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Ditch your boring presentations!
Let’s be real; presentations receive a bad rep for a good reason; they’re boring, long-winded, and most often a hot mess. Who would want to waste their time watching an-hour long presentation that fails to send the message and does anything else but support the speech?
You may have the misconception you have to be a professional designer to make captivating slideshow presentations. But you cannot be further from the truth. A little research can help you switch from distracting, cluttered, and boring presentations to sleek, eye-catching, and informative slides.
It’s essential to stick to a couple of tips and rules if you aim to create a professional and compelling presentation your public loves. Slideshow presentations still remain popular, and you should maximise your skills to nail your job next time you’re up in front of your audience.
Use layouts to create an eye-catching flow
If you’re aiming for a traditional look, you set the images one by one. However, when you try to achieve an interesting flow for your presentation, use various layouts to achieve a movement effect. Different layouts enable you to build a narrative with your presentation and drive interest.
Picking the right images is an impactful way to encourage the public to experience your presentation, so be extra careful when choosing them. Pay attention to the details! Mix pulled back with close-up photos to create a balance and give the viewers space to breathe. This method also allows show-stopper pictures to have a big punch and make an impression.
Rely on strong pacing to convey the desired emotion
You can use presentations to experiment with storytelling and play with the pace and format in a way that enables you to share the message you want. There’s no recipe to tell you how to nail the technique; you must try several methods and pick the one that builds the most interest for your audience.
To build strong pacing, you need to create a well-organised structure. Use the first images to hook your public, and set the theme and tone with a linear story. The following pictures should build up to a climax and then slowly lead to a conclusion. Presentations allow you to play with linear and nonlinear storytelling techniques to figure out which one works best for your public.
Say goodbye to the stock template
If you want to kill your presentation, use the slide themes included in the software. They’re surefire to shut off your audience’s interest. People hate them because they’re kinda ugly, boring, and overused. How many times have you seen them used in slideshow presentations? If you can easily recognise a template, skip it and look for something else. Create a cleaner presentation by building each slide from scratch. Imagine the presentation is your blank canvas, and you paint on it to create something new and unique.
No sentences
Think about the slides in your presentation as visual and simple note cards that should help you capture your audience’s attention and reinforce the main ideas of your speech. But keep in mind they’re not complete thoughts; your viewers shouldn’t read your ideas from the slide but hear them from you. As the speaker, your role is to deliver most of the information and content of the presentation but write it down in a slide for your public to read it. If you do it, expect them to ignore the blocks of text and focus on whatever distraction lays around. Also, if your public decides to read your presentation instead of listening to your speech, you lose their attention and therefore your message is far from effective.
Instead of sentences, use keywords and headlines to convey your message.
Match the presentation’s energy with music
Everyone loves music, and when it comes to slideshow presentations, it’s the thread that holds them together. Pro editors use royalty free slideshow music to convey their messages and capture and retain the public’s attention. Therefore, choose the tunes with intention. Remember that your brand is more than the images you use; it’s the spine and heart that tells you the kind of visual and audio content you should add to your presentations.
Each music genre evokes a different emotion, so decide what kind of reaction you expect from your audience. For a cinematic effect, go with something moodier. Use something upbeat if you want to instil some energy into your presentation.
Make vertical presentations for mobile
Nowadays, slideshow presentations are also used outside the conference room. When you share them on social media or upload them on your website, to ensure they are optimised for mobile view. Create vertical slide shows to ensure your audience enjoys watching them on their mobile devices. Internet users are more inclined to watch social media stories before browsing their feeds for content, so a vertical format is the best way to capture their attention. A vertical video would take their entire screen and put your content on the centre stage.
When you create presentations for social media, keep in mind the following:
- IG Stories have a 15-second limit, but you can also upload longer videos if you want to share more info.
- IGTV allows at least 1-minute-long videos. The ideal format for IGTV is 9:16. Pick a cover photo for the presentation, add a title and description, and pair it with an inspiration tune.
- Tik Tok allows under 1-minute videos at a 9:16 ratio.
- IG Reels promote videos of 30 seconds or less and allow you to add a caption to the video.
Pick simple colours
Simple light and dark colours are the best choices for slideshow presentations. Don’t use exceptionally bright hues because they can cause eye fatigue and overwhelm your audience. Light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background works best. When creating presentations on behalf of a brand, use its colours to align with its style and identity. Here are some colour combinations that work great for slide presentations.
Ready to start?
You already know that slideshow presentations are great tools to capture your public’s attention. Now you also know how to design them to impress everyone.
