6 tips to design profession

by Theoria Creative

Do you use PowerPoint for corporate presentations? Are you wondering how to design professional PowerPoint presentations? In this article we will reveal 6 creative tips to design professional PowerPoint presentations. In this article we will reveal 6 creative tips to design professional PowerPoint presentations.

1. Choose Presentation Theme. A theme is a coordinated set of fonts, colors, and graphic effects that you can apply to your document. Themes were introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 to help you create the right look for your presentations. As good as it sounds, in professional design you want to avoid pre-sets and templates as it limits your creative freedom. Start with the plain theme and white background. Select “Office Theme” in the PowerPoint Ribbon (at the top of your screen):

When your first presentation deck is set, you can then save the PowerPoint file as a Design Template (.pot) and the new template will appear among your standard Microsoft templates for your future use.

2. Customize Font Theme. The right font can make or break your presentation. Consider simple, readable fonts. Remember that too thin or condensed fonts will be hard to read on the screen. Whimsical and artsy fonts are only useful for accents and for more informal presentation.

Most companies purchase licensed fonts to use with their marketing materials. If you don’t have in-house fonts already, you can browse for fonts online or borrow free fonts from dafont.com. Sans Serif fonts are usually best for on-screen presentations, but simple Serif font can work as well. Look for font families that have at least 3-4 font variations (regular, italic, and bold). Don’t use more than 2 font families in one presentation.

When font is chosen, the next step is to add it to your PowerPoint presentation. Every new slide in PowerPoint defaults to Arial font, unless you indicate another font theme – your own.If PowerPoint gives you an option of creating a new theme font from the Theme ribbon (see the screenshot below) you can follow this Microsoft PowerPoint tutorial .

Sometimes mentioned above option is not available. In this case we will create a PowerPoint Theme Font file.

A. Copy a theme font xml file. Download PowerPoint Theme Font file or find where it is located on your computer:- search for “office 2.xml” in the applications folder OR- go to: Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Media/Office Themes/Theme Fonts/Office 2.xml

Open this file in any text editing application (i.e. TextWrangler, Komodo, TextEdit, etc.)

B. Make two simple edits:- replace Calibri to desired font name in the line:

- replace Cambria with desired font name in the line:

C. Save As. Make sure to save this file Save As to preserve the original file. Place or Save As this new theme font file to:[your username]/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Themes/Theme Fonts

Now when you open PowerPoint you will see your custom Font Theme available:

3. Set Custom Colors. PowerPoint allows you to create custom color themes that will automatically apply to your slides, just like font themes we discussed previously.

While font themes are very helpful in keeping your presentation consistent, color themes add limitations. Not all of your slides should have the same colors. Sometimes it is good to have contrast. If you decide to use theme for colors you can follow this handy instructions from Microsoft PowerPoint help center .

I want to talk about an option that allows you some freedom, while keeping colors consistent through your presentation.

A. Create color thumbnails. Take your brand color palette (or colors you intend to use in the presentation) and create small thumbnail files (preferably in png). Use Photoshop or any image editing application with color palette option. I created thumbnail files from the brand color palette and placed them all in one folder:

B. Add colors to PowerPoint presentation palette. Go to any coloring tool in PowerPoint and select More Colors from the drop down menu:

Under the Image Palettes, select New from File as shown on the screenshot below:

Navigate to the folder with your color thumbs and select the color you want. It is now added to your PowerPoint color palette:

4. Use Slide Master. It will make your work with PowerPoint so much easier! Go to View – Master – Slide Master to access it. This is the place to set various page layouts, add footer text, pagination, background images and logo. Later, when creating your slides, they will refer to your Slide Master and have your text, logo and background images lined-up throughout presentation. Learn more about PowerPoint Slide Master from Microsoft PowerPoint help center .

5. Create custom bullets. Now, when we have custom fonts and color palette, we can enhance PowerPoint presentation with custom bullets.

A. Add bullets. Go to Format Text window (i.e. Format –> Bullets and Numbering, or right-click on the selected Text –> Bullets and Numbering). In the custom bullet section, there are some pre-sets and 2 options for bullets from Character and bullets from Picture:

B. Bullets from Character allow you to browse available character selection. You can add selected characters to Favorites and have quick access to them later. Double click on the character you choose and it will appear on the slide.Go back to Format Text window and modify color and size of your custom bullet:

C. Bullets from Picture allow you to navigate to the folder and choose an image you have prepared. A good choice for a custom bullet from picture is an element from your logo. Keep in mind that it is better to use png files with transparency for this. The file size should be small.

6. Add contrast. Consistency in fonts and colors is the key to a professional-looking presentation. I’ve advised to keep your freedom from PowerPoint pre-sets and now it is time to use it. To make your presentation visually fresh, use revert contrast in slides from time to time. Let’s say your slides are mainly dark text on bright background. Occasionally use dark background with bright text. It will wake-up your audience and help them concentrate on the slides again. See how our team did that in a corporate PowerPoint presentation for one of our clients.

For more professional presentation design ideas, check our PowerPoint presentations work.