The golden rule for design these days is consistency. Achieving design consistency can be tricky whether this is your first deck or your 50th. Having a deck that flows seamlessly from one slide to the other without boring the audience takes a keen eye. Working from a template can be helpful, but it’s important to keep in mind a few tips for maintaining consistency throughout your deck.
Choose theme words as your guide
Pick a few important theme words in your presentation to help your listener track with the flow of the pitch. For example, if I’m presenting a food delivery service and my words are punctual, precise and personable, I would build the deck around those words. Introducing them in the beginning helps structure your pitch, then breaking out one slide for punctual, one for precise, and one for personable will give your audience something to look forward to.
You can also develop recognizable icons to use throughout your presentation that represent these theme words. Maybe the icon for punctual is a clock, precise is a ruler, and personable is a smiley face. Maintaining consistency in your core messaging will ease your listeners into your idea while familiarizing them with your brand. While keeping your audience on their toes is a great presentation technique, your audience needs predictability in content as much as design.
Blank space does not always need to be filled
As impactful as words can be, sometimes the absence of them speaks louder. Remember that the next time you want to cram multiple ideas on one slide. There’s no harm in breaking out ideas on to separate slides—how hard is it to click the space bar to get to the next slide? A cluttered slide is overwhelming, frustrating, and boring. Use your negative space wisely and let that guide your design elements. A neat and tidy deck will have slides that are simple and clean. Adding something just because there is space to do so is not always the wisest approach. Consider how you can leverage each slide for maximum effect and minimize the elements. You have more control over the consistency of your deck the less that is on each screen.
Step away from the computer
A great way to see if you’ve achieved consistency in your deck is to take a step back. Go to slide sorter view in PowerPoint and see if any of your slides stand out too prominently. Then, go slide by slide and physically get up out of your chair and click through the deck in presentation mode. This way you can catch if any design element is too small or too large. Whether the deck is designed to be presented or sent ahead, it can always benefit from a high level viewpoint.
Ethos3 has consistently supported our clients through every step of the journey with presentation design. Feeling stuck? We’re here for you!
