PowerPoint presentations are a powerful tool for your work life. Whether you're giving a presentation to your team or a talk to the student body of your university, they help add visuals to illustrate your point and further engage your audience. In fact, their use is so popular "presentation design" is one of the most in-demand freelancer skills for 2023, according to work marketplace Upwork.
But while there's plenty of advice and even online courses about how to write a good report, PowerPoints can be a bit more abstract — and even require artistic flare.
Courtney Allen has been designing PowerPoints professionally since 2013. In fact, when she got her BFA in graphic design from Boise State University, her senior portfolio "was all PowerPoint," she says. She knew there was a future in designing them; now she's made more than 1,000 and brought in $2 million creating them on Upwork.
When it comes to tips on creating a compelling PowerPoints, Allen has three.
'Reduce the content'
Allen's first tip for anyone diving in is to cut down your words per slide.
"The PowerPoint should just be a visual guide to what you're saying," she says. "If you put too much text on the slides, one, it's not readable and, two, it's just distracting from actually listening to you and the message."
"Reduce the content," she says.
Focus on 'being an effective storyteller'
Allen works on various types of presentations, among them pitch decks. "Investors only look at a pitch deck for about two to three minutes," she says. Regardless of how long you'll have to win people over, "it's really all about being an effective storyteller," she says.
For her, this means knowing the audience and not adding any "superfluous design or images that don't relate to the story and don't resonate with who you're speaking to," she says. If you're designing a presentation for doctors in their 50s, she says as an example, pick images and design elements that speak to that group — people in that age group, activities relevant to them, etc.
It's less about "your personal design preferences and more designing to who you're talking to."
'Develop your presentation based on your delivery'
Finally, consider how you'll be delivering your presentation and build it accordingly.
For people building PowerPoints to present to an audience, Allen recommends using a dark background with light text. "It's easier for people who are farther back in the audience to be able to see the text," she says. "The contrast is a lot better." Make sure to use fonts big enough for them to see as well and to keep the text high on the page.
If you're emailing your presentation as a PDF, she says, "you're able to sneak in a little more text" because people are expected to read those, she says. PDFs don't support animation, so you'll want to avoid that, and make sure you're using fonts that everyone's tech supports.
Finally, for presentations over video calls, you'll have more freedom, she says. You can use animation, just remember not to make slides too complex because sometimes there's a lag or stuttering over calls and a simple message will be easier for people to see and comprehend. She suggests doing a test call to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Ultimately, "develop your presentation based on your delivery," she says.
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