happen at the end of the presentation. Do you want to make a sale; do you need to get investors? Etc. Most clients have that in mind, but you’d be surprised at the PowerPoint drafts I’ve seen that have ended leaving you hanging. Sure there’s a logo and phone number, but the call to action is sometimes missing in action (if I may make a lame joke). So the first step before handing off your ppt to a designer is to have your rough presentation in a logical order with a title at the beginning, and a call to action at the end.

Now let’s talk about look and feel. Designers love creative input, at least I do. I recently worked on a project in which I had very little creative input. So never being thrown by a “blank slate” I proceeded to give the presentation a visual richness using lots of colors, textures, big words, and pictures. Stage I of the ppt was presented and I was very happy. My client, however, was, shall we say, quiet. The small amount of feedback was related to the copy (which I didn’t write) but not the look and feel. So I proceeded with Stage II with the same look and feel. Once again, the feedback was understated. And then finally, I received from my client another presentation he had seen and liked. It had a stark white background and minimal pictures. He said he loved the clean look of it. If I had seen this at the start, it would have given me a clue as to my client’s taste. And it would have saved a lot of time, money and frustration. As a designer, I know that not everyone is visually oriented, so I would never blame anyone for not supplying visual references. But for those people who are visual and like to share pictures, color swatches, favorite fonts, doodles, or whatever, they should know that their ideas are more welcome than they may realize. Especially when you end up with a great PowerPoint presentation that you can both take full credit for.

Video About Creating Cool PowerPoint Charts

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:35:11 +0000

PowerPoint has chart and graph options that allow you to churn out some pretty competent looking graphics. While these look professional enough, wouldn’t it be even better to tie your graphics in with whatever business is being talked about in your presentation? For example, a PowerPoint geared toward the restaurant business could have a pie chart superimposed on a dinner plate. The palette of colors can even be one that we associate with fresh or savory foods. When you think about it, the sky’s the limit when it comes to doctoring up a boring graphic with some cool photography as well as relevant color schemes. For example, a bar chart can be made up of candy bars, if that makes sense with your subject matter and your audience. If you’re a snack company, there’s no point settling for a serious looking bar chart that a company like a financial institution might use. And how about a rich chocolate brown for that catchy headline? I really believe that if there’s a logical meaning behind your design decisions, the design will hold up better than if things are just done to look “pretty”. I’ve posted a video on YouTube which takes you through the step-by-step process of creating a custom chart to work with your PowerPoint template or theme. So the next time you need to come up with a PowerPoint graphic that’s out of the box, think about some objects in your every day life. Think about fun things like some strings of brightly colored yarn to symbolize sales grown in a new Knitting Store. Or stalks of celery in various lengths to illustrate the growth in vegetable drinks orders. One Way To Create A Cool Custom Chart

Inserting a movie behind text in PowerPoint

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:56:59 +0000

Once in awhile when I get a break from doing PowerPoint presentations for clients, I’ll sit down and do one for myself. Imagine that! No, I’m not a glutton for punishment. It’s just that an idea will pop into my head about a certain effect or animation, and I’ll decide to give it a try. On this particular day, I stumbled across some old black and white Laurel and Hardy clips. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this comedic team, they were known for their zany slapstick humor during the late 1920s to the mid-1940s. Presentations these days are full of high tech images and flashy graphics. Sometimes it’s refreshing to think about visual entertainment and how far we’ve come. So I thought it would be fun to put one of these old clips into a PowerPoint slide, say on the history of the Hollywood movie industry. I titled this first slide “Old Movies” and I thought, the “O” in the word Old has a whole in the middle. Wouldn’t it be neat to put the movie clip inside the hole? But movies are rectangular, are they not? Well, sure, but if the movie is behind the O and the corners are covered up by the letter, then you can actually get rounded corners, just like the old fashioned tv screens from the early days of television. The idea worked like a charm. I got such a kick out of this little exercise that I wanted to share it with others on YouTube. You can click on the link below to view the video.Adding video behind word in PowerPoint

Bringing PowerPoint Charts to Life with Animation

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:27:21 +0000

PowerPoint comes equipped with so many chart and graph options that what was once considered graphic “bells and whistles” is now ubiquitous. Just like you would not expect a good PowerPoint design to have an overused and highly recognizable PowerPoint template, you also would not want to see the same old tired charts, unless there was a way to give them new life. That’s where PowerPoint animation comes in. In my opinion, animation is most effective when the movement created has meaning. In other words, it should reinforce whatever concept your graphic is illustrating, such as growth, loss, expansion, etc. For example, in a simple 2D column chart, you can reinforce upward growth by using the “wipe up” entrance effect to have your columns literally draw themselves up from the base. For a horizontal bar chart, you can also use the “wipe” animation, only this time chose “from left” under “effect options” to show growth from left to right. Don’t forget to check out all the options under the Chart Animations dialog box. Here you can indicate whether you’d like the movement to be by series, element, or category. There’s even a use for some of the less conventional effects. For example, a pie chart that bounced would seem silly and meaningless, unless the “pie” represented tennis ball sales in different parts of the country. Now you have a tie in with the subject matter giving the bouncing-ball movement a reason to be there. Some of the effects I would avoid are Exit Effects such as Blinds or Checkerboard. To me, they seem very hokey, and I have yet to run into any instance where these random movements could add value to any PowerPoint presentation.

A PowerPoint Before and After for CES

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:29:19 +0000

I recently got a call on a Sunday from a company who had what I would call a PowerPoint emergency. They were scheduled on a flight to the annual Computer Electronics Show (CES) the following day armed with a PowerPoint presentation that reflected poorly on them. The main problems were a follows: a bland PowerPoint template with colors and patterns that did nothing to complement the company branding, poor and bitmapped graphics that were pulled from the web and haphazardly placed, and extraneous bullet points, distracting the reader from key messaging. I agreed to take on the project and recommended a start-up phone call. However, all parties involved were to be on a flight early the next morning. So my direction was simply “make the PowerPoint look more professional.” In other words, fix it and email it to us at the show in Las Vegas. The example below shows some of the typical slides shown before on the left, and new and improved on the right.

PowerPoint support free? You’re kidding, right?

admin — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:20:40 +0000

No I’m not kidding, I actually do provide free PowerPoint help to anyone who seriously needs it. It doesn’t matter if you are a client, a prospective client, or someone who is just stuck on something.

In fact, I was honored recently to receive an inquiry for help from Tom Peters. Tom, as many of you know, wrote what is perhaps the most widely read business and management book of the last 30 years: “In Search of Excellence”.
Tom writes and lectures throughout the U.S., and he has an incredibly inspiring set of videos on YouTube. At any rate, Tom Peter’s office contacted me because they had heard that I offer technical support. Although Tom creates all of his own Power Point presentations, it turned out that he wanted to talk to a Power Point designer just to go over a number of long-standing questions. We met over coffee and croissants and over an hour or so I answered a whole series of PowerPoint questions. It was great fun for me and great working together to clear up some questions.

An easy way to improve your charts and graphs

admin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:03:51 +0000

We’ve all sat though PowerPoint presentations with charts and graphs that
look about as creative as Microsoft can make them, in other words, not creative at all. And many people think they do the job just fine. After all, a bar chart is a bar chart, no matter what kind of business you’re creating it for, right? Well, not necessarily. Something like the ubiquitous bar chart can be taken a step further by tying it in to the services you’re selling or the business you’re representing. The chart below was created for a corporate recruiting firm. One could argue that the statistics alone were compelling enough but putting faces behind the numbers helps us to relate on a deeper level. Each face represents success, repeat business and diversity and seeing statistics personified in this way makes them far more memorable.