A Beginner’s Guide To Presentation Design [+15 Stunning Templates]

A Beginner’s Guide To Presentation Design [+15 Stunning Templates]

Table of Contents

  • What Is Presentation Design? 

What Is the Significance of Presentation Design?

Understanding various forms of presentations.

  • 10 Tips to Create a Compelling Presentation Design 

5 Inspirational Presentation Design Trends

  • 15 Best Presentation Design Templates to Consider 
  • Key Takeaways 
  • Conclusion 

Once you’ve mapped out your presentation, it’s time to tackle the intimidating task of creating a visually stunning presentation design . Creating an excellent presentation design becomes simpler by learning and adhering to fundamental presentation design standards. Here is a presentation design guide to creating an engaging and well-designed presentation,  regardless of the kind of project you are putting together. 

What Is Presentation Design?

Presentation design focuses on the visual facet of your presentation to captivate your audience. An outstanding presentation design may significantly impact your target audience, whether it is investors, employees, collaborators, or potential customers. The design must ideally complement the material of your presentation to help get your views across and convince your audience.

Creating a presentation for the first time to present in a professional setting or to a large audience might feel challenging. This guide to presentation design will walk you through the elements required for building a visually appealing presentation. 

presentation design elements

A presentation is much more than just a layout of slides with text and graphics on them. You need to make sure it’s visually appealing too. It is mainly because visuals are much more engaging than written words in your presentation slides. Presentation design is crucial because it allows you to combine your ideas, narrative, graphics, facts, and statistics into one cohesive tale that drives your audience to the decision you desire.

A robust presentation design may unlock doors you never imagined could be opened. An effective design is much simpler to understand and earns a lot of credibility for your brand. You can communicate your message effectively, encourage your audience to take subsequent actions, and get them to engage with what you’re saying with excellent presentation design.

You have the potential to communicate your point of view, create a brand identity, and get your audience to see and hear you loud and clear when you build a presentation with impeccable design. The material of your presentation is crucial to your project’s success, but a poor design may divert the listener’s attention (and not for a good reason). Don’t let a lousy presentation design force you to lose out on a huge business opportunity.

Creating a winning presentation design involves combining design components to produce slides that will neither bore nor exhaust your audience. Instead, it will engage and inspire them effectively. So, instead of creating a lousy presentation using shoddy designs, it is significant to master the fundamentals of creating the best presentation design.

Presentations may be used for several purposes and can come in different forms. A quarterly sales presentation with your team will not be the same as a presentation focused on employee training. 

In the first scenario, you’ll strive to advance your team to achieve targeted sales growth. In the second, you’ll focus on imparting essential knowledge and skills to your employees. Looking at some of the most prevalent presentation types can give you a better idea about presentation design and when to begin constructing your own.

1. Investor pitch presentation

Using facts to convince rather than enlighten is the primary goal of this presentation style, as indicated by the name. If you’re a startup or a small firm looking for investment, you’ll need to use this form of presentation to your advantage. An investor pitch presentation will be required when you’re explaining your company’s user acquisition growth rate to prospective investors. Such presentations are created using the classic pitch deck concept to make the perfect, thoroughly professional pitch.

2. Educational presentations

Educational presentations are sometimes misunderstood as informative presentations since they are designed to teach viewers new skills and educate them on a new subject. You may need to produce a presentation for a school for various reasons, such as presenting an idea or providing an academic report.

Academic and corporate training programs often employ this presentation format. A video tutorial with comments and suitable themes may be added to the slides to improve them. Educators are always looking for new and unique methods to provide engaging and enthralling presentations for their students. Using an educational presentation template may guarantee that your presentation is visually appealing as well as easily comprehensible.

3. Webinar presentations

Webinar presentations are the newest craze, and they’re a win-win for presenters and the audience alike. A webinar refers to an online presentation, but unlike a video posted elsewhere, the webinar takes place in real-time and with the active participation of the audience. There are several themes and settings for which webinar presentations might be utilized. 

Short surveys, quizzes, and Q&A sessions let participants feel more involved in the webinar. Most commonly, a webinar is meant to disseminate information, but it may also act as a marketing tool, a source of leads, or a way to generate new sales and sign-ups.

4. Report presentations

A report presentation is intended to offer the necessary information to those engaged in a process or project. Report presentations are critical in ensuring these stakeholders that the procedures that must be followed for the project’s completion are effectively planned and executed. Sample reports are also accessible to these stakeholders. 

A report presentation may take numerous forms, such as a business report or an infographic. Reports on sales and marketing performance, website statistics, income, or any other data that your team or supervisors wish to know about can be presented during the report presentation.

5. Sales presentations

Sales presentations are often the initial phase in the sales cycle, and are, therefore,  critical. A sales presentation, often known as a sales pitch deck, is a form of presentation you would need to provide a prospective customer or client with when pitching a product or service.

Not every sales presentation is designed to close a deal right away. The goal might be to pique the curiosity of the people concerned. Sales presentations often include your company’s unique selling proposition (USP), product price points, and testimonials. Your sales presentation must be engaging and successful in influencing potential customers, using a well-thought-out approach.

6. Inspirational presentations

An inspiring presentation is a standard tool used by managers, team leaders, motivational speakers, and business owners to stimulate and encourage their audience. Inspirational presentations are essential to influencing others and achieving your individual and business goals. 

To get a desirable result from this kind of presentation, elicit an emotional response from the audience and motivate them to act. Using a presentation template that has been professionally developed provides you with an advantage over others. 

7. Keynote presentations

Keynote presentations are given in front of a larger audience. A good example can be those shown at TED Talks and other conferences. While the presenter gives the entire speech, there are advantages to using slides, such as keeping an audience engaged and on track.

10 Tips to Create a Compelling Presentation Design

If your presentation is lousy, you might come across as unprepared, uninterested, and lacking any credibility. A well-designed presentation makes you appear reliable and competent. Here are some fantastic points to help you develop the best presentation design.

1. Outline your content and fine-tune the message

It’s crucial to prepare your content and fine-tune your main message before you begin developing your presentation. Try to figure out what your target audience wants to know, what they may already know, and what will keep them engaged. Then, when you create your presentation’s content, keep those things in mind and furnish designs accordingly. It is vital to remember the key takeaway of each deck you create.

Too much information shown on a single slide is difficult for most viewers to comprehend. Make sure you don’t overwhelm your viewers; each presentation slide should include no more than one key point. Make your information as brief as possible, yet make it detailed enough and valuable.

2. Use more visuals and less text in your decks

Your audience recalls information considerably better when images complement it because they can better understand visual features than simple text. Presenters that employ images instead of words get more favorable feedback from their audience than those who rely only on text.

presentation design elements

Using visual examples in slide decks increases audience engagement, encourages more questions, and registers your message in the minds of your audience. Remove any unnecessary text from your slides and replace it with visuals that will engage your audience.

You may use various methods for adding images, but the most common is using your data’s visual representation. It’s important to note that adding visuals does not mean sprinkling fancy images and symbols across your slides. Relevant images and iconography are a must.

3. Limit the use of fonts and colors

It is vital to pay attention to color schemes and other design components, such as fonts, to ensure your presentation succeeds. Although it may be thrilling to employ as many fonts and colors as possible, the best presentation design practices imply that you should only use two or three colors overall. Also, make sure the content in your slides is of a different font than the headers.

When it comes to color schemes, certain combinations work better than others. When choosing colors, keep in mind that they should not detract from the message you want to convey. Add an accent color to one or two of your primary hues for a cohesive look. It’s critical that the colors you choose complement one another and communicate your purpose effectively. Headers should be in one typeface, while body content should be in another. Add a third font for the accents, if you’d like. 

4. Create a visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is an important consideration when including text in a presentation. Visual hierarchy is one of the most significant but underappreciated presentation design principles. Color, size, contrast, alignment, and other aspects of your slide’s elements should all depend on their value.

When creating a visual hierarchy, you must clearly understand the story and its structure. Your audience’s attention should be drawn to the most critical components first, then to the second-most essential aspects, and so on. When creating your presentation, think about the story you want to tell and the visual hierarchy you need to support it. If you do this, the essential ideas you wish to convey will not be lost on your audience. 

5. Incorporate powerful visuals

It is important to use visual aids to make a compelling presentation: think images, icons, graphics, films, graphs, and charts. You should also ensure your slides’ aesthetics accurately portray the text they contain. Alternatively, if you don’t have words on the slide, make sure the visuals mirror the words you’re saying in your speech.

Visual aids should enhance your presentation. In addition, you’ll want to ensure that your slide has some form of visual representation so that you’re not just dumping a bunch of text onto a slide.

6. Avoid using bullet points

These days, any excellent presentation design instruction would encourage you to avoid bullet points as much as possible. They’re dull and old-fashioned, and there are more effective methods to display your material. 

A slide consisting of icons, images, and infographics is more exciting and conversational than one written in list form. Using bullet points for each slide’s primary theme is a standard PowerPoint design recommendation that you should refrain from while designing your presentation.  

7. In group presentations, segregate slides by theme

While making a group presentation, finding an appropriate balance of who should be demonstrating which presentation segment is often challenging. Arranging a group presentation by topic is the most natural technique to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak, without the presentation becoming incoherent. Your group presentation should be divided into sections based on the subject.

Prepare your presentation ahead of time so that everyone understands when it’s their turn to talk. It’s up to each person in the group to pick one thing to talk about when they give this presentation to investors or potential customers. For instance, the business model slide may be addressed by one person, while another can discuss the marketing approach.

8. Maintain consistency

Consistency is essential when you work on the design of your presentation. Your presentation is still one presentation, no matter how many slides it has. Design elements, color schemes, and similar illustrations can all be used to achieve design consistency.

Although some of the slides in your presentation may appear to be styled differently than the others, the overall presentation must be held together by a single color scheme. To ensure that your viewers don’t lose track of what you’re saying, make sure each of your slides is visually connected.

9. Emphasize important points

It is pertinent to use shapes, colorful fonts, and figures pointing to your material. They help emphasize vital information to make it stand out. This not only keeps the reader’s attention on the page but also makes your design more streamlined. Emphasizing the point you’re trying to put across with visual elements makes it easier for your audience to grasp what you’re saying.

10. Integrate data visualization

Consider utilizing a chart or data visualization to drive your argument home, especially if you have vital figures or trends you want your audience to remember. This might be a bar graph or a pie chart that displays various data points, a percentage indication, or an essential value pictogram. 

Confident public speaking mixed with good visuals may greatly influence your audience, inspiring them to take action. The use of design features makes it simpler for your audience to grasp and recall both complex and fundamental data and statistics, and the presentation becomes much more enjoyable too. 

Even though trends come and go, effective presentation design paired with some inspiration to get you started will always be in style. Think about what’s current in the world of graphic design before you create a staggering presentation deck for a creative proposal or a business report. To help you better, we’ve come up with a list of the most popular presentation design concepts. 

1. Dark backdrops with neon colors

While white backgrounds have long dominated web design, the advent of “dark mode” is gradually altering that. Designers may use dark mode to play with contrast and make creative things stand out.

presentation design elements

This is a great way to get your audience’s attention and keep them interested in what you have to say. The key is to pick one or two bright colors and utilize them as highlights against a dark backdrop, rather than using an abundance of them.                                                                                            

2. Monochromatic color schemes

In recent years, color schemes originating from one base hue, such as monochromatic color schemes, have been given a subdued pastel makeover. The usage of monochromatic color schemes in presentation design is always seen as clean and professional. It’s ideal for pitch decks and presentations since monochrome is generally utilized to assist people in concentrating on the text and message, rather than the colors inside a design.

3. Easy-to-understand data analysis

The fundamentals of data visualization should be restored. In other words, even the most complicated measurements may be made easy to grasp via effective design. Designers, marketers, and presenters are generating snackable stats in the same way infographics have found a place on visual-first social networks.

Create a dynamic proposal or presentation with the help of an infographic template that is easy to use. You can create distinctive slides with animations and transitions to explain your point more effectively. With the help of templates, you can convert your data into bar graphs, bar charts, and bubbles that represent your idea simply, guaranteeing that every data point is simple to comprehend.

4. Straightforward minimalism

Minimalism is a design trend that will probably never go out of style. It has always been a show-stopper. Each slide should offer just enough information to let the reader comprehend what’s going on. You should use a color palette that isn’t distracting. Your simple presentation will enthrall your audience if you boldly highlight your most significant points and use trendy fonts.

5. Geometric structures

There’s a good reason why designers are so fond of geometric patterns, 3D objects, and asymmetrical layouts. They’re basic yet stunning, making them perfect for times you want to make a lasting impression with the information you’re sharing. 

More cutting-edge components, such as 3D shapes and floating objects, are used in presentation graphics these days. Go for a presentation template that contains editable slides that enable you to easily add your visuals and material to brighten your presentation. 

15 Best Presentation Design Templates to Consider

In the case of presentation designs, you should never sacrifice quality. Ideally, you should have a design that improves your brand’s image, amplifies your message, and enables you to deliver various content forms efficiently. 

The problem is, it’s pretty challenging to locate premade themes and templates of this merit. We’ve made it easy for you by putting together a list of the best 15 presentation design templates out there. These presentation design suggestions are a great place to start.  

1. Business plan presentation template

This is a crucial business presentation template with a significant emphasis on visualizations and graphics. To create a business strategy, you need this presentation template. It consists of several crucial elements, such as a mind map, infographics, and bar graphics. Replace the placeholder text with your own to complete the presentation.

presentation design elements

2. Pitch deck template

Startups seeking financing require a clean and eye-catching pitch deck design to impress investors. You may use it to present significant aspects and achievements of your company to investors. You can include slides for mockups, testimonials, business data like statistics, and case studies.

presentation design elements

The pitch deck presentation template is excellent for your next client pitch, as it allows you to pick from a range of different startup tales to showcase the most crucial features of your firm.

3. Brand guidelines presentation template

Creating a bespoke presentation talking about the company dos and don’ts may be a terrific approach to discuss your brand rules with your team and stakeholders. You can easily show off your brand’s typeface and color schemes using this presentation template.

presentation design elements

4. Marketing plan presentation template

Marketing is a vast concept, and the slides included in this design stock set reflect that broadness. A well-executed marketing strategy is essential to the success of any team. A marketing plan presentation template should ideally include slides for charts, timelines, and competition research. You can create executive summaries or mission statements with the below-mentioned presentation’s elegant and minimalistic slides.

presentation design elements

5. Keynote presentation template

This keynote template has a lovely color scheme that is equal parts captivating and professional. You can employ a keynote presentation template if you’re going to be a keynote speaker at an upcoming event and want to ensure that your design stands out.

presentation design elements

In addition to several slides, the template comes with various predefined color schemes. This template is perfect for any business presentation requiring a well-designed layout.

6. Training manual presentation template

A training manual presentation template may be used to convey new hire training to your workforce. It is essential for the design to be as clean and straightforward as possible.

presentation design elements

These training material decks created with a predesigned template make it easy for new employees to learn the ins and outs of their jobs. 

7. Case study presentation template

A case study is an excellent way to illustrate a point in your presentation. The best way to attract new consumers using a case study presentation is to show them how your existing customers are using your product or service. Make sure to highlight how your product solved their pain points.

presentation design elements

8. Interactive brief presentation template

It’s common to provide a creative brief when working with a contractor, freelancer, or designer to ensure everyone involved understands what the final product should look like.

presentation design elements

An interactive presentation template like a creative brief is a terrific concept for absorbing and memorizing that information.

9. Workforce handbook presentation template

When hiring a new employee, your company needs to create an employee handbook to ensure they know the company’s objective and general working norms. You may connect this presentation to your intranet or website, or just distribute the digital version through a password-protected or private link.

presentation design elements

10. Ignite presentation template

Using this template as a starting point for an Ignite presentation would be ideal. An Ignite presentation is a five-minute presentation consisting of 20 slides, compelling the speaker to speak fast and concisely. As a result, an Ignite presentation template prevents you from using too much text on any slide. 

presentation design elements

11. Informative presentation template

The need to create an educational presentation may arise due to several reasons, such as onboarding new hires, explaining a concept to students, and more. An informative presentation template is a suitable solution in all cases.

Regardless of who they are meant for, presentations are the optimal format for sharing information with any audience. Create an educational presentation that you can embed in a blog post or publish on several platforms online. Make presentations to provide knowledge at conferences and other meetings.

presentation design elements

12. SWOT analysis presentation template

A strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is a valuable tool for gauging where your business stands, and how your strategic planning measures are paying off. This presentation template is an excellent tool for SWOT analysis or refining your marketing strategy.

presentation design elements

It comes in several formats; circular design and hexagonal shapes being two of them. You may modify the colors as desired.

13. Competitor analysis presentation template

Knowing your competition and what they offer is essential for a successful business. Competitor analysis means researching your competitors’ key strengths and weaknesses, which can, eventually, help you define your goals and USPs more clearly. 

presentation design elements

There are built-in interactive elements in this competitor analysis presentation template, which can help hook your audience. 

14. Bold presentation template

Ideal for non-corporate sales presentations, a bold and daring presentation template includes slides with a vibrant, attention-grabbing theme that is neither overbearing nor distracting. The color combination is striking without being oppressive.

presentation design elements

15. Company overview template

Creative presentation templates are all the rage today. Using a lot of negative space will allow your audience to take a breath and direct their attention to the most crucial parts of your presentation. It is suitable for corporate presentations, since it doesn’t stick out more than is necessary.

presentation design elements

Key Takeaways

  • Audiences tend to forget a large percentage of what was addressed before the presentation is through. This is why it is important to create a presentation design that is memorable.
  • A presentation is much more than just a layout of slides with text and graphics on them. You need to make sure it’s visually appealing too. 
  • Use a wide range of best presentation design tools, components, and styles until you discover the one that resonates with your target audience. 
  • Consider the most recent trends and best practices, and dedicate time to thoroughly crafting every presentation.
  • Fine-tuning your message, avoiding the use of bullet points, incorporating visual hierarchy, and incorporating data visualization are a few design tips to create a winning presentation. 

Both your presentation style and design are crucial. You can deliver more dynamic, memorable presentations by creating visually pleasing decks. It’s advisable to create a resourceful presentation design if you want to elevate your personal as well as professional credibility.

Take cues from some popular presentation templates, and enhance one little aspect at a time. Now is the time to practice everything you’ve learned in this presentation design guide. As with any other visual communication, creating the best presentation design requires time, effort, and patience. Never be afraid to try something new; you’ll quickly see the benefits a strong presentation can have on your project.

A presentation design puts ideas, tales, words, and pictures into a series of slides that convey a narrative and engage your audience.

A presentation design template is used to achieve a uniform look for your slides. Templates are pre-made presentations into which you may insert your data.

People remember images and words better than just words. The design of your slides should be simple and consistent. This way, your audience will focus on the most important points.

Use high-quality images to back your message, but don’t use too many special effects. Make sure you don’t read from your slides.

A well-presented, memorable introduction and conclusion are two essential parts of a presentation. Don’t forget them when you write your outline.

Presentation design is essential, because it helps you weave your ideas, narrative, images, facts, and statistics into a unified story that leads your audience to the choice you want them to make.

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Presentation design guide: tips, examples, and templates

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Anete Ezera January 09, 2023

Presentation design defines how your content will be received and remembered. It’s responsible for that crucial first impression and sets the tone for your presentation before you’ve even introduced the topic . It’s also what holds your presentation together and guides the viewer through it. That’s why visually appealing, easily understandable, and memorable presentation design is what you should be striving for. But how can you create a visually striking presentation without an eye for design? Creating a visually appealing presentation can be challenging without prior knowledge of design or helpful tools. 

With this presentation design guide accompanied by Prezi presentation examples , templates , and AI functionalities , you’ll have no problem creating stunning and impactful presentations that’ll wow your audience.

a man working on his laptop

In this guide, we’ll start by looking at the basics of presentation design. We’ll provide a simple guide on creating a presentation from scratch and offer helpful tips for different presentation types . In addition, you’ll discover how to organize information into a logical order and present it in a way that resonates with listeners. Finally, we’ll share tips and tricks to create an eye-catching presentation, and showcase some great presentation examples and templates you can get inspired by!

With our comprehensive guide to the best presentation design techniques, you’ll be able to develop an engaging and professional presentation that gets results!

What is presentation design?

Presentation design encompasses a variety of elements that make up the overall feel and look of the presentation. It’s a combination of certain elements, like text, font, color, background, imagery, and animations. 

Presentation design focuses on finding ways to make the presentation more visually appealing and easy to process, as it is often an important tool for communicating a message. It involves using design principles like color, hierarchy, white space, contrast, and visual flow to create an effective communication piece.

Mind map idea from Prezi AI

Creating an effective presentation design is important for delivering your message efficiently and leaving a memorable impact on your audience. Most of all, you want your presentation design to support your topic and make it easier to understand and digest. A great presentation design guides the viewer through your presentation and highlights its essential aspects. 

If you’re interested in learning more about presentation design and its best practices , watch the following video and get practical insights on designing your next presentation:

Types of presentations

When creating a presentation design, you have to keep in mind several types of presentations that shape the initial design you want to have. Depending on your presentation type, you’ll want to match it with a fitting presentation design.

1. Informative

An informative presentation provides the audience with facts and data to educate them on a certain subject matter. This could be done through visual aids such as graphs, diagrams, and charts. In an informative presentation, you want to highlight data visualizations and make them more engaging with interactive features or animations. On Prezi Design, you can create different engaging data visualizations from line charts to interactive maps to showcase your data.

2. Instructive

Instructive presentations teach the audience something new. Whether it’s about science, business strategies, or culture, this type of presentation is meant to help people gain knowledge and understand a topic better. 

With a focus on transmitting knowledge, your presentation design should incorporate a variety of visuals and easy-to-understand data visualizations. Most people are visual learners, so you’ll benefit from swapping text-based slides for more visually rich content.

presentation design guide to design presentations

3. Motivational

Motivational presentations try to inspire the audience by giving examples of successful projects, stories, or experiences. This type of presentation is often used in marketing or promotional events because it seeks to get the audience inspired and engaged with a product or service. That’s why the presentation design needs to capture and hold the attention of your audience using a variety of animations and visuals. Go beyond plain images – include videos for a more immersive experience.

4. Persuasive

Persuasive presentations are designed to sway an audience with arguments that lead to an actionable decision (i.e., buy the product). Audiences learn facts and figures relevant to the point being made and explore possible solutions based on evidence provided during the speech or presentation.

In a persuasive presentation design, you need to capture your audience’s attention right away with compelling statistics wrapped up in interactive and engaging data visualizations. Also, the design needs to look and feel dynamic with smooth transitions and fitting visuals, like images, stickers, and GIFs.

persuasive presentation design

To learn more about different types of presentations and how to structure them accordingly, read our article on presentation types .

How to design a presentation

When you first open a blank presentation page, you might need some inspiration to start creating your design. For this reason, we created a simple guide that’ll help you make your own presentation from scratch without headaches.

1. Opt for a motion-based presentation

You can make an outstanding presentation using Prezi Present, a software program that lets you create interactive presentations that capture your viewer’s attention. Prezi’s zooming feature allows you to add movement to your presentation and create smooth transitions. Prezi’s non-linear format allows you to jump between topics instead of flipping through slides, so your presentation feels more like a conversation than a speech. A motion-based presentation will elevate your content and ideas, and make it a much more engaging viewing experience for your audience.

Watch this video to learn how to make a Prezi presentation:

2. Create a structure & start writing content

Confidence is key in presenting. You can feel more confident going into your presentation if you structure your thoughts and plan what you will say. To do that, first, choose the purpose of your presentation before you structure it. There are four main types of presentations: informative, instructive, motivational, and persuasive. Think about the end goal of your presentation – what do you want your audience to do when you finish your presentation – and structure it accordingly.

Next, start writing the content of your presentation (script). We recommend using a storytelling framework, which will enable you to present a conflict and show what could be possible. In addition to creating compelling narratives for persuasive presentations, this framework is also effective for other types of presentations.

A close-up of a female entrepreneur using laptop for business and finances to work with personal data. She is utilizing AI, A.I., and ML technologies in daily life to enhance her working routine. Embracing the futuristic union of human and technology and meeting presentation deadlines.

Tip: Keep your audience in mind. If you’re presenting a data-driven report to someone new to the field or from a different department, don’t use a lot of technical jargon if you don’t know their knowledge base and/or point of view.

3. Research & analyze 

Knowing your topic inside and out will make you feel more confident going into your presentation. That’s why it’s important to take the time to understand your topic fully. In return, you’ll be able to answer questions on the fly and get yourself back on track even if you forget what you were going to say when presenting. In case you have extra time at the end of your presentation, you can also provide more information for your audience and really showcase your expertise. For comprehensive research, turn to the internet, and library, and reach out to experts if possible.

woman doing an online research

4. Get to design

Keeping your audience engaged and interested in your topic depends on the design of your presentation.

Now that you’ve done your research and have a proper presentation structure in place, it’s time to visualize it.

4.1. Presentation design layout

What you want to do is use your presentation structure as a presentation design layout. Apply the structure to how you want to tell your story and think about how each point will lead to the next one. Now you can either choose to use one of Prezi’s pre-designed templates that resemble your presentation structure the most or start to add topics on your canvas as you go. 

Tip: When adding content, visualize the relation between topics by using visual hierarchy – hide smaller topics within larger themes or use the zooming feature to zoom in and out of supplementary topics or details that connect to the larger story you’re telling.

4.2. Color scheme

Now it’s time to choose your color scheme to give a certain look and feel to your presentation. Make sure to use contrasting colors to clearly separate text from the background, and use a maximum of 2 to 3 dominating colors to avoid an overwhelming presentation design.

Storyboard Example – Water Cycle Project

4.2. Content (visuals + text)

Add content that you want to highlight in your presentation. Select from a wide range of images, stickers, GIFs, videos, data visualizations, and more from the content library, or upload your own. To provide more context, add short-format text, like bullet points or headlines that spotlight the major themes, topics, and ideas in your presentation. 

Also, here you’ll want to make a final decision on your font choice. Select a font that’s easy to read and goes well with your brand and topic.

presentation design tips

Tip: Be careful not to turn your presentation into a script. Only display text that holds significant value – expand on the ideas when presenting. 

4.3. Transitions

Last but not least, bring your presentation design to life by adding smooth, attractive, and engaging transitions that take the viewer from one topic to another without disrupting the narrative. 

On Prezi, you can choose from a range of transitions that take you into the story world and provide an immersive presentation experience for your audience.

5. Practice your delivery 

Even with a great presentation design, how you deliver it is crucial in leaving an impression. Practice your presentation’s timing to become familiar with the rhythm and pace. It might help to record yourself to pinpoint areas for enhancement. Practicing in front of a friend or family member can also offer insights. Keep in mind the more you rehearse, the more self-assured and at ease you’ll be when giving the presentation.

6. Engage your audience 

Engaging with your audience can enhance the impact of your presentation. You could prompt discussions, invite participation, or incorporate features such as surveys or puzzles. For instance, when introducing a marketing plan you could kick off with a survey to assess how well the audience grasps the subject. This boosts interactivity in your presentation and also fosters a connection with your listeners and sustains their interest throughout.

presentation design elements

7. Use storytelling techniques

Using stories can be a way to captivate your audience and ensure that your message sticks with them. When creating a presentation, consider incorporating a narrative structure that incorporates a beginning, middle, and end. For example, when outlining a business strategy, kick off with a story that highlights a challenge in need of resolution. Then delve into your proposed solution before illustrating the results that can be achieved. This storytelling approach can foster a connection with your audience and enhance their grasp of the main ideas you’re conveying.

8. Prepare for technical difficulties

It’s common to encounter glitches, so being ready is key. Make sure you have a strategy in place if things go south during your presentation. For instance, store your presentation on devices like a USB drive and online storage, and keep hard copies of important slides handy. Also, get acquainted with the equipment and software you’ll use for the presentation. Planning ahead for any issues can help you navigate them smoothly and maintain the flow of your presentation.

9. Include high-quality visuals

Good visuals play a role in the success of your presentation. Incorporate top-notch pictures, graphics,3 and videos to ensure your slides are visually captivating and interesting. Steer clear of using low-quality images that may come off as pixelated and amateurish. When presenting data, think about using charts or infographics to present the information clearly. Prezi provides access to a selection of high-quality visuals that can elevate the design impact of your presentation.

10. Be unique

It’s crucial to make sure your design is original to set yourself apart from the crowd. If you’re a student, aim to craft a presentation that showcases your flair and avoid imitating others. This approach helps you differentiate yourself and ensures that your work is more memorable. In the business field, make sure that your design elements, such as colors, fonts, and overall aesthetics are different from those used by similar companies. Steer clear of templates that might give your presentation a generic feel. By developing a unique design, you establish your identity and leave a lasting impact on your audience.

Smiling african woman giving presentation at startup. Happy female professional standing in front of a large television screen with a graph.

For more practical tips read our article on how to make a presentation . 

Presentation design tips

When it comes to presentations, design is key. A well-designed presentation can communicate your ideas clearly and engage your audience, while a poorly designed one can do the opposite.

To ensure your presentation is designed for success, note the following presentation design tips that’ll help you design better presentations that wow your audience.

women working on her laprop

1. Keep it simple

Too many elements on a slide can be overwhelming and distract from your message. While you want your content to be visually compelling, don’t let the design of the presentation get in the way of communicating your ideas. Presentation design elements need to elevate your message instead of overshadowing it. 

2. Use contrasting text colors

Draw attention to important points with contrasted text colors. Instead of using bold or italics, use a contrasting color in your chosen palette to emphasize the text.

3. Be clear and concise

Avoid writing long paragraphs that are difficult to read. Limit paragraphs and sections of text for optimum readability.

4. Make sure your slide deck is visually appealing

Use high-quality images and graphics, and limit the use of text to only the most important information. For engaging and diverse visuals, go to Prezi’s content library and discover a wide range of stock images, GIFs, stickers, and more.

Prezi AI generated template for mind map ideas

5. Pay attention to detail

Small details like font choice and alignments can make a big difference in how professional and polished your presentation looks. Make sure to pay attention to image and text size, image alignment with text, font choice, background color, and more details that create the overall look of your presentation.

6. Use templates sparingly

While templates can help create a consistent look for your slides, overusing them can make your presentation look generic and boring. Use them for inspiration but don’t be afraid to mix things up with some custom designs as well. 

7. Design for clarity

Create a presentation layout that is easy to use and navigate, with clear labels and instructions. This is important for ensuring people can find the information they need quickly and easily if you end up sharing your presentation with others.

8. Opt for a conversational presentation design

Prezi presentation example created using Prezi AI.

Conversational presenting allows you to adjust your presentation on the fly to make it more relevant and engaging. Create a map-like arrangement that’ll encourage you to move through your presentation at your own pace. With a map-like design, each presentation will be customized to match different audiences’ needs. This can be helpful for people who have different levels of expertise or knowledge about the subject matter.

9. Be consistent 

Design consistency holds your presentation together and makes it easy to read and navigate. Create consistency by repeating colors, fonts, and design elements that clearly distinguish your presentation from others.

10. Have context in mind

A great presentation design is always dependent on the context. Your audience and objective influence everything from color scheme to fonts and use of imagery. Make sure to always have your audience in mind when designing your presentations.

Science project presentation template

11. Use white space effectively

In slide design, whitespace, also known as negative space, refers to the areas surrounding elements. It plays a role in decluttering your slides, enhancing readability, and directing focus towards content. Utilizing whitespace results in a sophisticated appearance for your slides. Remember, simplicity is key – avoid overwhelming your audience with information on each slide.

12. Incorporate visual hierarchy

When it comes to visuals, the key is to organize elements in a manner that naturally directs the viewer’s attention towards the crucial parts of the presentation. Utilize variations in size, color, and positioning to establish a flow for the viewer to navigate through. For instance, opt for fonts to highlight headings, colors for significant points, and position essential elements at the top of the slide. These tactics aid in ensuring that your audience grasps the ideas promptly and effortlessly.

QBR template from Prezi

For more presentation tips, read the Q&A with presentation design experts and get valuable insights on visual storytelling.

Make the presentation design process easier by pairing up with Prezi AI 

Presentation design may not come naturally to everyone, and time constraints often limit our ability to dedicate hours to perfecting our designs. Enter Prezi AI , a tool that streamlines the presentation design process enabling users to prioritize content over appeal. Let’s explore some ways in which Prezi AI can elevate your presentation design.

  • Template suggestions: Prezi AI provides a range of crafted templates that are customized to match your presentation’s theme, guaranteeing that your slides have a unified appearance with minimal hassle.
  • Smart formatting: When using Prezi AI , your text and images will be formatted automatically, eliminating the need for layout adjustments. This results in a professional appearance without the hassle.
  • Design consistency: Prezi AI ensures that your presentation maintains a design by keeping color schemes and fonts consistent, eliminating the need to fret over discrepancies.
  • Image and media integration: Enhance the appeal and engagement of your slides by adding relevant images, videos, and graphics with the help of Prezi AI smart media recommendations.
  • Customizable animations: Enhance your slides with custom animations using Prezi AI to create transitions and captivate your audience. These dynamic animations can emphasize points and ensure a smooth flow throughout your presentation.

Using Prezi AI allows you to simplify the design process and craft appealing presentations, even if you lack time or design skills.

Presentation templates

Creating a presentation from scratch isn’t easy. Sometimes, it’s better to start with a template and dedicate your time to the presentation’s content. To make your life easier, here are 10 useful and stunning presentation templates that score in design and engagement. If you want to start creating with any of the following templates, simply go to our Prezi presentation template gallery , select your template, and start creating! Also, you can get inspired by the top Prezi presentations , curated by our editors. There you can discover presentation examples for a wide range of topics, and get motivated to create your own. 

Business meeting presentation

The work desk presentation templates have a simple and clean design, perfectly made for a team or business meeting. With all the topics visible from the start, everyone will be on the same page about what you’re going to cover in the presentation. If you want, you can add or remove topics as well as edit the visuals and color scheme to match your needs.

Small business presentation

This template is great for an introductory meeting or pitch, where you have to summarize what you or your business does in a few, highly engaging slides. The interactive layout allows you to choose what topic bubble you’re going to select next, so instead of a one-way interaction, you can have a conversation and ask your audience what exactly they’re interested in knowing about your company.

Mindfulness at work presentation

How can you capture employees’ attention to explain important company values or practices? This engaging presentation template will help you do just that. With a wide range of impactful visuals, this presentation design helps you communicate your ideas more effectively. 

Business review template

Make your next quarterly business review memorable with this vibrant business presentation template. With eye-capturing visuals and an engaging layout, you’ll communicate important stats and hold everyone’s attention until the end.

History timeline template

With black-and-white sketches of the Colosseum in the background, this timeline template makes history come alive. The displayed time periods provide an overview that’ll help your audience to grasp the bigger picture. After, you can go into detail about each time frame and event.

Storytelling presentation template

Share stories about your business that make a lasting impact with this stunning, customizable presentation template. To showcase each story, use the zooming feature and choose to tell your stories in whatever order you want.

Design concept exploration template

Not all meetings happen in person nowadays. To keep that face-to-face interaction even when presenting online, choose from a variety of Prezi Video templates or simply import your already-existing Prezi template into Prezi Video for remote meetings. This professional-looking Prezi Video template helps you set the tone for your meeting, making your designs stand out. 

Employee perks and benefits video template

You can use the employee benefits video template to pitch potential job candidates the perks of working in your company. The Prezi Video template allows you to keep a face-to-face connection with potential job candidates while interviewing them remotely.

Sales plan presentation template

Using a clear metaphor that everyone can relate to, this football-inspired sales plan presentation template communicates a sense of team unity and strategy. You can customize this Prezi business presentation template with your brand colors and content.

Flashcard template

How can you engage students in an online classroom? This and many other Prezi Video templates will help you create interactive and highly engaging lessons. Using the flashcard template, you can quiz your students, review vocabulary, and gamify learning.

Great presentation design examples

If you’re still looking for presentation design ideas, check out the following Prezi presentations made by our creative users.

Social media presentation

This presentation is a great example of visual storytelling. The use of visual hierarchy and spatial relationships creates a unique viewing experience and makes it easier to understand how one topic or point is related to another. Also, images provide an engaging and visually appealing experience.

Leadership books presentation

Do you want to share your learnings? This interactive presentation offers great insights in an entertaining and visually compelling way. Instead of compiling leadership books in a slide-based presentation, the creator has illustrated each book and added a zooming feature that allows you to peek inside of each book’s content.

Remote workforce presentation

This is a visually rich and engaging presentation example that offers an interactive experience for the viewer. A noteworthy aspect of this presentation design is its color consistency and matching visual elements.

A presentation about the teenage brain 

Another great presentation design example that stands out is an engaging viewing experience. The zooming feature allows the user to dive into each topic and choose what subject to view first. It’s a great example of an educational presentation that holds the students’ attention with impactful visuals and compelling transitions.

Remote work policy presentation

This presentation design stands out with its visually rich content. It depicts exactly what the presentation is about and uses the illustrated window frames in the background image as topic placements. This type of presentation design simplifies complex concepts and makes it easier for the viewer to understand and digest the information.

Everyone can create visually appealing presentations with the right tools and knowledge. With the presentation design tips, templates, and examples, you’re equipped to make your next presentation a success. If you’re new to Prezi, we encourage you to discover everything it has to offer. With this presentation design guide and Prezi, we hope you’ll get inspired to create meaningful, engaging, and memorable content for your audience!

presentation design elements

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How to Make Good PowerPoint Slide Designs Even Better in 2024

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Final product image

Want to learn how to design PowerPoint slides? Great presentations are supported by a good PowerPoint layout. Most PowerPoint graphic design you see is rather invisible. When something is wrong with a slide design, you'll notice. 

In this PowerPoint design tutorial, we cover the basics of presentation design. It's a strong way to approach how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design. As you'll notice, subtle details go a long way. You'll learn:

  • Visual Hierarchy . We'll look at visual hierarchy and how you can use it effectively.
  • Slide Layout . Turning the design principles of visual hierarchy into effective PowerPoint slide designs. 
  • Typography . Choosing the right typefaces. 
  • Color . The basics of color theory.
  • Details . The extras that make your presentation great.

We'll look at how you can apply all these techniques to your designer PowerPoint ideas.

5 Principles of Presentation Design

How to follow a good powerpoint design principles, how to quickly design great slides in powerpoint with ppt templates, find the best premade powerpoint templates, 5 best powerpoint presentation design templates (for 2024), discover more great powerpoint templates, 5 top trends in powerpoint graphic design, common powerpoint questions answered (faq), more great powerpoint tutorial resources, make great presentations (free ebook download), apply powerpoint design principles to your next presentation, start a good design with a good template.

Are you looking to use ready-made presentation slide designs to shorten the process? I recommend checking out the trending PowerPoint templates on Envato Elements. It can save valuable time when you need to get a beautiful presentation, done quickly. It also takes some of the guess work out of how to design PowerPoint slides. 

Ciri PowerPoint Template on Envato Elements

We're going to talk about PowerPoint graphic design, but first we need to understand what that means. After all, it's not enough to open PowerPoint and start clicking. If you want to know how to design PowerPoint slides, you've got to understand the principles.

We'll look at how important structure and slide layouts are to content. You can also learn how the fonts and colors you choose affect the whole presentation. We'll also look at any details you can add to improve design.

We're going to dive deeper into these principles of design. They're behind a great PowerPoint presentation:

1. Visual Hierarchy

Any type of design starts with visual hierarchy. What exactly is visual hierarchy? This refers to the arrangement of elements in a way that it implies importance. You can influence how we perceive what we see with contrast.

The theory of visual hierarchy helps you define the structure of your PPT design slides. Good visual hierarchy assures that the right elements are catching your attention.

You can achieve visual hierarchy through several PowerPoint graphic design techniques:

  • Use contrasting colors to make certain elements stand out more.
  • Play with the size of text or photos to make something stand out more than something else.

An example of visual hierarchy

The above concepts are known as adding visual weight to an element. How does this work in practice? How does this help us learn how to design PowerPoint slides? 

Below, you see two slides with the same copy. One's got no visual hierarchy applied. The other one uses simple color and typography. You'll learn more about later. It's used to apply visual weight.

The original slide without any visual hierarchy applied

For Example

You're giving a financial presentation. You want your audience to recall that the third quarter performed poorly and why.

It's unrealistic is to believe your audience will recall exact data. A presentation gives a lot of information in a short time span. Unfortunately, the attention of people is quite brief. Focus on key messages and use visual hierarchy to make those ideas stick out. It will help people digest your objective and key takeaways slides in PowerPoint.

2. Slide Layout Design

You can apply visual hierarchy to create effective PowerPoint presentation slide designs. It's one of the corner stones of how to make a good PowerPoint design.

The trick is to understand what the most important message is. Through PowerPoint design principles, that this will be the content that people remember.

This goes further than just designing one simple slide background. For example, you might have a few slides in a row about the same topic. But the final slide with the conclusion could be the slide to add that extra visual weight. For example, by adding an image for the first time or making the text bigger as usual. This is applying visual hierarchy to your slide layouts as well.

Effective PowerPoint Conclusion Slide Design with Clear Hierarchy Applied

One of the most effective PowerPoint graphic design tricks to apply is that less is more , in most cases. When you've got key statistics, the following method helps:

  • First, display the graph (or all the statistics) that display the context of the key number.
  • Display the key percentage on a single slide. Try this without any further elements. Use this as a follow-up to make people pay attention to this number.

This is known as letting your design (and content) breathe. The idea you should keep in mind is that you should try and give your content (and thus your design) a hidden order.

Repetition is another trick to help you emphasize a key message. For example, try displaying a graph. Then try an individual statistic on two separate slides. This is a good example of effective repetition. It will also help your designer PowerPoint ideas stick with an audience.

If you're looking for some inspiration for slide layouts, dive into this curated selection of trending PPT presentation designs: 

presentation design elements

3. Typography

We can't discuss how to design PowerPoint slides without talking about type. The right choice of typography goes a long way as a PowerPoint designer. It can really improve the design of your PowerPoint presentation.

For example, if your whole presentation has Comic Sans as a font choice, people will notice. When you notice a font, it's often because the legibility of the font is quite poor. If something is difficult to read, it requires much more attention from your audience.

Poor Font Choice in PowerPoint Presentation Design Slide

Traditional font choices are often the best to use for PowerPoint presentation slide design. Stick to Helvetica, Arial or Gill Sans, for example. Use the regular version for your body text and use the bold version for your title. Make your font size big enough to ensure readability (around 18pt) and make titles bigger (around 34pt).

Best Fonts for Good PowerPoint Presentation Design

It's also possible to mix fonts as a PowerPoint designer. When you're just starting out, I'd recommend keeping things simple. If you're curious, you could always try to search for good font combinations.

If you're intrigued by typography, there are plenty online resources to help you. I personally enjoy  Typewolf , for example.

Of course, typography is a way to customize a design and make presentations much more unique. But, when starting out, I recommend sticking to the basics.

Something else to think about is how much text you use on your slides. It's rarely useful to write down full sentences in presentations. It's much better to use bullet lists of key facts. Make sure that people are paying attention to you while you're giving your presentation. Remember our ' Improving our marketing ' slide? Let's clean that one up so you'll notice the difference.

Shortening Text in Our PowerPoint Slide Design

As you can see, this marketing key takeaways slide looks better straight away. Apply this principle to your objective slide, and all other slides, in PowerPoint.

Color is an essential part of how to design PowerPoint slides. But color is a complex topic. A good understanding of the basics goes a long way. Understand that colors express a certain feeling, much like photography. Brighter, more vibrant colors often come across more playful. Darker colors often feel a little cooler (and more professional).

Notice the playful colors in this PowerPoint template's simple slide backgrounds. If you dig further into the PPT download, there are some simple minimal slides and a darker set to work with as well.

Hornette PowerPoint presentation design template

The colors you use in your PowerPoint graphic design depend on the context. If you're making a professional presentation, you'll likely work with the colors of your brand. That makes presentation design much easier. I recommend sticking to brand colors instead of experimenting.

In other cases, you might have to choose colors from scratch. In that case, don't panic yet. You can still make a palette that works with your designer PowerPoint ideas.

If you're a little more daring, you can learn more about color theory. You could try complementary and contrasting colors, for example.

An easy way to get started with color is to use a resource such as Adobe Color . By browsing the 'Explore' section, you can discover wonderful color palettes. Another way to see some nice palettes is to use design sites as Dribbble or Behance . See what colors are being used as inspiration.

Adobe Color is an excellent resource to find good combinations of colors

You'd be surprised how some subtle elements can pack a lot of punch. They can really improve your presentation visually. Think about these important details:

Photography

A presentation wouldn't be complete without the use of photography. Photography is the easiest way to improve your PowerPoint presentation. A simple trick to improve the design of your presentation is to use high-quality stock photography. You can find thousands of gorgeous professional stock photos on Envato Elements.

Envato Elements Photos

Using premium stock photos such as those found on Envato Elements means your presentation will be unique. You won't be using the same old stock photography everyone else is using. You can find photos that match your brand. You can also find photos of landscapes, city or coffee vibes, office settings, and much more.

Another simple way to visually enhance your presentation is to use icons. Icons are great to use when you've got little text in your presentation and don't want to use photography.

Ideally as a PowerPoint designer, you use icons from a single icon kit. This assures that all icons do have the same style. What's excellent is that a lot of PowerPoint themes you can buy include an icon kit. If not, you can find icon kits online on marketplaces like Envato Elements.

A simple slide using icons in order to improve the design

When working with data, adding some type of chart can help in your presentation.

Charts as a design element are something to pay attention to, as it's easy to overwhelm your audience with a bunch of data. Here are some thoughts about using charts to your advantage:

  • Don't use too many charts. Rather use them sparingly and only when they add value to what you've got to say.
  • Make sure that the data is easily legible. This, by avoiding fancy animations or unnecessary 3D design for example. 
  • Have a follow-up slide explaining the key takeaway of your chart.

Learn more about how to create charts in this PowerPoint design tutorial:

presentation design elements

Discover more helpful infographic and data-driven PowerPoint presentation design templates : 

presentation design elements

If possible, adding some multimedia to your presentation can help in many ways. First, it makes your presentation feel interactive. An interactive element can help you explain your designer PowerPoint ideas in a way that words and pictures can't.

But don't forget what we've learned about how to make a good PowerPoint design. Fundamentals come before distracting extras.

Let's use a mobile app as an example. Displaying a video demo might be an intriguing option. You could show off features that way. 

Transitions and Animations

When thinking on how to design a PPT slide, you might consider animations. Transitions are often added to PowerPoint design elements.

The above is a little tricky. It's very easy to overdo animations and transitions. It can distract your audience. A good rule is that 80% of your presentation doesn't really need a transition or animation.

Only use transitions and animations where it matters. Use them to help your audience remember what you're saying. The principles of visual hierarchy apply here as well. 

Want to learn more about how to use animations in your PowerPoint presentation slide designs? Check out this PowerPoint design tutorial:

presentation design elements

So, let's use what we learned about how to design PowerPoint slides. We'll dive into how you can apply all the lessons above while working on a PowerPoint presentation design:

Step 1. Plan Your Content Before the Design

Content First Not Presentation Design First

I know that as a PowerPoint designer you want to dive straight into your work. But before you start working on the design of your PPT slides, think about your content. Consider your key messages . Ask yourself what your audience should remember after seeing your presentation. That's a big part of effective PowerPoint design.

Optimize your objective and key takeaways slides in PowerPoint to support those messages. Make sure that your content and your key message stands out. That's where all the above PowerPoint graphic design advice kicks in. 

In summary, start with your key message. The opportunity to design will follow. Learn more about the presentation writing process in this PowerPoint design tutorial: 

presentation design elements

Step 2. Now Begin With Presentation Design Basics

Once you've got your content figured out, next you should define what the foundations of your slide design should be. Remember, this is a big part of how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design.

This is defined by your selection of  color and  typography . Pick a primary color and a font you'd like to work with and you're off for a good start.

Step 3. Collect Your Photography

You'll likely use some sort of photography (or other imagery) in your presentation. Start collecting images you like. Select them for your PowerPoint presentation once you start designing.

After you're all set with the above, start with the actual design.

Step 4. Define Your Slide Layout(s)

Finally, it's time to work on the layout of each individual slide. It's not necessary to create a unique layout for each slide, but some variety helps. Good PowerPoint design finds a balance. For a presentation of about 20 slides, I work on about six to eight layouts. I'll use them throughout my PowerPoint presentation design. For this presentation, for example, I've designed three layouts. You can see them below for some inspiration:

PowerPoint presentation slide design layout 1

A layout can be quite simple with its slide backgrounds and foreground elements. For example, a simple title with a subtitle or a slide containing a photo. Or a layout can be complex. For example, combining some bullet points and a graph. A well-designed PowerPoint is strategically designed.

The trick is to create enough layouts. Pay attention to the design of the slide layout individually.

Once you've designed all layouts, put your PowerPoint design together and see how your presentation flows. Make sure to practice your presentation at least once! Then, fine-tune your design and finish your presentation! 

Let’s work with a basic presentation with nice PowerPoint graphic design. We can quickly turn it into a standout PowerPoint graphic design example. We'll use the help of a professional PPT template. 

I’ve designed a very basic presentation in PowerPoint that consists of five slides:

  • title slide
  • about slide
  • product slide
  • picture and text slide

I’ll be using this PowerPoint template to share these designer PowerPoint ideas. We'll customize the design of the basic presentation. 

Minimalism Clean PowerPoint template

Download the template above or follow along with your favorite premium template. These PowerPoint graphic design concepts will apply to any design. Let's get started:

Step 1. Find Slides You Want To Use 

You don't need to be an all-star PowerPoint designer for the first step in the process. Just find the slides you want to use to customize the template. The easiest way to do this is to switch to the Slide Sorter view. Delete any slides you don’t want by clicking to select them. Then, right-click on those slides and select Delete .

Selecting slides

Step 2. Customize Your Title Slide

The title slide is one of the most important slides in your presentation. When done right, it can pique the interest of your audience so it’s a good idea to make sure it captures their attention. My original slide uses a simple underlined title for the slide background.

Plain title slide

I’ve customized the title slide, so it includes a full-width photo. I’ve also changed the fonts. The result makes the slide title look more polished and professional. 

Customized title slide

Step 3. Layer Text and Images

Your presentation will have a variety of different slides. Some slides might be purely text based. Others might have a combination of text and images. Get creative and experiment with layering text over images. 

simple text slide

This template makes it easy to experiment with designer PowerPoint ideas. I’ve made it more visually interesting by playing with the text layout. I've also layered text over images in the simple slide backgrounds. 

Layering text and images

Step 4. Break Away From the Grid

Chances are, you might use many photos on one slide. But that doesn’t mean you've got to place them side by side. 

Break away from the grid and place images in different positions. You can also break them apart with text. Your slides will be more interesting this way. That means your audience will be more engaged throughout the presentation. 

As you can see, I had a basic, grid-based slide with two images side by side.

Plain product slide

Here, I’ve made the product slide more interesting and engaging. Simply add some text between the images. Try it for your own objective and key takeaways slide in PowerPoint.

a creative product slide layout

Step 5. Spice Up Text With Icons

Another way to spice up your text-based slides is to use icons. Icons are great visual cues that help us visualize important points. In the example below, I’ve used a text-based slide with a simple title and a plain bulleted list.

A plain text slide

I’ve made this slide more engaging by adding icons instead of bullet points. I've also tried rearranging the text to fit more points onto one slide.   

A text based slide with icons

A premade PowerPoint template is a great time saver, even for PowerPoint designers. You can find plenty of PowerPoint templates over on Envato Elements.

PowerPoint presentation design templates

Each of the PowerPoint templates features an attractive design. They come with premade slides. Many also include extra elements such as charts, icons, and graphs. It'll be an invaluable resource and help you make an effective slide design.

Look at some of the best PowerPoint presentation design templates from Envato Elements:

1.  Nextar - Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Design Template

Nextar - Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Design Template

The Nextar template has a modern and trendy graphic design for PowerPoint. It comes with 30 unique slides and three premade color schemes. That's plenty of options for your key takeaways slides. The template is versatile enough to be used in business or corporate presentations as well as webinars, pitch decks, and more. On top of that, the template's got image placeholders so all you've got to do is drag and drop in your images.

2. Brusher - Trendy PowerPoint Presentation

Brusher - Trendy PowerPoint Presentation

The Brusher template is a trendy PowerPoint template. It’s a great choice if you’re looking to enhance your PowerPoint presentations with graphics. The template features bold brush strokes. You'll also get 120+ slides and five premade color schemes. It also includes image placeholders and creative illustrations.

3. Native - Minimalist PowerPoint Presentation Design Template

Native - Minimalist PowerPoint Presentation Design Template

Try this template if you like a minimalist design style. This template is perfect for small businesses that want a clean presentation look. The template includes over 20 premade color schemes and 84 individual slides. The slides are animated, and you'll also get custom icons that you can use to improve your PowerPoint presentation.

4. Mild - PowerPoint Presentation Template

Mild - PowerPoint Presentation Template

Consider this template if you want to use photos in your presentation design. The template includes image placeholders. You can easily replace them with your own photos. The template comes with a custom icon pack. It also has 35 premade slides as well as over 50 color schemes.

5. Sprint - Bold PowerPoint Template

Sprint - Bold PowerPoint Template

This template features a bold and modern design. It's perfect for startups as well as established corporations. The template comes with 20 master slides. They'll let you quickly customize your objective and other slides in PowerPoint. You'll also get matching charts, diagrams, tables, and other data visualization elements. This template is a perfect choice if you want to quickly design a PowerPoint presentation.

Find more great PowerPoint presentation design templates in this article:

presentation design elements

The templates above are just a small sample of what’s available on our marketplaces in terms of PowerPoint templates. To see even more great PowerPoint designs, check out the articles below: 

presentation design elements

As you explore how to design in PowerPoint, you might wonder which aesthetic is best. PowerPoint design principles are in this article. But good PowerPoint design also requires sensitivity to your objectives. PowerPoint design elements should make sense. A good PowerPoint layout that looks great but doesn't relate won't succeed.

A well-designed PowerPoint uses design principles to communicate. That's what makes an effective PowerPoint design. It looks good. It works well. It connects to the material. Consider how to design a PowerPoint presentation from this perspective.

Check out these design trends. They each use PowerPoint design principles in their own, strategic way. 

1. Use Color as a Consistent, Anchoring Element

It's a great idea to have variety, from slide to slide. This keeps things interesting. But too much variety can look chaotic. Color can act as a consistent element in our presentation.

Look at this premium PowerPoint template, below. Its use of color shows excellent PowerPoint graphic design. Each slide layout varies quite a bit. One of the elements they all have in common is this bright, yellow color. It helps keep them looking like one, related presentation. 

powerpoint color

2. Visually Communicate Ideas With Infographics

Infographics are both trendy and a smart choice. It's one thing to hear facts. It's another to actually see them. Conveying data in more than one way can help with retention rates. It can also help further communicate the overall message behind the data. 

There are so many creative ways you can use infographics too. Use them for statistics. Try infographics for timelines and progress reports. And put them against simple slide backgrounds that aren't distracting.

powerpoint infographics

3. Experiment With Abstract Shapes

Abstract shapes have been quite trendy in PowerPoint template design. They work well in many different aesthetics too. This premium PowerPoint template uses bouncy, playful shapes. When paired with these muted colors, it makes for a friendly design. 

Abstract shapes also lend to make for a versatile aesthetic. The neutrality of abstract backgrounds and designs can work in so many scenarios. 

abstract powerpoint

4. Let Beautiful Photography Do the Talking

Visuals are part of every PowerPoint designer's toolkit. Large, high-quality photos can be really communicative. This is particularly effective if you're sharing product photos or a portfolio. If your presentation or business is heavily reliant on visuals, consider pushing the photography. 

Keep in mind that your PowerPoint design elements shouldn't fight for attention. If the photo is the emphasis, then the other elements should support that. This means a large photo might warrant smaller text, for example.

powerpoint images

5. Try a Dark, High Contrast Aesthetic

Dark PowerPoint themes can be really trendy too. Doesn't this premium PowerPoint presentation look cool? Themes like this could be particularly well received in technology industries. There's a lot of potential for high energy and high contrast in an aesthetic like this one too. 

Make sure to keep an eye out for readability in this aesthetic. Too much contrast can be hard on the eyes. Check to make sure your content is easily legible for your audience.

dark powerpoint theme

As you explore how to design PowerPoint slides, questions may arise. Take a look at these answers to commonly asked design questions:

1. What's the Best Look for My PowerPoint Design?

This is a great question with a complicated answer. An effective PowerPoint design has a look that relates to the topic. Make sure your PowerPoint design elements relate. Visuals are very communicative. You can use them to support your narrative.

Want to learn more about visual communication and storytelling? Check out this free tutorial:

presentation design elements

2. How Can I Get Better at Typography? How Do I Choose Fonts?

Typography can be a complicated subject. It's a good idea to get yourself comfortable with the basics. But here are some quick tips to get you started. Think of it like a cheat sheet that you can rely on:

  • Avoid using too many different fonts. This can look distracting. 
  • Make sure your fonts are legible. Display fonts are not for things like body copy.
  • When pairing fonts together, go for fonts that contrast. This means two fonts that are visually different. Choose one for emphasis and one to complement.

Want to learn more about typography? Check out this free guide:

presentation design elements

3. How Can I Design Good PowerPoint Layouts? 

We covered some great tips and tricks on layout design in this article. But there's plenty more to discover. If you feel stuck, remember these essential basics:

  • Hierarchy matters. Draw attention to key points, like headlines. Supplemental content should have less contrast or scale.
  • Remember not to "stuff" your layouts. Sometimes, less is more. It is often better to be reserved than to overdo it.
  • Be selective with your content. Too much variety can look chaotic. Don't overdo it with things like colors, fonts, or imagery.

Learn more about great layout design in this free tutorial:

presentation design elements

4. How Can I Come Up With Creative PowerPoint Design Ideas?

Ideas can be one of the trickiest parts of the design process. When in doubt, try some visual research. This can be as simple as looking at other designs. Note what works well in them. Think about what you can learn from them and try in your own designs.

If you're looking for design inspiration, check out these collections from Envato Tuts+. There's plenty to see and download. Besides, there's design tips you can try too.

presentation design elements

5. How Can I Learn More about Design Principles?

There's even more to learn about the principles of design. The best part is that these principles can apply to almost all types of design too. So, you can use this in your PowerPoint slide designs, business cards, stationery, and more. 

While the official list can vary, the principles of design generally include:

presentation design elements

Check out these Microsoft PowerPoint tutorials from Envato Tuts+. There are many resources to help take your PowerPoint skills further: 

presentation design elements

Take the tips you learned in this article further with our eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations ( grab it now for FREE ) . 

It'll help walk you through the complete presentation process. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and prepare it to present powerfully.

Learn How to Make Great Presentations free PDF download

That's it! We covered the basics of effective PowerPoint presentation design. You've just learned how design PowerPoint (PPT) slides. As a key takeaway, remember that good design is often subtle. The best design is typically invisible.

Instead of trying to design everything, keep it simple and focus on a process that works for you. For example, design a few layouts you could use. Only use animations where it makes sense. Keep your colors simple.

If you lack time, I recommend starting from a professional PPT template and customizing it to your needs.

presentation design elements

Here are some excellent PowerPoint templates to look at on Envato Elements. Download unlimited presentation designs. Download web templates, and graphic assets for a single monthly fee.

Designing is much easier if you don't make it unnecessarily difficult for yourself.

Editorial Note:  The tutorial was originally published in March of 2017. It's been comprehensively revised to include new information—with special help from Brenda Barron , Daisy Ein , and Nathan Umoh . 

Sven Lenaerts

Presentation Design: Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Presentation Design: Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Great presentation design is as important as presenting. Are you creating your own slide decks? Here are some must-follow rules for awesome presentations!

Table of Contents

One-stop for all your designs. Flat monthly price, unlimited requests and revisions.

Whether you are pitching a business idea, telling about your new research, or sharing important data with your audience, presentations are a visual aid essential for your success. You could have awesome presenter skills, and a fantastic idea for the content. But without stunning presentation design, the whole thing will fall flat. Learn how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design with these 10 tips.

Presentations: you’ve seen many of them, and you've probably made several yourself. An ultimate visual communication tool to get your point across, presentations are deeply integrated into the academic and business world.

However, many individuals and businesses still make the mistake of thinking that PowerPoint presentation design always comes down to dark text on a white background, with a few images and charts sprinkled in. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Presentation design shouldn’t be walls of text or extensive bullet point lists, but rather a way to tell a story and inspire the audience with a beautiful and balanced design. And it’s not just about communicating with your audience. Visme found that 91% of presenters feel more confident when using a professionally designed slide deck .

Want to learn how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design? We can help. In this article, we’ll cover the basics, such as:

What is presentation design?

  • What types of presentations are there?
  • 7 Tips to design presentation slides yourself.

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Presentation design focuses on the visual look of your presentation as a tool to engage your audience. It is the way you present your information on the slide: the color scheme, combination of fonts, the way design elements are used as part of your slide. All of this comes together to present your message in a certain way.

Presentation design is about finding the perfect combination of design elements to create slides that will not bore or tire your audience, but rather engage them and glue them to the slides while attentively listening. Whether you are looking to inform your audience, entertain them, establish credibility, or something else, well-thought-out and executed presentation slides can help you achieve this.

image3.jpg

Types of presentations

What is the first step in designing an effective presentation? Knowing what the presentation is for, of course.

Presentations have different purposes. A quarterly presentation you are making for the investors of your dropshipping business will not be the same as an employee training slide. In the first case, your aim will be to inform and report, in the second case, the goal of the presentation is to educate. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, there are 5 types of presentations. Let’s take a look at each.

  • Informative - One of the most common presentation types, informative presentations aim to communicate important information with the audience and show new findings. Think of presenting company updates or planning a new project: informative presentations should be clear and straight to the point.
  • Persuasive - As the name suggests, the aim of this presentation type is to use important data to not simply inform the viewers, but to persuade them to take a specific action. Persuasive presentations are what you should show to potential investors when telling them about the user acquisition growth speed of your company.
  • Educational - Often confused with informative presentations, educational presentations are different because they aim to not simply inform, but to teach the viewers new skills and educate them about a new topic. Staff training slides or academic presentations are a great example of this slide type. You can go as far as making a tutorial video and including it in the slides, adding notes and key points next to it.
  • Inspirational - Often used by managers and team leaders, inspirational presentations aim to cause a spark and motivate employees to work harder. Presentations of this type usually have a highly emotional message the aim of which is to inspire viewers to take a particular action.
  • Problem-solving - This presentation type does a particularly good job at hooking the audience, as the key part of this presentation is the problem they are facing. Then, during the presentation, you are showing them how you are going to solve that problem. An example of this would be discussing how hard it is for large companies to hire qualified people by sharing statistics, then presenting your new HR automation tool and showing its benefits.

7 presentation design tips for beginners

Are you ready to jump into it? Here are 7 golden tips that will help you design presentation slides you can be proud of.

1. Outline your content and refine the key message

What is the first step in designing an effective presentation? You need to prepare your content and refine the key message. Try to understand what your audience wants to know, what they may already know, and what is more likely to keep them engaged. Then, keep this information in mind as you prepare your content for your presentation. What is the main takeaway from each slide?

Choose a working title and have a clear point for each of the slides. Understand what you want your slide to tell people. For example, instead of “Using hashtags for Instagram ” go with “Using hashtags for Instagram increases engagement by 12.5%.”

Keep your content specific and informative, but as concise as possible. Simplify your sentences, keep only the main point without writing an excessive amount of information on the slide. Below are two examples of a slide with the same information. Which one do you think is more readable?

image1.jpg

2. Pick a framework

Now it’s time to pick the framework you are going to use to make your professional presentation design. Do you want to create a presentation from scratch, or go with something pre-built?

There are many terrific presentation design templates available online, on platforms like Canva, Visme, and Venngage. Still, you should never use a presentation template without editing it .

Changing the color scheme or fonts to match your brand may seem like a small detail, but it will greatly improve the overall impression of your presentation. It also helps to strengthen your brand identity (whether for a personal or business brand marketing ), and demonstrates professionalism and care.

Another important thing is not to limit your creativity to pre-built presentations. That’s why it’s also advisable to explore presentation designs on platforms, such as Behance, Dribble, and 99Designs.

Sure, most of these will have been done by professional designers, and may be a little challenging for beginners to recreate. However, understanding just how creative PowerPoint presentation design can be will help you shed your preconceptions and explore new creative routes.

3. Choose a color scheme and fonts

The best presentation design will be limited to a handful of options as too many colors will create chaos on your slide and make it harder for the readers to understand.

If you have a brand guide in place, it’s best to stick to colors and fonts used in your branding. However, remember that a PowerPoint presentation design is supposed to keep viewers engaged. So, even if your brand colors are soothing muted tones, a bright element here and there can work well to draw attention to the key messages.

4. Make it visual

Sharing your information only as texts and bullet points is a lazy way out. When you design presentation slides, consider how you can present information visually. This will help your audience understand and take in key messages faster.

A simple example of this is adding relevant icons instead of simple bullet points. Colored or outlined texts next to realistic and relevant photos make the presentation a lot more enjoyable and keep the viewers entertained.

Graphs and charts are a business presentation design staple. However, you can also think about different design elements that can be both surprising and effective. For example, a simple illustration instead of a dull stock photo will delight your audience and keep them engaged.

image4.jpg

5. Pay attention to the layout

Your slide layout is the area where all of your presentation elements (photos, texts, icons, logo) are contained. Most presentation tools come with pre-built layouts you can use.

You can also create your own layout from scratch. In both cases, the main aim is to design a beautiful slide that doesn’t overwhelm the viewer. Include plenty of white space in your layout, don’t crowd it with too many text boxes and elements. If the elements are different, as they often will be, keep similar one close to each other. Keep your layout as clean and simple as you can.

6. Align and position

Nothing screams amateur more than jumping texts and layouts from slide to slide. Mismatching logos and design elements jumping here and there showcase a lack of professionalism and give an impression that you’ve put your presentation in a hurry. Not to mention that they are sometimes extremely annoying and distractive!

So, whenever you are working on your slides, always align and position them properly. No matter the presentation tool used, chances are, it will have an alignment tool.

Presentation software such as Keynote and Figma even offer an option to create background grids to help with the alignment. Below is an example of a slide, before and after aligning the texts and icons. Notice the difference?

image5.jpg

7. Stay consistent

As you progress through the design of your presentation, it is essential that you stay consistent. No matter how many slides your presentation has, they are still part of one presentation. And you don’t always have to keep the same background color, or slide themes for this. Consistency in design can be achieved through design elements, color schemes, and similar illustrations.

Take a moment to look at these three slides. Although some of the slides seem to be styled differently from the rest, the color scheme of design elements holds the presentation together. It’s crucial to make sure that each one of your slides is visually connected to the previous one, to make sure your viewers don’t lose track of what you were saying.

image2.jpg

Key takeaways

Now that you know the basics of professional presentation design, it's time to try them in practice! As with every other design type, there is no end to presentation design. Try to experiment with different tools, elements, and styles to find the one that works best for your audience. Research trends and best practices, and dedicate time to plan each slide thoughtfully. Don't be afraid to try new things, and you'll see the benefits a good presentation can have for your project in no time.

Presentation Design: Ultimate Guide for Beginners

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35+ Presentation Templates for Every Use

35+ Presentation Templates for Every Use

Database Design: Tips for Effectively Presenting Data

Database Design: Tips for Effectively Presenting Data

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Find the perfect PowerPoint presentation template

Bring your next presentation to life with customizable powerpoint design templates. whether you're wowing with stats via charts and graphs or putting your latest and greatest ideas on display, you'll find a powerpoint presentation template to make your ideas pop., presentations.

Help your data, insights, and recommendations make a statement with beautiful and easily customizable presentation templates.

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Celebrate accomplishments big and small with customizable certificate templates. From gift certificates to awards for finishing a course or training, find a template that highlights their accolades.

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Boost visibility for your show, project, or business with easily customizable poster templates. Find templates for all your promotion needs and make them uniquely yours in a flash.

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Say more with less using helpful and easily customizable infographic templates. Add clarity to business presentations, school projects, and more with these helpful templates.

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Elevate your storytelling

Tips, tricks, and insider advice from our business and design experts

A quick way to create beautiful, powerful PowerPoint presentations

Create captivating, informative content for PowerPoint in just a few minutes—no graphic design experience needed. Here's how:

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1. Find the perfect PowerPoint template

presentation design elements

2. Customize your creation

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3. Show it off

Let's create a powerpoint design, frequently asked questions, where can i find slide templates and themes that i can customize.

To find customizable slide templates and themes, you can explore the business presentations templates or search by PowerPoint templates . Once you find a template that resonates with you, customize it by changing its color scheme, add in your own photos, and swap out the font.

How do I use pre-made PowerPoint templates?

After you've chosen a PowerPoint template to use, customize it. Explore [design tips] on how to customize a deck that resonates with your brand while putting emphasis on the topic at hand. Play with other design elements, like photo shapes, to make each slide unique.

How can I make or edit my own custom PowerPoint templates?

Start from scratch by creating your own PowerPoint template . Follow tips for designs and business presentations so that your unique template is cohesive and relevant to your brand. Incorporate your brand's color scheme and graphics so that all your slides aren't text only.

What kinds templates can I get online for PowerPoint?

You can get PowerPoint templates that have modern designs, animated ones, or even hand-drawn art in each slide. The color schemes range from bold to subtle. Each template's slides are also organized based on what you may want to include in your presentation . You can use the template as a starting point and customize its specific details from theme.

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100+ Free PowerPoint Graphics For Better Presentations [Free PPT]

PowerPoint graphics to move your presentation up a level, and plenty of top quality free options.

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100+ PowerPoint Graphics For Better Presentations [Free PPT]

PowerPoint graphics are a great addition to all PowerPoint presentations no matter what the audience. A Powerpoint simply containing text and bullet points is not going to hold the attention, even with your hot topic content. You run the risk of being dry and dull, and simply put graphics are more visual and therefore more interesting. You know it too if you are happy with your material you feel better and more confident as a speaker. Double plus.

Of course, the quality of your PowerPoint Graphics is important, this isn’t just a case of adding visuals for visual’s sake. High quality, highly appropriate, thoughtful graphics will enhance any presentation and will be a vital tool in getting your message across, succinctly and memorably. Equally poor quality clip art type graphics, blurry, pointless, and inappropriate images may get you to remember as well, but probably not how you would wish.

So let’s look at some great keys ways you can impress with a presentation, it’s not hard but it is effective.

In this article: 1. How to insert graphics into PowerPoint 2. 100+ Free PowerPoint Graphics by GraphicMama 2.1. Free PowerPoint Templates 2.2. Free Arrows, Pointers, Bullets for PowerPoint 2.3. Free Icons for PowerPoint 2.4. Free Stats, Charts, Graphs for PowerPoint 2.5. Free Numbers and Steps Graphics for PowerPoint 2.6. Free Text Section Graphics for PowerPoint 2.7. Free Presentation Graphics for PowerPoint 2.8. Free Speech Bubble Graphics for PowerPoint 2.9. Free Sale Graphics for PowerPoint 2.10. Free Infographic Kit 2.11. Free Infographic Templates 3. More places to find PowerPoint Graphics

In the meanwhile, do you know, that you can use premade infographic templates? Check out our  50 Free Timeline Infographic Templates .

1. How to insert graphics into PowerPoint

Once you’ve created your presentation it’s time to add those all-important PowerPoint Graphics. And it’s easy, easy, easy.

Step 1: Go to the slide and create a space for your graphic Step 2: Go to insert on the toolbar at the top of PowerPoint, click on it Step 3: This will open up insert options depending on your version of PowerPoint ( 2019 reveals online pictures, photo albums, pictures, or screenshots, older versions are similar but replace online pictures with clip art.) Step 4: Choose an image from your files or online through categories or the search bar – filter general images through creative commons only licensed pictures (free to use), select, click on insert. Step 5: Resize and reposition

Alternatively:

Step 1: Select an image, right-click, and copy. (Ctrl+C) Step 2: Right-click and paste on the desired slide. (Ctrl+V)

It really is that easy.

2. 100+ Free PowerPoint Graphics by GraphicMama

One of the best ways to make your presentation look professional is by using professionally designed PowerPoint graphics and one of the best design agencies, Graphic Mama has plenty of options to choose from. As well as paid-for bundles of design icons you can take advantage of a great range of free graphics from sales icons, holiday icons, speech bubbles, people avatars, and many more. These are graphics designed in a vector file format, so the quality will stay as good even when resized. there are free backgrounds, templates, and infographic bundles too. It’s a no-risk option that will certainly add a high-quality, professionally designed look to your slideshow. Just click on the links below and you are almost there.

2.1. Free PowerPoint Templates

A tremendously good way to create a stunning professional look is by using templates for your PowerPoint Design and the good news is there are lots of free options out there just waiting for you to fill with content.

free hand-drawn powerpoint presentation

Free Hand-Drawn PowerPoint Presentation

This freebie from Graphic Mamas’s collection of free templates shows off the power of a sketched hand-drawn style in adding a customized look that is both attractive and clear.

free corporate powerpoint presentation template

Free Corporate Presentation Template

Ideally suited to a business proposal, this free template can be edited and customized for anything that would benefit from fresh, clear colors and fantastically designed and organized slides.

free business powerpoint presentation template

Free Business PowerPoint Presentation Template

Another free business template that benefits from strong structural elements and a great mix of text boxes and images in this modern-looking option. Superb editable infographics to get that all-important message to stand out.

free minimalist powerpoint presentation template

Free Minimalist Presentation Template

This minimalist template broken up into large blocks of strong color is perfect for making a statement. Instant impact and full of confidence.

Take a look at Graphic Mama’s Modern Templates for the New Era of PowerPoint Presentations

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2.2. Free Arrows, Pointers, Bullets for PowerPoint

Basic icons such as arrows, bullets, and pointers are so ubiquitous that they are often forgotten about. Big mistake. These free PowerPoint graphics show just how much impact well-designed elements can make and they’re a quick and easy way of raising your presentation to another level, and all for free.

icons for powerpoint

2.3. Free Icons for PowerPoint

The cool, simplicity of these PowerPoint graphic icons can add swagger and style to your show. This completely free bundle gives a great selection all in the same consistent style and multiple usages will hold a presentation together in a subtle way.

free charts and diagrams graphics for powerpoint

2.4. Free Stats, Charts, Graphs for PowerPoint

Powerful infographics give you a great chance to get inventive and creative. Fully customizable, fully editable, and a fantastically varied and imaginative selection of all kinds of charts, graphs, and pictograms. It’s difficult to believe they are free but they really are.

numbers and steps graphics for powerpoint

2.5. Free Numbers and Steps Graphics for PowerPoint

You will need numbers, so why not take advantage of this free collection and make the mundane come alive. The key is to keep a consistent design and it will create a magical flow throughout the whole show from beginning to end.

free text section graphics for powerpoint

2.6. Free Text Section Graphics for PowerPoint

PowerPoint graphics for text sections do a vital job. It is well known that text-heavy presentations are not popular and therefore less effective but you do need text. A great way of drawing the eye, focusing on text content, and still keeping people awake are these text section graphics. Customizable colors (ideal for branding), all forms and functions, a fully flexible and fully free bundle of creativity.

free graphics for powerpoint

2.7. Free Presentation Graphics for PowerPoint

PowerPoint Graphics come in all shapes and sizes and illustrate all kinds of ideas. Download this free pack and check out a wide range of options to create visual impact, a professionally customized look, and vitality.

free bubble graphics for powerpoint

2.8. Free Speech Bubble Graphics

Speech bubble PowerPoint graphics can make your presentation pop, and with this stylish selection, you can’t go wrong. Flat, shaded, angular, rounded, clouds, and all sorts of variations on the theme. Impactful and fun they help create the conversation you want to have.

free sale graphics for powerpoint

2.9. Free Sale Graphics

PowerPoint graphics for sales will do the crucial job of getting you and your product noticed. Fit your show with these free high-quality vector graphics and watch the crowds flock in. Once you’ve downloaded the graphics, you are not limited to PowerPoint, use the same images on posters, advertising, social media, etc., and get selling. The vectors’ technique means that there will be no loss of quality whatever the size and function.

free infographic kit for powerpoint

2.10. Free Infographic Kit

A fully comprehensive infographic PowerPoint graphic pack that is crammed full of everything you could want to bring your statistics to the audience. Carefully crafted, tremendously varied, customizable, editable, flexible, and all this with the added professional pizzaz of expert design. It’s free and it’s ready to rock.

Infographic Powerpoint Templates

2.11. 20 Free Infographic Templates

If you want to speed things up, you can try using premade PowerPoint templates for your presentation. In this huge bundle of 539 infographics, you will find 20 free infographic templates. They are made with a lot of graphics, and you can easily grab some of the elements and adapt it to your presentation.

3. More places to find PowerPoint Graphics

Although it’s difficult to believe you haven’t found exactly what you are looking for already in our classic collection, let’s not worry. The one thing we do have now is plenty and plenty of choice. Here are some paid-for possibilities that you may want to jazz up that make or break a presentation.

PresentationPro

For $49.00 you could check out this royalty-free Graphics pack from PresentationPro. This pack contains thousands of graphics, clipart, and illustration in all sorts of categories from geography to calendars, from Scrabble to sport, and in differing styles. The graphics can be used in other formats too so you are not limited to PowerPoint.

GraphicMama

As well as the free offers, already covered Graphic Mama has a top-class selection of paid-for bundles ranging from characters to graphics assets, backgrounds , and templates from a little as $31 per set. This is ideal if you’d like to theme your presentation around a character as there are multiple gestures and poses for each. All are easily customizable, editable, and adaptable to any project and design. A gallery of cartoon characters , including businessmen, animals, robots, superheroes, doctors, ninjas, and more. Graphic Mama also offers custom designs, so you can turn yourself into a caricature and animated puppets to really make waves.

GetMyGraphics

At GetMyGrpahics you can take up a subscription giving you access to over 9,000 professional PowerPoint graphics starting at $49 per month or a Pro package at $99 per month.  Obviously, at this price, it is not for a one-off or occasional piece but for professionals it does provide plenty of options. They include infographics and illustrations in a wide range of categories and differing styles.

Final Words

The old PowerPoint presentation. It’s been around for years and it truly isn’t enough to just churn out the old stuff. Vital though they may be, people always expect more, always expect better, and why not? With a little extra effort, you can turn your slideshow presentation into something that isn’t just a time filler but that really makes a difference, communication, and shows you off in the best light. PowerPoint graphics can make all the difference by breathing life and energy into your presentation and consequently your performance. If you feel confident in your material it will help your delivery. Best of all you can step it up for free, so why wouldn’t you?

You may also be interested in some of these related articles:

  • The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022
  • Need PowerPoint Backgrounds? The Best Places to Check Out [+ Freebies]
  • 10 PowerPoint Tutorials to Help You Master PowerPoint

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Lyudmil Enchev

Lyudmil is an avid movie fan which influences his passion for video editing. You will often see him making animations and video tutorials for GraphicMama. Lyudmil is also passionate for photography, video making, and writing scripts.

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20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Carly Williams

Published: August 06, 2024

When it comes to PowerPoint presentation design, there's no shortage of avenues you can take.

PowerPoint presentation examples graphic with computer monitor, person holding a megaphone, and a plant to signify growth.

While all that choice — colors, formats, visuals, fonts — can feel liberating, it‘s important that you’re careful in your selection as not all design combinations add up to success.

In this blog post, I’m sharing some of my favorite PowerPoint tips and templates to help you nail your next presentation.

Table of Contents

What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

Powerpoint design ideas, best powerpoint presentation slides, good examples of powerpoint presentation design.

presentation design elements

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In my opinion, a great PowerPoint presentation gets the point across succinctly while using a design that doesn't detract from it.

Here are some of the elements I like to keep in mind when I’m building my own.

1. Minimal Animations and Transitions

Believe it or not, animations and transitions can take away from your PowerPoint presentation. Why? Well, they distract from the content you worked so hard on.

A good PowerPoint presentation keeps the focus on your argument by keeping animations and transitions to a minimum. I suggest using them tastefully and sparingly to emphasize a point or bring attention to a certain part of an image.

2. Cohesive Color Palette

I like to refresh my memory on color theory when creating a new PowerPoint presentation.

A cohesive color palette uses complementary and analogous colors to draw the audience’s attention and help emphasize certain aspects at the right time.

presentation design elements

Image source

Mesmerize your audience by adding some neon colors and effects to your PowerPoint slides. Adding pops of color to your presentation will create visual interest and keep your audience engaged. 

What I like: Neon will add personality and depth to your presentation and will help the information you're providing stand out and be more memorable. 

2. Use an interesting background image.

Interesting PowerPoint

Do you have some interesting nature photos from a recent road trip? Or maybe a holiday passed, and you have gorgeous photos to share? If so, consider incorporating them into your PowerPoint. 

What I like: PowerPoints don't have to be stuffy and boring. They can be fun and a unique or interesting background will enhance the experience of your presentation.

3. Or be minimal.

Powerpoint Minimal

Have you ever heard of K.I.S.S.? Not the band! I mean, Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. If you're worried too many colors or visuals could take attention away from the message of your presentation, consider going minimal. 

Pro tip: Stick to no more than three colors if you're going for a minimalist design in your slides. 

4. Incorporate illustrations.

PowerPoint Illustration

Illustrations are a great way to highlight or break down a point in your presentation. They can also add a bit of whimsy and fun to keep viewers engaged.

5. Use all caps.

PoiwerPoint Capital Letters

Using all capital letters can draw your audience's eyes to where you need them, helping cement your message in their minds. It can also just be aesthetically pleasing.

Pro tip: If you choose to use all capital letters, use varying fonts so readers can tell which information is important and which are supporting details.

6. Alternate slide layouts

PowerPoint alternate slides

You don't want readers to grow bored with your presentation. So, to retain visual interest, use alternating slide layouts. The example above shows PowerPoint slides alternating between vertical and horizontal layouts.

This keeps things interesting and ensures your presentation isn't monotonous.  

7. Inject a little humor.

Humor is a great way to drive a point home and help people remember the information you're presenting. People remember a good joke, so if you have a funny pun to connect to a concept in a presentation, why not use it in a slide?

Pro tip: Remember you're in a professional setting, so keep your jokes appropriate. If you're worried a joke can get you a meeting with HR, then keep it to yourself. 

8. Use duotones.

PowerPoint Duotones

Duotones (or gradience) can take the aesthetic of your PowerPoint to new levels. They can provide a calming energy to your presentation and make viewers feel relaxed and eager to stay focused. 

9. Include printed materials.

Let's say you have a PowerPoint you're proud of, but you want to go that extra mile to ensure your audience understands the material. A great way to do this would be to supplement your presentation with printed materials, as such as:

  • Pamphlets 
  • Printed slides
  • Short quizzes on the material

10. Keep it to one chart or graph per slide.

powerpoint chart

This is both a design example and a warning. Graphs and charts are an excellent way of displaying quantitative data in a digestible format.

However, you should have no more than one graph or chart per slide so your presentation doesn't get too confusing or muddled. 

11. Use a large font.

PowerPoint Large Font

Just like capital letters, a large font will help your shift your audience's focus to key points in your presentation.

Pro tip: You can combine large fonts and capital letters to boost its effectiveness. 

12. Include videos.

Embedding a video into your PowerPoint can help you expand on a point or effectively break down a complex topic. You can either embed a video from a platform like YouTube or TikTok or use HubSpot's Clip Creator to make your own.

Pro tip: Try to keep videos short, like, under a minute, and don't use more than one or two. 

13. Use GIFs.

GIFs add more visual interest, and they can be a great way to add humor or personal touch to your PowerPoint presentation.

14. Use contrasting colors when comparing two ideas or arguments. 

powerpoint contrast

Contrasting colors can convey the difference between two opposing thoughts or arguments in a way that is visually appealing. 

15. Add a touch of nature.

PowerPoint nature

If you want your presentation to exude a calming energy to your audience, including images of trees, flowers, and natural landscapes can do the trick.

PowerPoint Theme Ideas

Atlas (theme).

Covering a more creative subject for a younger or more energetic audience? I’d recommend using the cover slide design below. Its vibrant red color blocks and fun lines will appeal to your audience.

presentation design elements

2. “You Don't Suck at PowerPoint,” Jesse Desjardins

If the contrast used throughout this PowerPoint presentation design were a human, I'd marry it.

This skillful presentation from Jesse Desjardins employs the perfect color palette : balancing black and white photos with pops of fluorescent pink, yellow, and blue.

What I like: The cheeky vintage photos work to reinforce the copy on each slide, making the presentation both interesting and visually appealing.

3. “Accelerating Innovation in Energy,” Accenture

Balancing visual backgrounds with text isn't easy. More often than not, the text is formatted in a way that winds up getting lost in the image. Not for Accenture.

What I like: This presentation combated this issue by combining shapes and graphics to create contrast between the text and the background. Well done.

4. “Visual Design with Data,” Seth Familian

Whenever I’m tasked with presenting a lot of information in a little bit of time, things can get sort of messy. To simplify this type of presentation, I like to use a visual agenda like the one shown above.

What I like: This index clearly signifies the start and finish of each section to make it easier for the viewer to follow along. The presenter takes it further by including an additional agenda for each exercise, so that the audience knows exactly what they're supposed to do.

5. “How to Craft Your Company's Storytelling Voice,” MarketingProfs

Do you love these hand-drawn illustrations or do you love these hand-drawn illustrations? I mean, c'mon, this presentation by MarketingProf is amazing.

What I like: Certainly, it would have been easier to generate these designs online, but this approach highlights their commitment to creating an out-of-the-box piece of content. And as a result, this presentation stands out in the best way possible.

6. “Blitzscaling: Book Trailer,” Reid Hoffman

If you're going to go the minimalistic route, I’d take note of this PowerPoint presentation example from Reid Hoffman.

This clean design adheres to a simple, consistent color scheme with clean graphics peppered throughout to make the slides more visually interesting.

What I like: Overall there are no frills or unnecessary additions, which allows the informative content to take priority.

7. “Healthcare Napkins,” Dan Roam

This presentation dates back to 2009, but the design is still as good as ever. The colorful, quirky doodles help tell the story while also serving as an interesting way to illustrate data (see slides 20 and 21).

What I like: For visual learners, this approach is much more inviting than a series of slides riddled with text-heavy bullet points.

8. “One Can Be Diverse: An Essay on Diversity,” With Company

This presentation employs both powerful images and modern typography to illustrate the point.

What I like: While many of the slides contain long quotes, they are broken up in a way that makes them easily digestible. Not to mention all of the text is crisp, clean, and concise.

9. " 10 Things Your Audience Hates About Your Presentation ," Stinson

This simplistic presentation example employs several different colors and font weights, but instead of coming off as disconnected, the varied colors work with one another to create contrast and call out specific concepts.

What I like: The big, bold numbers help set the reader's expectations, as they clearly signify how far along the viewer is in the list of tips.

10. “Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling,” Gavin McMahon

This presentation by Gavin McMahon features color in all the right places. While each of the background images boasts a bright, spotlight-like design, all the characters are intentionally blacked out.

What I like: This helps keep the focus on the tips, while still incorporating visuals. Not to mention, it's still easy for me to identify each character without the details. (I found you on slide eight, Nemo.)

11. “Facebook Engagement and Activity Report,” We Are Social

Here's another great example of data visualization in the wild.

What I like: Rather than displaying numbers and statistics straight up, this presentation calls upon interesting, colorful graphs, and charts to present the information in a way that just makes sense.

12. “The GaryVee Content Model,” Gary Vaynerchuk

This wouldn‘t be a true Gary Vaynerchuk presentation if it wasn’t a little loud, am I right?

What I like: Aside from the fact that I love the eye-catching, bright yellow background, Vaynerchuk does a great job of incorporating screenshots on each slide to create a visual tutorial that coincides with the tips. He also does a great job including a visual table of contents that shows your progress as you go .

13. “20 Tweetable Quotes to Inspire Marketing & Design Creative Genius,” IMPACT Branding & Design

We‘ve all seen our fair share of quote-chronicling presentations but that isn’t to say they were all done well. Often the background images are poor quality, the text is too small, or there isn't enough contrast.

Well, this professional presentation from IMPACT Branding & Design suffers from none of said challenges.

What I like: The colorful filters over each background image create just enough contrast for the quotes to stand out.

14. “The Great State of Design,” Stacy Kvernmo

This presentation offers up a lot of information in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.

What I like: The contrasting colors create visual interest and “pop,” and the comic images (slides 6 through 12) are used to make the information seem less buttoned-up and overwhelming.

15. “Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines,” Ethos3

Not going to lie, it was the title that convinced me to click through to this presentation but the awesome design kept me there once I arrived.

What I like: This simple design adheres to a consistent color pattern and leverages bullet points and varied fonts to break up the text nicely.

16. “Digital Transformation in 50 Soundbites,” Julie Dodd

This design highlights a great alternative to the “text-over-image” display we've grown used to seeing.

What I like: By leveraging a split-screen approach to each presentation slide, Julie Dodd was able to serve up a clean, legible quote without sacrificing the power of a strong visual.

17. “Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint,” Slide Comet

When you‘re creating a PowerPoint about how everyone’s PowerPoints stink, yours had better be terrific. The one above, based on the ebook by Seth Godin, keeps it simple without boring its audience.

What I like: Its clever combinations of fonts, together with consistent color across each slide, ensure you're neither overwhelmed nor unengaged.

18. “How Google Works,” Eric Schmidt

Simple, clever doodles tell the story of Google in a fun and creative way. This presentation reads almost like a storybook, making it easy to move from one slide to the next.

What I like: This uncluttered approach provides viewers with an easy-to-understand explanation of a complicated topic.

19. “What Really Differentiates the Best Content Marketers From The Rest,” Ross Simmonds

Let‘s be honest: These graphics are hard not to love. I especially appreciate the author’s cartoonified self-portrait that closes out the presentation. Well played, Ross Simmonds.

What I like: Rather than employing the same old stock photos, this unique design serves as a refreshing way to present information that's both valuable and fun.

20. “Be A Great Product Leader,” Adam Nash

This presentation by Adam Nash immediately draws attention by putting the company's logo first — a great move if your company is well known.

What I like: He uses popular images, such as ones of Megatron and Pinocchio, to drive his points home. In the same way, you can take advantage of popular images and media to keep your audience engaged.

And if you want more templates and examples, you can download them here .

PowerPoint Presentation Examples for the Best Slide Presentation

Mastering a PowerPoint presentation begins with the design itself.

Get inspired by my ideas above to create a presentation that engages your audience, builds upon your point, and helps you generate leads for your brand.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Blog Graphic Design Top 31 PowerPoint Design Ideas, Examples & Tips

Top 31 PowerPoint Design Ideas, Examples & Tips

Written by: Sara McGuire May 03, 2023

presentation design elements

What’s worse than sitting through a boring presentation? Being the one to deliver a boring presentation. Presentation templates to the rescue!

Say goodbye to typical, boring PowerPoint slides, too. Instead,  create a presentation that will make a lasting impression with presentation templates like this one to engage your audience. You can also use them for inspiration for PowerPoint layout ideas:

Just so you know, some of our templates are free and some require a small monthly fee to use. Signing up to Venngage is always free.

In this post, I’ll show you how to create a presentation that will not only grab the attention of your audience but hold onto it as well.

This post will offer tips for creating different types of presentations , including:

  • Pitch decks
  • E-learning slides
  • Class presentations
  • Webinar presentations
  • Marketing presentations

I’ll also give you design tips to customize our presentation templates and share ppt design ideas.

Click to jump ahead:

  • Start with presentation templates
  • Pick a visual motif to use consistently
  • Highlight important information using text
  • Dedicate each slide to only one topic
  • Don’t overburden your slides with text
  • Establish a visual hierarchy on your slides
  • Visualize data using charts and infographics
  • Create custom illustrations using icons
  • Change slide layouts to keep your audience engaged
  • Add a progress tracker to your presentation slides
  • Download your presentation as a PDF

Design a presentation that engages your audience

Think about the last boring presentation you sat through:

  • What did the slides look like?
  • Did they have a bland color scheme?
  • Were there too many points (or worse, paragraphs) crammed onto one slide?
  • Were the charts and diagrams clunky and hard to understand?

When people see the same old boring PowerPoint layouts and themes, there’s a good chance they’re going to lose focus.

Rich media, like video, matters more than ever and there’s no better way to stand out than by creating creative and engaging visual content . If you want to really capture your audience’s attention, you need to design creative presentations , like this one:

Airbnb Pitch Deck

That means incorporating eye-catching images, effective data visualizations, and bold typography into your slide decks.

Iconics Pitch Deck

This onboarding presentation, for example, strategically uses bright icons and illustrations to make the material more engaging. This is especially important when presenting to new hires, who are likely dealing with information overload on their first day. 

HR Presentation Template

In this particular case, a more visual approach is not necessarily a matter of aesthetic preference, but a decision that can make your presentations more likely to stick. Pro Tip: Venngage has over 40,000 icons and illustrations you can use to spice up your presentations!

Need something more geared towards speaking? Our keynote presentation templates are all the rage.

Tips to hold your audience’s attention

Many Venngage users have mentioned that they’re always looking for ways to make presentations more engaging. But most of them don’t have any formal design experience.

If you’re in the same boat, don’t worry–this guide is for you. You can also check out this video for all the highlights:

Here are my top tips for designing a presentation with impact:

1. Start with presentation templates

Before jumping into the other tips, let’s set the foundation.

You’ve decided to create something a little more interesting than a standard PowerPoint theme–good on you! But that doesn’t mean you have to start completely from scratch.

Instead, you can give yourself a head start by using creative presentation templates, like this one:

Geometric Creative Presentation

Or this one:

presentation design elements

EDIT THIS PRESENTATION TEMPLATE

While most PowerPoint themes are fairly limited in how much you can customize them, freeform presentation templates will give you the freedom to alter the design as much as you want.

For example, let’s take this template:

Uber Presentation Template

I used Venngage’s My Brand Kit tool to efficiently apply our brand color palette to the Uber template in one click:

There are a ton of creative presentation templates. You can take a look at them in our presentations templates library .

Cool? Now let’s talk presentation design.

2. Pick a visual motif to use consistently in your presentation

You can use visuals to pull your presentation design together and make it cohesive. Picking a visual motif will allow you to use consistent visuals throughout your presentation.

A visual motif is a repeated pattern, design, or image. In your presentation design, a motif can take many forms.

When it comes to infographic color selection , one of the simplest approaches is to use a consistent color motif (or color scheme). That could mean using one or two colors for all of your headers, background and borders.

For example, this presentation template uses two shades of purple for a modern design:

Product Pitch Deck

But combining different colors and patterns can also make for a more interesting design. For example, this presentation template uses a blue stripe motif to link the slides together visually:

Monthly Sales Report Template

You could also use a recurring shape or image, like the circle image frames in this presentation template:

presentation design elements

Or you could use a motif that reflects the theme of your presentation. For this presentation, the template uses a recurring cloud motif throughout the presentation to reflect the “dream” theme of the brand. This presentation example demonstrates the power of maintaining a consistent theme to reinforce brand image.

presentation design elements

This is a case where starting with a presentation template can really come in handy, because the template will already have a motif. Look for presentation templates with a motif that fits your topic and brand.

3. Highlight important information using text

Returning to the idea or focal points on your slide: emphasize a key number or phrase when creating a persuasive presentation using big, bold text in a contrasting color.

This will communicate to your audience that if they take away one thing from your slide, it should be that piece of information.

For example, this presentation template uses bright colored font in several sizes larger than the rest of the text to emphasize important numbers on each slide:

presentation design elements

But you could also pick one color to emphasize key information with. That way, your audience will catch on to the pattern and look for that color in upcoming slides.

Take a look at how this presentation uses teal to contrast with the other text and emphasize information:

Email Marketing Business Presentation

4. Dedicate each slide to only one topic

Franchise Pitch Deck

Just as it’s important for your slides to not be cluttered, it’s also important for your slides to be cohesive.

Keep each slide focused on just one topic. The topic of each slide should be clearly stated in the slide title.

For example, this presentation example, shows a template which covers different ways to be creative. Each individual slide covers one approach:

Creative Presentation

This simple, straightforward slide pattern will help the audience follow along without any confusion.

Or take this presentation template that introduces some of this year’s biggest business trends. Rather than listing multiple trends on one slide, each trend is fleshed out in its own slide:

Business Trends Presentation

As a presenter, keeping your slide topics organized will help you organize your thoughts as well. Each new slide will signal a new topic.

5. Don’t overburden your slides with text

Client Pitch Deck

Even if you decide to ignore most of the other tips in this guide, don’t skip over this one. This is presentation design 101.

When you flip to a slide covered wall-to-wall with text, there’s a good chance your audience is going to think:

  • I don’t want to read all of that.
  • This presenter isn’t well-prepared.

In fact, a study published in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly found that anxious presenters tended to use more text on their slides, usually because they used their slides as speaking notes.

Instead of using a bunch of text, look for ways to present information visually charts and infographics .

For example, this slide template uses brief text and some simple icons to summarize the presentation :

Weekly Update Business Presentation

This startup pitch deck makes use of evocative images, icons and big text to help present its ideas:

Yellow Startup Pitch Deck

6. Establish a visual hierarchy on your slides

When you flip to a new slide, your audience will be seeing it for the first time. Their eyes are going to naturally be drawn whatever the focal point on the page is.

The focal point is the most dominant area on your slide–the point that draws the most attention.

You can create a hierarchy of information on your slide by making the most important information the focal point of your slide. In most cases, the focal point will be the slide title, or a particular visual, or an important phrase or number.

There are a few ways you can create a visual hierarchy on your slides.

You can bold important phrases, like the word “Facebook” in this slide:

Quarterly Digital Marketing Report Business Presentation

Icons also help to establish a reading order. They draw your eye from point to point. Placing icons beside headers and important points will make them stand out from the other information on the slide.

Mint Pitch Deck

Icons can also be used to indicate where a new point begins:

Sherbert Business Presentation

Color selection can also be used to establish a visual hierarchy. Take a look at how the colorful blocks in this slide help to make the slide titles pop:

Subscriber Sales Business Presentation

Your eyes are drawn first to the title text, then to the supporting information beside it.

7. Visualize data using charts and infographics

Replacing text with visuals is one of the best ways to prevent your slide design from becoming cluttered. Charts and infographics present information in an engaging, digestible way.

I won’t go into too much detail here about what types of charts you should use for what data. We’ve got an in-depth guide to picking charts for that.

But I’ll give you a few ideas for some types of charts and infographics that work well in presentations.

Related : How to Make Better Infographics for PowerPoint

If you want to visualize steps in a process, the history of something, or a roadmap, use a timeline.

This slide template uses a simple timeline with complementary icons to emphasize each date:

presentation design elements

To compare amounts or sizes, a bubble chart can help drive the point home:

Airbnb Pitch Deck

Learn how to customize this template:

To create an infographic for geographic and demographic information , a map can make a big impact on your audience:

Orange Business Presentation - Map

A classic pie chart or bar graph should be easily understood by your audience, provided you’re following  chart best practices .

This presentation template uses a bar graph, a pie chart and a line graph to show different metrics:

presentation design elements

If you can, mix up the types of data visualizations you use. This will help prevent your audience from getting bored.

Those are just a few different ways you can use charts to visualize. For more ideas, check out our guide to picking the best charts for your data .

8. Create custom illustrations using icons

Custom illustrations are one of this year’s  biggest graphic design trends . They’re fun, quirky, and more exciting than a boring old stock photo.

Creating your own illustrations for social media graphics might seem like a costly and time-consuming undertaking. And it can be. But I’m going to offer you a hack:

Use icons to create illustrations.

Venngage Dashboard

You can arrange icons together to create a scene–like the pieces of a puzzle. (Venngage offers over 40,000 icons, so finding an image shouldn’t be too hard!) 

For example, this real estate presentation template uses icons to illustrate each real estate hack:

presentation design elements

When picking ico ns or symbols for your illustrations , make sure that the icon style you use is consistent. For example, this presentation template uses line art icons for a scribbly youthful look:

presentation design elements

For more ideas, read our guide to creating icon illustrations .

9.  Change slide layouts to keep your audience engaged

You may be tempted to use the same slide layout throughout your entire presentation–either for consistency or because you’re not sure how else to design your slide.

The problem is, using the same slide layout over and over again won’t do much to excite your audience.

There are other ways you can create consistency throughout your presentation, while also using different slide layouts–like through a visual motif.

For example, this presentation template uses five different slide layouts. The consistent color scheme, image style and font style pull the presentation together.

presentation design elements

To come up with different slide layouts, try dividing your slide into columns. This can make it easier to arrange the elements in your slide.

column layout

This can make it easier to arrange the elements in your slide.

presentation design elements

10. Add a progress tracker to your presentation slides

Creating a sense of forward movement will help keep your audience engaged.

Similar to how you would put the chapter title at the top of the pages in a book, you can track the progress of your presentations in your slides. This will let your audience know what stage you’re at in your presentation. Your audience will also be able to refer to the sections in your presentation more easily afterward.

That said, pacing your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides also adds brownie points to your presentation. Check out the top qualities of awesome presentations and learn all about how to make a good presentation to help you nail that captivating delivery.

A simple progress bar at the bottom of your slide shouldn’t distract too much from the rest of your information.

11. Download your presentation as a PDF

It’s common for audience members to request a copy of your presentation for their reference. Make sharing your presentation easy by exporting it as a PDF or zipped file.

presentation design elements

Now that you’re equipped with some fundamentals of presentation design, the best way to learn is by doing. It’s also the perfect time to upgrade your presentation skills  while you’re thinking about it too!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

More presentation templates and design guides:

  • 120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples  (+ Presentation Templates!)
  • 12 Business Pitch Deck Templates and Design Best Practices to Impress Investors
  • 5 Foolproof Presentation Layout Ideas  (+ Presentation Templates!)
  • How to Get Featured on the Front Page of SlideShare [Infographic]

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120+ Best Free PowerPoint Templates (PPT) 2024

Not everyone can afford to buy premium PowerPoint templates to create their slideshows. But, that doesn’t mean you have to settle for a default template. There are dozens of incredible free PowerPoint templates to try out!

A great thing about the design community is that there are designers out there who willingly share their amazing work for free of charge, including gorgeous free PowerPoint templates.

To help you save some money, we scoured the web and handpicked a collection of the best free PowerPoint templates with modern and professional designs that you can use to make various types of presentations. Good luck with your presentation!

Just looking for a stylish free Powerpoint Template? No problem. Let’s dive into our collection of the best free PowerPoint templates!

How Does Unlimited PowerPoint Templates Sound?

Download thousands of PowerPoint templates, and many other design elements, with a monthly Envato Elements membership. It starts at $16 per month, and gives you unlimited access to a growing library of over 2,000,000 presentation templates, fonts, photos, graphics, and more.

Modern PPT Templates

Modern PPT Templates

New & innovative.

Mystify Presentation

Mystify Presentation

Blendu

Explore PowerPoint Templates

What Type of Free PowerPoint Template Do You Need?

We’ve broken our collection down into different categories, so you can quickly find just the right PPT template for your project! Almost of all of these PPT templates are free, but at the start of each section you’ll see one or two premium ones, just so you have that option to choose as well.

  • Professional PowerPoint Templates
  • Business PowerPoint Templates
  • Animated PowerPoint Templates
  • Modern PowerPoint Templates
  • Creative PowerPoint Templates
  • Pitch Deck PowerPoint Templates
  • Medical PowerPoint Templates
  • Teacher & Education PowerPoint Templates
  • Church & Christian PowerPoint Templates
  • Infographic PowerPoint Templates

Free Professional PowerPoint Templates

Selfone – free professional presentation template.

Selfone - Free Professional Presentation Template 2

Selfone is an amazing presentation template that features lots of useful slides with professional and modern designs. There are 32 unique slides in this template and it’s ideal for making various types of slideshows for businesses, brands, and creatives. It comes in PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides formats too.

Free Consulting Presentation PowerPoint Template

Free Consulting Presentation PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is great for creating presentations for consultants. It features a set of modern and stylish slides featuring image placeholders, shapes, and editable graphics.

Free Geometric Professional Presentation Template

Free Geometric Professional Presentation Template

The colorful geometric shapes are what make this PowerPoint template one of the best on our list. This template is also available in Google Slides and Keynote formats. And you can use the free version of the template to create a basic slideshow for your professional project.

Ash – Free Professional PowerPoint Template

Ash - Free Professional PowerPoint Template

Ash is a modern and stylish PowerPoint template featuring a dark color theme. This template is made with professionals in mind and it’s especially suitable for event and product presentations. The free version of the template can be used to create a simple presentation.

Free Artificial Intelligence PowerPoint Template

Free Artificial Intelligence PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is ideal for making professional presentations for showcasing startups, ideas, and products related to artificial intelligence. The template features 7 unique slides with creative charts, timelines, and more.

Free Tech Slides PowerPoint Presentation Template

Free Tech Slides PowerPoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to design attractive slideshows for technology-themed presentations. It comes with 10 different slide layouts with gradient colors, editable shapes, and text. You can also download it in Google Slides format.

Hendrix – Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

Hendrix - Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

Another free and professional PowerPoint template with a dark theme. This template comes in both PowerPoint and Google Slides versions. You can easily customize the slide layouts to create various types of presentations.

Pro Portfolio PPT Template

Agency Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Every business needs a presentation template for showcasing their portfolio. This PowerPoint template is perfect for that task. It comes with 50 unique slides featuring a minimalist design that effectively highlights your portfolio in every slide. The template also includes editable vector graphics, infographics, and icons.

Aesthic – Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Aesthic - Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

It’s hard to believe that this PowerPoint template is free to download. The modern and unique design of this presentation gives it a truly professional look. It’s perfect for creating presentations for showcasing your portfolio, creative projects, and more.

Dolor – Free Professional Presentation Template

Dolor - Professional Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template also comes with modern and professional slide design. It uses a perfect combination of visuals and minimalism to create a very attractive slide layout. You can use it for free with your creative projects.

Kitulah – Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

Kitulah - Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

The dark color theme of this PowerPoint template adds an elegant look to this entire presentation design. It’s perfect for creating slideshows for modern brands and startups.

DSGN – Free Lookbook Presentation Template

DSGN - Free Lookbook Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with 90 unique slide layouts you can use to make slideshows for creative portfolios, photography, and fashion related presentations. The template is also available in 5 color schemes and it’s free to use with your personal projects.

Enable – Free Modern PowerPoint Template

Enable - Free Modern PowerPoint Template

Enable is a modern PowerPoint template featuring a set of minimal slide designs that are most suitable for making creative and business-related presentations. The template comes with an easily editable design and image placeholders for easily replacing the images.

Look – Free Fashion PowerPoint Template

Look - Free Fashion PowerPoint Template

Look is an elegant PowerPoint template that features a highly visual design that’s most suitable for making fashion and photography related presentations. The template includes 55 unique slides and comes in two different colors.

Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a stylish PowerPoint template to create a simple portfolio to showcase your work and services, this free template is perfect for you. It includes 20 unique slides that are designed to make highly visual slideshows filled with large images.

Project Proposal – Free Professional PowerPoint Template

Project Proposal - Free Professional PowerPoint Template

This is a professional PowerPoint template you can use for free to create proposals for various client and freelance projects. This template includes 19 unique slides with an icon pack, illustrations, and much more.

Resume Presentation – Free PowerPoint Template

Resume Presentation - Free PowerPoint Template

This minimal PowerPoint template is ideal for showcasing your portfolio and resume. It comes with 14 unique slides with editable vector graphics and image placeholders. The template is available in Google Slides version as well.

Free Modern Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Free Modern Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Another free portfolio PowerPoint template with a set of creative slides. This template also includes 20 unique slides with editable layouts, image placeholders, icons, and much more.

Wagner – Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Wagner - Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Wagner is a multipurpose PowerPoint template that comes with a modern and stylish design that allows you to design all kinds of presentations. Each slide in the template is fully customizable and features editable vector shapes and elements as well.

Minimal – Simple Free PowerPoint Template

Minimal - Simple Free PowerPoint Template

This minimal free PowerPoint template is perfect for crafting slideshow for presenting personal portfolio as well as creative agency presentations. The template is fully customizable as well.

Xara – Free PowerPoint Template

Xara - Free Powerpoint Template

Xara is a modern PowerPoint template most suitable for making minimal slideshows for business and corporate presentations. It includes 9 unique slides with editable layouts, graphics, and charts.

Red White – Free PowerPoint Template

Red White - Free Powerpoint Template

Red White is a modern free PowerPoint presentation template you can use to make slideshows for businesses, brands, and creatives. The template includes 30 unique slides with editable designs.

Free Business PowerPoint Templates

Free retro pixel business powerpoint template.

Free Retro Pixel Business PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint template that comes with colorful and creative slide designs inspired by retro-themed pixel graphics. It includes many stylish slide designs with dark color themes for creating attractive presentations for business meetings.

Free Geometric Shapes Marketing Plan for PowerPoint

Free Geometric Shapes Marketing Plan for PowerPoint

This free PowerPoint template comes with a set of slides full of colorful geometric shapes and patterns. It’s designed with marketing agencies in mind and you can use it to create attractive marketing plans for your business meetings.

Free Content Strategy Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Content Strategy Meeting PowerPoint Template

Create the perfect presentation for your content strategy meetings with this free PowerPoint template. It includes many beautiful slide layouts featuring gradient color backgrounds and image placeholders. You can fully customize each slide to your preference.

Free Abstract Shapes Business PowerPoint Template

Free Abstract Shapes Business PowerPoint Template

You can download this PowerPoint template for free to create modern business presentations. It has a set of minimalist slides featuring abstract shapes with rough textures.

Free Morph Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Free Morph Business Plan PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with more than 40 slides featuring modern backgrounds and trendy content layouts. It’s especially perfect for creating business plan slide decks and presentations.

Free Company Profile Powerpoint Template

presentation design elements

This free company profile PowerPoint template provides a comprehensive overview of your organization in a 20-slide presentation. Designed to showcase a brand’s identity, it covers the company’s journey, from establishment to its current successes, capturing its mission, vision, and values. With customizable slides, the template features a Presentation Agenda, Financial Reports, Business SWOT Analysis, Gantt chart, various graphical charts, and a Company Timeline.

Cranford – Free Business Presentation PPT

Cranford - Free Business Presentation PPT

Cranford is a free PowerPoint template that includes a set of professional slide layouts. It’s most suitable for making modern business and agency slideshows. It comes in Google Slides and Keynote formats too.

Howard – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Howard Free Business PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is also available in multiple formats. You can use it to create presentations for small businesses as well as corporate brands. There are 8 unique slides in this template.

Merville – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Merville - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Merville is a free PowerPoint template that includes very professional-looking slides. It has highly visual slides with easily editable designs. The template is suitable for all types of business presentations.

Free Business Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Business Meeting PowerPoint Template

This is a creative PowerPoint template that comes with a set of beautiful slides. There are 24 unique slides in this template with editable graphs, timelines, mockups, and more. It’s available in Google Slides version too.

Free Creative Agency PowerPoint Template

Free Creative Agency PowerPoint Template

This is a huge PowerPoint template that includes more than 100 different slides. Of course, the full version comes at a price. But if you scroll all the way down on the page, you’ll find a free version of the template that’s also pretty great for making a simple business presentation.

Free 2022 Marketing Plan Infographic PowerPoint Template

Free 2022 Marketing Plan Infographic PowerPoint Template

This is a must-have presentation template for marketing agencies and businesses. It includes creative infographic slides you can use to showcase your marketing plan and the performance of your campaigns. It includes 32 slides and it’s available in Google Slides format too.

Free Electric Scooter Company Profile PPTX

Free Electric Scooter Company Profile PPTX

This free PowerPoint template is ideal for making company profiles. It’s especially perfect for making company profile presentations for startups and modern brands. The template includes 28 fully customizable slides with free icons and graphics.

Free Human Resource Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Human Resource Meeting PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with a set of professional slide designs you can use to create presentations for human resource meetings for all kinds of businesses. There are 24 unique slides included in this template and it comes in Google Slides format as well.

Free Gradient Corners Business PowerPoint Template

Free Gradient Corners Business PowerPoint Template

The elegant design of this PowerPoint template makes it a perfect choice for making business presentations. The template features 7 unique slides with colorful blue gradient corner designs.

Free Simple Business Executive PowerPoint Template

Free Simple Business Executive PowerPoint Template

You can use this free PowerPoint template to make simple presentations for corporate brands and businesses. The template includes 8 editable slides with professional layouts. It comes in Google Slides version as well.

Digital Marketing Strategy PowerPoint Template

Digital Marketing Strategy - Powerpoint Template

Using a creative and bold design in your PowerPoint slideshow is a great way to capture attention and make your presentation stand out. This beautifully designed PowerPoint template will help you achieve that goal. It comes with more than 40 slides that feature a unique design made specifically for marketing presentations. It’s also available in 2 different color themes.

Bara – Free Modern Business PowerPoint Theme

Bara - Free Modern Business PowerPoint Theme

Bara is the perfect free PowerPoint template for creating business presentations. It features a modern design and comes with easily editable slide layouts. In addition, it’s available in Keynote version as well.

Clifton Free Business Presentation Template

Clifton Free Business Presentation Template

This modern and free presentation template comes in multiple formats. You can use it to create a stylish presentation to promote business services, brands, and products as well.

Barnwell Free Business Presentation Template

Barnwell Free Business Presentation Template

Barnwell is a simple yet effective presentation template for creating business and agency slideshows. This template comes in multiple formats including PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides.

Free Onboarding Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Onboarding Meeting PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is perfect for creating a presentation for your new hire onboarding meetings. It includes 33 different slide layouts with easily editable designs. The template comes in the Google Slides version as well.

Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Template

Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to design clean and minimalist presentations for various business meetings. It includes 27 different slide designs you can customize to your preference.

Free Construction & Real Estate PowerPoint Template

Free Construction & Real Estate PowerPoint Template

If you’re preparing a presentation for a construction project or a real estate property, this PowerPoint template will come in handy. There are 19 unique slides in this template made specifically with construction and real estate businesses in mind.

Future – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Future - Free Business PowerPoint Template

A simple and clean PowerPoint template for making professional and business presentations. This template comes with 25 unique slide layouts featuring minimalist designs. Each slide is fully customizable and features master slide layouts as well.

Business Plan Free Powerpoint Presentation

Business Plan Free Powerpoint Presentation

This free PowerPoint template is a great choice for making slideshows for presenting your business plans and strategies in meetings. It includes 20 unique slides. You’ll need to signup for a free account on the website to download the file.

SEO Proposal – Free PowerPoint Template

SEO Proposal - Free Powerpoint Template

This creative PowerPoint template is designed specifically for digital markers and agencies. You can use this to craft an effective slideshow that wins over your marketing clients. It’s free to download and use.

Conference Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

Conference Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

This is a pitch deck PowerPoint template featuring a set of slides made for designing slideshows for business and conference presentations. It includes customizable vectors, diagrams, shapes, and lots more as well.

Annul Report – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Annul Report - Free Business PowerPoint Template

A free business PowerPoint template you can use to create annual report presentations for various projects and companies. This template includes 22 unique slides with easily customizable layouts.

Beexey – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Beexey - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Another modern PowerPoint template specially made for businesses and agencies. This template features 20 unique slides with icons, editable graphics, and animations.

Vision – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Vision - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Vision is a modern PowerPoint template you can use to design business and corporate presentations. The free template comes in multiple styles and color versions, which you can download individually to your preference.

Casper – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Casper - Free Powerpoint Presentation Template

Casper is a creative and minimalist PowerPoint template you can use to create presentations for startups and personal portfolios. The template includes 60 unique slides featuring transition animations, infographics, and more.

Minta – Business Free PowerPoint Template

Minta - Business Free Powerpoint Template

Minta is a free PowerPoint template most suitable for making slideshows for presentations related to business and marketing. It comes with 21 unique and customizable slides in widescreen layout.

Business Report Free PowerPoint Template

Business Report Free PowerPoint Template

Business Report is a professional PowerPoint template featuring 40 unique slides. The template is available in 5 color schemes and in both animated and static versions.

Annual Report – Free PowerPoint Template

Annual Report - Free PowerPoint Template

Another great free PowerPoint template made specifically for making annual report presentations. It’s most suitable for corporate and business presentations. The template is free to use with personal and business projects.

Window – Free PowerPoint Template

Window - Free PowerPoint Template

Window is a creative and minimalist PowerPoint presentation template most suitable for startups and creative agencies. The template comes with 25 unique slides filled with stylish designs and its available in 5 pre-made color schemes.

Modern Business Free PowerPoint Template

Modern Business Free PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint template you can use to craft a slideshow for a modern small business or a startup. The template features 12 unique slides featuring retina-ready and beautiful designs.

Seattle – Simple PowerPoint Presentation Template

Seattle - Simple PowerPoint Presentation Template

Seattle is a clean and simple PowerPoint presentation template that includes a set of unique slides featuring stylish graphics, shapes, and elements. You can easily customize the template to your preference as well.

Free Animated PowerPoint Templates

Shining – creative animated powerpoint template.

Shining - Creative Animated PowerPoint Template

Shining is an animated PowerPoint template that comes with 30 unique slides. The slides are available in 5 different color schemes. It also features master slide layouts, animations, editable graphics, illustrations, and much more as well.

Lookbook – Free Pastel PowerPoint Template

Lookbook - Free Pastel PowerPoint Template

Lookbook is a colorful free PowerPoint template that features a set of creative slides with attractive pastel colors. This template is perfect for showcasing professional and agency portfolios. All the slides can be easily customized to change colors as well.

Voodoo – Free Animated PowerPoint Template

Voodoo - Free Animated PowerPoint Template

VooDoo is a highly professional PowerPoint template that features more than 10 unique slide designs, which feature transition animations and much more. It’s also available in both light and dark color designs.

Dark Red – Free Elegant Black Powerpoint Template

Dark Red – ELegant Black Free Powerpoint Template

This professional, yet free, PowerPoint template comes with an elegant color theme that effectively highlights its content. The template is free to download and can be customized to your preference.

Stasia – Free PowerPoint Template

Stasia - Free PowerPoint Template

Stasia is a creative and free PowerPoint template you can use with your creative and professional presentations. It comes with 13 unique slides featuring editable graphics, charts, and lots of other elements.

Free Modern PowerPoint Templates

Free modern & minimal powerpoint template.

Free Modern & Minimal PowerPoint Template

You can download this PowerPoint template for free to make beautiful slideshows for company profile, portfolio, and various other professional presentations. It includes 30 unique slides with animations and transitions.

Slide Pro – Free Modern Presentation Template

Slide Pro. - Free Modern Presentation Template

The minimal and clean design of this presentation template makes it an ideal choice for modern brands and design agencies. The template has 30 different slides with editable graphics and image placeholders.

Free Project Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Template

Project Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Template

Design professional-looking project proposals that win clients using this free PowerPoint template. It features 85 different slides with fully customizable layouts. The template includes transition animations as well.

UNCO – Simple Modern PowerPoint Template

UNCO - Simple Business PowerPoint Template

This modern business PowerPointe presentation template comes with more than 60 unique slides filled with editable vector shapes, graphics, icons, and so much more for making attractive presentations for all kinds of businesses. The template also includes lots of charts and graphs you can use to visualize data and make more compelling arguments.

Pale Dawn – Free Modern Fashion PowerPoint Template

Pale Dawn - Free Modern Fashion PowerPoint Template

Pale Dawn is a very modern PowerPoint template you can use to craft presentations to promote fashion and lifestyle products. The template comes with lots of customizable slides in PowerPoint and Keynote formats.

Mass Media – Free Agency Presentation Template

Mass Media - Free Agency Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template is made specifically for marketing and media agencies. The template includes 25 unique slide layouts featuring editable shapes, colors, and fonts. It’s available in Google Slides version as well.

Heimat – Free Modern Business Presentation Template

Heimat - Free Modern Business Presentation Template

If you’re looking for a simple PowerPoint design with a minimal content layout, this template will come in handy. It lets you choose from 33 unique slides for crafting attractive presentations for showcasing projects and plans.

Born-Ink – Free Modern Event PowerPoint Template

Born-Ink - Free Modern Event PowerPoint Template

Featuring 10 unique slide designs, this modern PowerPoint template will allow you to design effective presentations for creative agencies as well as fashion brands. The template is free to use with your personal projects.

XGDragon – Modern Presentation Template

XGDragon - Modern Presentation Template

This free template comes with lots of unique slide designs for promoting modern brands through creative design. The template is ideal for creating a lookbook-style presentation and it’s free to use with commercial projects.

Minimalistic – Free Clean PowerPoint Template

Minimalistic - Free Clean PowerPoint Template

A highly minimalist and clean PowerPoint presentation that’s most suitable for making creative and professional slideshows. The template features an easily editable design, changeable colors, and editable vectors as well.

Air – Clean Free PowerPoint Template

Air - Clean Free PowerPoint Template

Air is a minimal and free PowerPoint template featuring creative slides full of images and icons. It includes 60 different slides in Full HD resolution. All of the graphics and shapes in the template are also editable as well.

Neue Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Neue Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Neue is a free PowerPoint template with a minimalist design. This makes it a perfect choice for crafting creative and business presentations. The free versions of the template include multiple slides you can use with your personal projects.

TAHU – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

TAHU - FREE PowerPoint Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with a set of creative slides you can use to design professional and business presentations. It includes many different types of slides for crafting effective slideshows, including slides for showcasing services, timelines, portfolio, and more.

Clean – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Clean - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Just as the name suggests, this free PowerPoint template features a minimal and clean design with lots of white space. It’s perfect for making professional slideshows with a content-focused design. The template is easily editable as well.

Duotone – Modern Free PowerPoint Template

Duotone - Modern Free PowerPoint Template

Duotone is a modern and colorful PowerPoint template that features a set of attractive slides with a creative duotone color effect. This template is most suitable for making presentations for creative brands and professionals. It’s available in both PowerPoint and Keynote versions and includes 18 unique slides.

London – Minimal  Free PowerPoint Template

London - Minimal Free PowerPoint Template

London is an elegant and a minimalist free PowerPoint template that comes with 21 unique slides with easy to customize drag and drop image placeholders. You can use this template to make all kinds of business and creative presentations.

Modern Minimal Free Powerpoint Template

Modern Minimal Free Powerpoint Template

This free PowerPoint template includes a set of creative slides featuring colorful designs. You can easily customize all the slides in the template however you like to change fonts, colors, and images as well.

Style – PowerPoint Presentation Template

Style - PowerPoint Presentation Template

Style is a PowerPoint presentation template designed for making lookbook-style slideshows for showcasing fashion designs. It’s perfect for promoting fashion catalogs. The template is free to use with your personal projects.

Free Creative PowerPoint Templates

Color fun – creative powerpoint template.

Color FUN - Creative Powerpoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this PowerPoint template comes filled with colorful slides that will allow you to design unique and cheerful presentations to showcase your products, designs, and ideas. The template includes 50 unique slides with unlimited color options to customize the design however you want.

FUN Tastic – Free Creative PowerPoint Template

FUN Tastic - Free PowerPoint Template

This bright and colorful PowerPoint template offers a great set of slides for you to create more fun and entertaining presentation. It includes lots of creative slide designs in Full HD resolution. And you can customize them to your preference as well.

Free Neomorph PowerPoint Template

Free Neomorph PowerPoint Template

If you’re a fan of the Neomorphism design trend, this PowerPoint template is a perfect match for you. It features a bold slide design with shapes, buttons, and icons inspired by Neomorphic design. The free version of the template includes 10 unique slides.

GMTRY – Free Geometric Presentation Template

GMTRY - Free Geometric Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template features one of the most creative slide designs on our list. The creative use of geometric shapes to design its colorful and attractive slides is simply perfect. The template is free to use with personal projects.

Curato – Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Curato - Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

A bright and colorful PowerPoint template filled with shapes and styles. It’s perfect for showing off your best work in a portfolio. The template includes 37 unique slides with easily editable layouts.

Emotion Flashcard – Free Creative PowerPoint Template

Emotion Flashcard - Free Creative PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with a set of creative and fun slides. It uses a lot of emoticons throughout the presentation to help you discuss emotions and mental health in a very creative way.

Kental – Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Kental - Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Kental is another free PowerPoint template that comes with colorful slide design. All of the slides in this template features pastel colors and comes with master slide layouts as well. This template is most suitable for creative fashion and design presentations.

Free Giant Doodles Newsletter PowerPoint Template

Free Giant Doodles Newsletter PowerPoint Template

Filled with lots of colorful doodles and illustrations, this PowerPoint template comes with 28 creative slide layouts you can customize however you like. It’s available in Google Slides version as well.

Free Creative PowerPoint Presentation Template

Free Creative PowerPoint Presentation Template

This is a free demo for a premium PowerPoint template. It includes several creative slides you can repurpose to create your own unique presentations.

Free Stylish Botanical PowerPoint Template

Free Stylish Botanical PowerPoint Template

The nature-inspired botanical theme gives this presentation template a very unique look and feel. It’s perfect for creating presentations for modern fashion and lifestyle brands.

Colors – Stylish Free PowerPoint Template

Colors - Stylish Free PowerPoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this free PowerPoint template comes with a beautiful set of slides filled with lots of colors. It’s ideal for making creative slideshows for event and entertainment related presentations as well as many others. And it includes 60 creative slides.

Happy Holi – Creative Free Powerpoint Template

Happy Holi - Creative Free Powerpoint Template

Happy Holi is a beautiful and creative PowerPoint template that comes with a colorful set of slides. Despite being named after a festival, the slides in the template feature a multipurpose design you can use to craft business, creative, and many other professional presentations.

Every – Clean & Simple PowerPoint Template

Every - Clean & Simple PowerPoint Template

Every is an elegant PowerPoint template featuring modern slide designs. It comes in both PowerPoint and Keynote file formats. Each template includes 15 unique slides in Full HD resolution.

Creative – Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Creative - Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

This minimalist PowerPoint template comes with a creative design making it a great choice for presenting your personal portfolios and professional work. The template features drag and drop image placeholders and editable objects.

Mifridix – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Mifridix - Free Powerpoint Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with a beautiful and feminine slide design. Which makes it the perfect choice for crafting presentations for fashion brands, beauty products, and others.

BRONX – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

BRONX - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Bronx is a creative PowerPoint presentation template that includes a modern and customizable design. You can use this template to create presentations with PowerPoint, Keynote, or even Google Slides.

Free Pitch Deck PowerPoint Templates

Free powerpoint pitch deck template.

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

You can use this PowerPoint template for making creative pitch deck slideshows. It includes colorful slides with cool illustrations and shapes to give each slide a unique look and feel. There are 19 unique slides and they come in Keynote format as well.

Sales Pitch Deck Free PowerPoint Template

Sales Pitch Deck Free PowerPoint Template

Create a bold and professional pitch deck for your agency using this free PowerPoint template. It has 20 unique slides with free fonts and icon packs. The template is especially suitable for real estate agencies.

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Infographics

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Infographics

You can use this free PowerPoint template to showcase stats and data related to your product launches. It includes 32 infographic slides with various styles of layouts. They are all fully customizable.

Free Corporate Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

Free Corporate Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

This pitch deck presentation is made with corporate brands and agencies in mind. It features a set of professional slides with easily editable layouts. There are 20 unique slides in this template.

Free Business Opportunity PowerPoint Pitch Deck

Free Business Opportunity PowerPoint Pitch Deck

You can create an attention-grabbing pitch deck to present your business ideas and startups with this free PowerPoint template. It features 12 unique slide layouts with beautiful gradient designs. And the template can be easily customized to your preference.

Pitch Werk Template

pitch werk-Startup Pitch Deck Template For PowerPoint

Pitch Werk is a creative PowerPoint template featuring a set of stylish slides made for modern startups. It includes more than 100 unique slides which are also available in 5 different premade color schemes. The template also comes with lots of useful elements such as pricing tables, device mockups, maps, and much more.

Sneakers Shop – Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

Sneakers Shop - PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

If you’re working on a pitch deck for a sneaker startup or even an eCommerce store for a fashion product, this template is perfect for creating a winning presentation. It includes 32 unique slides.

Comersa Free Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Comersa Free Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Comersa PowerPoint template comes with a designed made specifically for crafting slideshows for business-related presentations. The template is available in PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides versions as well.

Pitch Deck – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Pitch Deck - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

This is the perfect free PowerPoint presentation template you can use to create pitch decks for startups, creatives, and freelancers. The template includes 22 unique slides and it’s available both with and without slide animations.

Free Conference Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

Free Conference Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is perfect for making a pitch deck for speeches and presentations you give at events and conferences. The template features a set of easily editable slide layouts with modern designs.

Free Medical PowerPoint Templates

Free mental health workshop powerpoint template.

Free Mental Health in the Workplace PowerPoint Template

You can create an effective presentation to promote good mental health in the workplace with this free template. It includes 22 unique slide layouts you can use to showcase the importance of maintaining good mental health and suggest your ideas in meetings.

Modern Medical PowerPoint Template

Modern Medical Powerpoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with 30 unique slides featuring clean and modern designs. It also lets you choose from 5 different premade color schemes for designing various styles of slideshows. It’s perfect for making presentations for all kinds of businesses and events.

World After Corona Virus – Free PowerPoint Template

World After Corona Virus - Free PowerPoint Template

If you’re working on a presentation to talk about the recent global pandemic, this template will help you design a more compelling slideshow. It includes 31 unique slide layouts with editable graphics and icons.

Free Mental Health Thesis Presentation Template

Free Mental Health Thesis Presentation Template

This is the perfect presentation template you can use to talk about mental health topics. It features 23 unique slides with easily editable designs. The template is also available in Google Slides version.

Free Medical Presentation Template

Free Medical Presentation Template

This is a multipurpose PowerPoint template you can use to create different types of presentations related to medicine and medical facilities. The template includes editable graphics and master slide layouts as well.

Medical – Free PowerPoint Template

Medical - Free Powerpoint Template

If you’re working on a presentation for a medical related business or brand, this free PowerPoint presentation template will come in handy. The template includes 30 unique slides filled with plenty of image placeholders and graphics.

Clinical Case – Free Medical PowerPoint Template

Clinical Case - Free Medical PowerPoint Template

This free and creative PowerPoint template comes in both PowerPoint and Google Slides versions. It includes 24 beautiful slide designs filled with colorful illustrations and content formatting.

Healthcare Center – Free Medical PowerPoint Template

Healthcare Center - Free Medical PowerPoint Template

Healthcare Center is a professional and free PowerPoint template designed for medical centers and healthcare businesses. The template includes 23 unique slide design you can use to create an effective presentation.

Free Teachers & Education PowerPoint Templates

Free social studies for elementary powerpoint template.

Free Social Studies for Elementary PowerPoint Template

This educational PowerPoint template is designed for making presentations for educating social studies subjects. The template includes 35 different slides with colorful designs that will easily attract the attention of your students.

Free Elementary School PowerPoint Template

Free Elementary School PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template features the perfect design for making fun educational presentations for kids. It’s designed for showcasing different types of stones and it comes with lots of colorful illustrations. There are 35 different slides in this template.

Free Chinese Language Day PowerPoint Template

Free Chinese Language Day PowerPoint Template

Use this free PowerPoint template to teach the Chinese languages to kids. It features a beautiful slide design filled with adorable illustrations and colorful shapes. There are 35 unique slides included in the template with fully editable layouts.

School Bundle – Free Education PowerPoint Template

School Bundle - Free Education PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a creative PowerPoint template to grab the attention of your students during presentations, this free template is for you. It features a creative design across 15 different useful slide layouts.

Daniel’s Thesis – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Daniel's Thesis - Free Education PowerPoint Template

This colorful and creative PowerPoint template is perfect for creating attractive presentations to showcase your thesis, assignments, projects, and much more. The template features 24 unique slides filled with colorful graphics, shapes, and elements.

Academy at the City – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Academy at the City - Free Education PowerPoint Template

A professional PowerPoint template for promoting your school, academy, and institutions. While the template is designed with education establishments in mind, you can use it to create business presentations as well. The template includes 24 unique slides.

Education – Simple PowerPoint template

Education - Simple Powerpoint template

This is a professional PowerPoint template that includes 30 unique slide designs. Each slide is also available in 5 different color schemes. It also features editable vector graphics, image placeholders, and icons for crafting entertaining presentations more easily.

Math Lesson – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Math Lesson - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

This free and creative PowerPoint template is designed for teachers for making their lessons look more engaging and fun for students. The template comes packed with creative illustrations and graphics as well.

E-Learning – Free Teachers PowerPoint Template

E-Learning - Free Teachers PowerPoint Template

Another free PowerPoint template that’s most suitable for making presentations to promote your online learning programs and courses. The template comes with 17 unique slide layouts that you can easily customize to your preference.

Master’s Thesis – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Master's Thesis - Free Education PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with 12 unique and editable slides you can use to effectively showcase and present your thesis projects to an audience. The template is also available in Google Slides version as well.

Free Interactive Education PPT for Teachers

Free Interactive Education PPT for Teachers

This PowerPoint template is designed with teachers in mind. It features 44 different slides you can use to create various educational presentations for classes. The slides are fully customizable and include graphs, charts, and infographics as well.

Online Notebook – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Online Notebook - Free PowerPoint Template

A free PowerPoint template you can use to create a notebook-style presentation. Both teachers and students can use this template to create notes for classes and subjects. There are 30 slide layouts in this template.

Free English Language Grammar Rules PPT

Free English Language Grammar Rules PPT

Grammar can be a boring subject to talk about. But with this colorful PowerPoint template, you can present your lessons in a more entertaining way. It includes 41 unique slides filled with adorable illustrations.

Colorful Light Bulbs Free Education PowerPoint Template

Colorful Light Bulbs Free Education PowerPoint Template

This colorful PowerPoint template has lightbulbs all over the slides. You can use it to create presentations to teach various subjects and topics. There are 39 slides in this template. And it’s available in the Google Slides version as well.

Free Church PowerPoint Templates

Free christian church powerpoint template.

Free Christian Church PowerPoint Template

A beautiful presentation template made with churches in mind. It has 20 unique slide layouts with colorful and minimal designs. The template is ideal for showcasing your Christian Church projects.

Free Church Conference Powerpoint Template

Free Church Conference Powerpoint Template

A modern and elegant PowerPoint template designed specifically for making presentations for church events and conferences. The template comes with 23 slide layouts with easily editable designs and image placeholders.

Religion Lesson – Free PowerPoint Presentation

Religion Lesson - Free PowerPoint Presentation

A free PowerPoint template designed for educating students and audiences on various religious topics. It can also be used to deliver religious speeches and presentations as well. It includes 17 unique slides. Even though the template features slide designs with multiple religions, you can easily replace the images of your choice as well.

Free Infographic PowerPoint Templates

8 free charts powerpoint templates.

8 Free Charts PowerPoint Templates

This template includes 8 customizable charts infographics for you to use in your presentations. The template includes pie charts, bar charts, and infographics too. It’s also available in Excel format.

12 Free Infographics Slides for PowerPoint

12 Free Infographics Slides for PowerPoint

There are 12 different infographic slides to choose from in this PowerPoint template. They are ideal for both business and research presentations. The template is free to use.

Free Internal Motivation Infographics PowerPoint Template

Free Internal Motivation Infographics PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template includes 31 unique slide designs with infographics. They are designed for visualizing stats and information for motivating your teams and employees.

The Power of Feminism Infographics PowerPoint Template

The Power of Feminism Infographics PowerPoint Template

You can use this free PowerPoint template to create attractive infographic slides to promote the power of feminism. It includes more than 30 unique slide designs. And you can customize them in Google Slides as well.

PPTx Infographics

PPTx Infographics

This Powerpoint presentation template also includes 50 unique infographic slides. The slides are also available in light and dark themes as well as unlimited color options for customizing the shapes, text, and icons of the slides.

Epsilon – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Epsilon - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Epsilon is a free PowerPoint template made for small businesses. You can use it to create powerful business presentations using its slides full of charts and graphs. The template can be easily customized with multiple color options and icons.

Free Business Infographics PowerPoint Template

Animated Business Infographics PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with lots of editable infographics you can use to visualize your data. The template includes 8 unique slide designs that are easily customizable. It’s also available in Google Slides version as well.

The Visual Communication Guy

Learn Visually. Communicate Powerfully.

The Visual Communication Guy

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  • Five Paragraph Essay
  • IMRaD (Science)
  • Indirect Method (Bad News)
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  • Martini Glass
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  • Rogerian Method
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  • Apostrophes
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  • Periods (Full Stops)
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presentation design elements

How to Design a PowerPoint: A Visual Guide to Making Slides with Impact

Home > Speaking > How to Design a PowerPoint

A quick Google Images search for “worst PowerPoint slides” proves two very clear realities: 1) anybody can create a PowerPoint; and 2) many don’t know how to do them well.

That’s understandable, though. Unless you’ve recently taken courses or training in design, data visualization, and public speaking, you likely haven’t had any more education on how to create an effective slide deck than a ten-year-old.

And you’re not alone.

Bad PowerPoints are everywhere: professor lectures, science conferences, human resources trainings, team meetings, sales review gatherings, thesis and dissertation defenses, product pitches, job interviews, you name it. Some of the brightest people in the world have created some of the most awful PowerPoints. For most, it’s just not a natural skill.

That’s unfortunate, too, because a well-designed slide deck can make a tremendous difference in the reception of the message you’re trying to convey.

To start designing excellent slide decks right away, follow my quick guide to designing better PowerPoints right after this paragraph. To get a whole workshop’s worth of information about how to design better slides, scroll below. 🙂

Click image to enlarge.

presentation design elements

The question is, does designing a nice PowerPoint actually matter?

Well, if you’ve made it this far, you already know my opinion. But the short answer is, YES! Effective slide decks can make a HUGE difference in the outcome of your presentation. Why? Because slides—which should be used to supplement and enhance your well-prepared script (not be the presentation, as we often see in slides that are nothing more than bulleted lists)—significantly improve engagement during the presentation and recall after the presentation.

Basically, if you want people to both pay attention AND remember what you said, good slides can make all the difference. Plus, research has shown that people trust information more when it’s well-designed. In sum, good slides will cause your audience to:

  • Pay attention more and stay more engaged;
  • Remember the key messages from your presentation better;
  • Trust you and your information more; and
  • Believe you are super smart and awesome. (I mean, you already are, but good slides will seal the deal.)

Bad slides, on the other hand, are not only distracting, but they can actually damage a person’s ability to understand and follow your message.

At best, poorly designed slides will make you look less professional. At worst, they’ll encourage people to not listen to anything you have to say. Bad slides (which are caused by a whole range of things, including being too text-heavy, too busy, too inconsistent, or too color crazy, etc. [see my article on 40 Ways to Screw Up a PowerPoint Slide ]), overwhelmingly distract from your presentation.

If a slide has too much text, people try to read it and listen to you at the same time—which damages their ability to do either well. If your slides are too busy, your audience won’t be able to understand the information quick enough. If it’s ugly, well…people just tune out and ignore (and judge you, to boot).

Okay, so enough of the why . Let’s get to making better slides!

The 9 Steps to Designing a Better PowerPoint Slide

Step 1: empathize with your audience.

presentation design elements

The term “empathy” in this context comes from a relatively new theory called “design thinking,” in which you can apply the mindset of a designer to a variety of contexts. So, whether you’re creating a toothbrush, a video game, an automobile, or…a PowerPoint, you need to be thinking a like a designer—which starts with empathy.

Empathizing with an audience is like applying the Golden Rule: present unto them as you would like to be presented to. Of course, the content of presentation itself comes first and foremost, but the design of your slides should support and enhance your content, so you’ll be thinking of your script and your slides at the same time. To begin, it’s best to start with a few concrete questions about your audience:

  • Why are they there? Are they at your presentation because they want to be, or because they have to be? Is your presentation the only one of the day, or is it one of many (like at a conference)? Are they expecting to learn, be entertained, be inspired, be trained? In essence, you want to know their state of mind before coming so you can plan to accommodate that as best you can.
  • Why would they care? Dig deep here. Does your audience actually care about the topic as much as you do? And…if you don’t care, why don’t you? If the topic isn’t meaningful and you can’t make it feel that way, then why even present? But…if they do care, know why they do. What will they hope for and expect out of it? What can you do to meet and exceed their expectations?
  • What do they need to know? And what DON’T they? How much about your subject do they already know? Are they novices, experts, or a blend of both? Does it make more sense to break your topic into separate presentations on separate days, rather than giving it all at once? Is it focused and narrow enough to make an impact? Can you leave anything that is irrelevant out?
  • What will keep them engaged? Consider your content and your big takeaways. Consider the personalities and knowledge base of the audience? What can you do to keep them engaged? Now…remember that “engaged” doesn’t mean “entertained” (though it can). If you’re a scientist presenting on bacterial infections in the liver, entertainment is obviously not appropriate. But…if you don’t engage them, they may not appreciate your research, no matter how valuable it is. What will they want to see, hear, and know and how can you display that to them in a way that will keep them interested?

Once you have clear idea about your audience’s needs and desires, you can begin to develop slides (along with the content of your script) that will give them exactly what they’re looking for rather than wasting their time (and yours).

Step 2: Define the Story

presentation design elements

Think of your presentation as a story and you, the presenter, as an author in real time. As you deliver a presentation, you are creating the tone, setting, and plot for what happens. Your execution of the presentation will, if done right, create a climax/conflict and an important resolution. Consider how your slide development functions like the five components of a story, then write down how you plan to control (define) that story:

  • The Setting. You create a mood and presence by the way you enter the room, interact with the audience, and display your title. While you may not have full control over who comes and what the room looks like, you do have relative control over the tone and ambiance and how they will react to your message. Consider the title of your presentation. Does it capture your message while also creating a buzz about your topic? Can you add a photo on the title slide that will intrigue your audience? What colors will you use? How do you plan to interact with the slides and how will you keep the audience involved?
  • The Characters. You may not know all the people in the room, but you should know as much about them as possible (start with Step 1). Still, you have a way to shape their interest and engagement in this topic. Characters in this story are stakeholders. Your ultimate goal for giving should be one of three things: help them think about something in a new, meaningful way; learn something valuable they didn’t know before; and/or act as a result of what they learned. If you can’t get them to one of those three points, you’ve never really developed the characters.
  • The Plot . A plot in storytelling is a series of events that build towards a conclusion. A plot needs to have direction, with clear and meaningful series of events. As you develop your script, you should be thinking about your rhetorical progression of ideas—your building towards a final outcome or conclusion. The development of slides can help you with this and they can help your audience stay on track. The key is, you need to make sure your audience is following the plot. If the plot starts to feel loose, disconnected, fragmented, or…all over the place, you’ll lose them faster than a 0-star rated movie.
  • The Conflict. There must be some reason why everyone is there to see you presentation. It’s possible they don’t fully understand it themselves, but you, as the presenter, must make their purpose evidently clear. You must make them care. The more and more you pull them into your subject matter, the more you have effectively built a climax, which is the key to any successful story.
  • The Resolution . The resolution is the takeaway—it’s what resolves the conflict. If you’ve built a strong climax, you now need to make sure your audience leaves with something valuable. If they leave thinking in a new, meaningful way; if they have learned something valuable that they can apply today; or if they are ready and knowledgeable about how to act, then the resolution is there and you, the author, have done your job.

Step 3: Brand Your Message

presentation design elements

Jeff Bezos is famous for having said, “Brand is what others say about you when you’re not in the room.” You might think similarly about your presentation. How will your audience feel about your presentation afterwards, when you’re not around?

That can be an intimidating question to ask. And, it may seem a little odd to think about your message as a “brand.” But…applying brand theory to messaging makes a lot of sense. You want people to get on board with what you have to say. To do that, you have to establish what they value, what motivates them, and what you’ll have to do meet or exceed their expectations.

Brand experts use a lot of terms to describe and define brands. Let’s address a few, and apply them to slide design:

  • Differentiation. How yours is different from the rest. What can you do to make your message stand out from a world of clutter and information? What makes yours unique? Is it your approach, the stories you tell, your language, your humor, your ideas, something else?
  • Authenticity . How much you genuinely care. Audiences can tell if you’re passionate or not. They know if you care about both your topic and them learning it. If you fake it, the message gets diluted. Use your slides to help showcase how much you care.
  • History . What people already know about you, your topic, or your experience. Do you need to establish credibility, or do you already have it? Do you have experience you can lean into? Does your audience already like/agree with this topic? Is it totally new and unfamiliar to them? How can you bring the history of your topic and yourself into the presentation? Will you audience need a primer on the history or does it matter?
  • Simplicity. Making the most important things stick. Good brands almost always have simple logos, simple taglines, and simple brand positioning statements. Many also focus on limited products—they focus on what they do well. Your message can work the same way. Can you simplify your entire message into 2 – 5 key points? Can you reduce the amount of information that has to be taken in all at once? Can you help organize and chunk information to be clearer and simpler to follow? People generally have a hard time remembering complex information all at once—determine what the real purpose of your presentation is and what your audience can reasonably get out of it, then simplify to make sure that happens.
  • Visual Identity . Your message, like a brand, can be enhanced if people resonate with the overall look and feel. Just like with buying a brand of shoes, people will be drawn to the design of your information. If it looks static, cliche, poorly design, or just plain ugly, you’ve created an undesirable visual identity and people will have a harder time buying into it. But if you can take your message and harmonize with strong design and imagery, people will be more likely to be attracted by, latch onto, and “buy in” to what you have to say. What should your visual identity look like, considering your topic?

Step 4: Select Your Fonts

presentation design elements

The choice of your font may seem a small thing, but it can make the difference between a sleek, professional presentation and one that is static, boring, or, worse, painfully obnoxious.

If you’re not a professional designer, being font savvy may not come natural. Fortunately, there just a few rules you can follow to help you make your choices:

  • Avoid the Defaults . In PowerPoint (as in MS Word), the default font is Calibri. Before 2010, the default was Times New Roman. Other programs use Arial or Myriad Pro as the default. What’s wrong with defaults? The fonts themselves are actually fine fonts—that’s why Microsoft went with them. BUT…because they’re the defaults, they are so widely used that they’ve become dull. If you just leave the defaults, your audience will subconsciously feel that you didn’t design your PowerPoint (because you probably didn’t). Just changing the font can bolster your PowerPoint’s professionalism quickly.
  • Stick to Simple, Modern Fonts. Okay, so you don’t want to use the defaults, but what DO you use? Something simple. Don’t go crazy. Find something that is similar to the default, with just a little variation. Find something that is super easy to read and looks clean, simple, and sleek. Nothing distracting. Remember: you want people to focus on your story and message, not the lettering. Look at the graphic above for a list of some good, simple, modern fonts. Avoid, at all costs, the notoriously ugly or cliched fonts: Comic Sans; Chiller; Papyrus; Algerian; Curlz MT; and so forth.
  • Make Sure Your Fonts Are on the Computer(s) You’re Presenting On. Remember: fonts are installed on individual computers, not attached to a program. A misunderstanding that many people have is that a font comes with PowerPoint (or any other program you’re working on). That’s NOT accurate. Fonts are installed on your computer. So…if you use a cool font that was on your desktop PC, but you are presenting your slides on a MacBook laptop, you’ll want to check that both computers have the font you’re using. Some fonts are pretty standard and you’ll find them on pretty much all computers: Palatino Linotype, Century Gothic, Segoe UI, Garamond. Others, however, are proprietary and may not be on other computers: Acumin Pro, Raleway, Helvetica. If you know you’ll be presenting on multiple different computers, find a standard font. One I’ve always liked to use is Century Gothic.
  • Consider Using Two Fonts . The “two-font rule” suggests that designs will be more attractive if they use two fonts—one for headings and titles, the other for body text. You can get away with just one font if you make your headings stand out in some way—by size, weight, or color—but it’s often a nice aesthetic to use two. Just be sure that the two fonts are obviously different from each other (don’t use both Arial AND Century Gothic—they’re too similar, which will look like an accident) and that they harmonize well together. It’s often good to use a serif font (the type with little “feet” like in Palatino Linotype) paired with a sans serif font (the kind without “feet,” like Century Gothic).

Step 5: Narrow Your Colors

presentation design elements

A hallmark of any good design is a simple, consistent color scheme. Keep your slide designs to fewer than four colors. Often, it’s good to use black, white, gray, and then one or two accent colors. Years ago, when I was new to design, I had someone tell me that a brochure I created looked like a clown exploded on the page. You DON’T want your slides to look like a clown exploded! To avoid that, find your color scheme in advance and stick to it.

Color can be tricky. If you work for a company that already has a pre-established style guide and color scheme, definitely use it! Not only is that important for your company’s brand, it makes your life a whole lot easier. If you do have to choose colors yourself, though, consider going to this website first: color.adobe.com . You can type things into the “explore” bar and you’ll be led to color schemes that look nice.

What you want to look for are colors that are a bit muted and won’t overwhelm the eyes of your viewers. Remember that you want to keep a high contrast so it doesn’t strain your audience members’ eyes. So…stick to black or really dark gray for text. Keep a white or very light background. Use the accent color for headings or important pieces of content. And…just make sure the colors match your topic or industry.

Step 6: Divide into Sections

presentation design elements

Good presentations are well organized. Your slides should visually reflect your organization by using different slide “types” for different parts of your presentation or content.

All presentations should have at least three slide types: a title slide, a body slide, and a closing slide. Most presentations will have a fourth: a section slide. Section slides are used to transition your presentation from one major topic to the next. Many presentations can also benefit from callout slides, which are used to designate unique types of content that show up periodically—like for direct quotes or polling questions to audience members.

If you’ve ever taken a college course on public speaking, you probably remember your professor telling you to use “signposts.” A signpost is a metaphor for visual or oral cues that let your reader know where they’re at in the journey. Signposts keep your audience oriented. Sectioning your slides provides a visual signifier to your audience that you are shifting gears—plus, it just makes your slides feel cohesive, professional, and organized.

Take the time to design your slide types first. Then, fill in the content from your presentation script.

A quick note about body slides, though. These are going to be the most frequently used slides, the ones that you put the majority of your content on. Note that body slides don’t all have to look identical. They need to be consistent in design—repeating the same fonts, colors, photography style, highlights, etc.—but the layouts can change. Providing some visual variation is good for your audience.

Step 7: Visualize Every Slide

presentation design elements

One of the biggest errors inexperienced presenters make is believing that audience members need to be able to read a lot of text to understand the message.

The reality is, when you put a lot of text on the screen—even if it’s in a bulleted list—you end up creating more difficulty for your audience. They’ll try to read while also trying to listen to you, creating a conflict of noise that will eventually cause them to only catch about half of what you wanted them to. Plus, a lot of text is boring and not efficient for the human brain.

Research has actually shown (and there is significant evidence to prove this) that making information visual is good for humans for four reasons: engagement, cognition, trust, and recall.

  • Visual information is more engaging . Most all people will tell you that they are “visual learners.” The reality is that pretty much all humans are. We pay attention to visual information because our brains are designed to process visual information faster. When you provide visuals—photographs, charts, diagrams, icons, etc.—people will pay far more attention than if you just have text. In fact, if you just have text on a screen, people will likely zone out.
  • Visual information is easier to understand. If designed well and related to the topic, people will understand visual information faster than they will from reading. Even as you read this article (assuming you’re still here!), the information that is really going to help you are the visual examples and explanations I’ve added for each section. That’s the stuff where you’ll say, “aha! now I know what Curtis is telling me to do.” All this text—it’s just ancillary stuff to provide more detail. But the photos/graphics are what you’ll really learn from.
  • Visualized information builds trust. For better or for worse, humans are wired to trust information more when it has been visualized, especially when it looks professional. If you take a table of data and turn it into a data visualization that is professionally design, people will tend to trust it more. Something about taking the time to visualize information makes people assume you know what you’re talking about. Now, that said, you have to make sure your data visualizations are accurate. The real pitfall here is that people will tend to trust it more, even if it’s misleading. If they discover any flaws, your entire argument (and credibility) will go out the window.
  • Visual information is easier to remember . Research studies have shown that visual information will be retained more than six times better if visuals are attached to it. If you actually want people to remember your presentation you must do two things: tell stories and use pictures. If you simply regurgitate information and make it very text-heavy, your audience will forget almost everything you said within three days. If you add pictures, though, they’ll have mental images to trigger memory, helping them retain your message much longer.

Find ways to visualize every chance you can, making sure that your visuals emphasize, clarify, or enhance the content you are talking about. Look at the examples above. Find ways to reduce text and enlarge graphics; turn bullets into images or icons; and use simple, easy to understand graphics that draw attention to the most important point.

Step 8: Play with Photos and Layouts

presentation design elements

This is the one that takes the most practice, but it can be the most fun and rewarding. Recognize that your body slides can take multiple forms and that there are endless ways to organize, crop, and adjust visualizations, photos, headings, and designs. As long as you keep your color scheme, fonts, and highlighting techniques consistent, the slides will still feel uniform and professional, while giving variety to your slides.

Some things to think about as you play with the design of your slides:

  • CONTRAST: Make sure you use high contrast in colors, especially for areas where you have text (black text on white backgrounds almost always work best). In addition, make sure that things that are different actually look significantly different. If two fonts are different sizes, make them obviously different sizes. If you’re using two colors, make them completely different colors. When two things look similar, there isn’t much contrast, which looks accidental and/or visually dull.
  • REPETITION: Repetition is all about consistency in design. Repeat design elements throughout: fonts, colors, highlights, logos, shapes, styles, etc. Repeat the same visual feel for photos. Use the same types of icons and graphics. The more unified the design, the strong the appeal and the more professional you look.
  • ALIGNMENT: Make sure everything on your slide is aligned with something else. Nothing should be “floating,” or placed arbitrarily. Align photos to titles, words to other words, rules/lines to other elements. Keep it all tightly aligned and crisp.
  • PROXIMITY: Put things that are related close together and things that aren’t apart from each other. The brain will automatically assume that, if two things are next to each other (like a photo and a caption) that they are connected. Avoid confusing your audience by separating things that are different and connecting things that go together.
  • Move Photos to the Bleeds . The term “bleed” is a graphic design principle that describes moving photos to the edge of page (where the ink “bleeds” off) in order to reduce visual noise. An old design principles developed by Josef Albers, 1+1=3, suggests that when you insert two objects, you automatically create a third—the space between. When you insert a photo, you end up creating a margin of white space around the edges. If that white space isn’t necessary, just make the image larger and push clear to the edge of the screen. This will remove the margin and the noise. Plus, it just makes slides look simpler and more professional and it really draws the eyes to the photo.

Step 9: Orient Your Audience

presentation design elements

In addition to creating section slides (see Step 6 above), you can help your audience—and yourself—stay organized by giving visual cues and textual information in footers, slide counts, and headers or sidebars.

These orienting features of a slide deck can be especially valuable if you’re giving a long presentation, workshop, or training.

Start by creating a footer. These aren’t required and you don’t need them on every slide, but in most costs, presentations will benefit from some information in the footer. Some of the most common things to include in a footer:

  • Company logo
  • Company name
  • Name of presenter
  • Name of event or conference
  • Title of presentation
  • Copyright information

Beyond the footer, you can also include a slide count (in example above, look at the bottom right of the slide). While some argue that this can be distracting, most would say that a slide count will help audience members know how much more to expect, putting their “I’m being held hostage by this presenter!” fears away.

If your presentation is particularly long (like, say, 45 minutes or more) or you’re giving a workshop, you can really help your audience by giving them a sort of contents or guide, so that they know where they’re at in relation to everything else. You might, for example, create a small sidebar on the left that includes the section they’re in with the subsection. Or, as in the example at the top (see top left of example), you might just include which section you’re on and a summary title of that section.

There is no one or perfect way to orient your audience members. Just make sure it’s on the forefront of your mind as you work to build empathy into your slide design. The presentation is for them, after all, not you. Give them as much as you can to help them appreciate the message you’re delivering.

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Create a presentation

Create a presentation in PowerPoint

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Create presentations from scratch or start with a professionally designed, fully customizable template from Microsoft Create .

Tip:  If you have Microsoft Copilot it can help you create a presentation, add slides or images, and more. To learn more see  Create a new presentation with Copilot in PowerPoint.

Open PowerPoint.

In the left pane, select New .

Select an option:

To create a presentation from scratch, select Blank Presentation .

To use a prepared design, select one of the templates.

To see tips for using PowerPoint, select Take a Tour , and then select Create , .

Create new PowerPoint

Add a slide

In the thumbnails on the left pane, select the slide you want your new slide to follow.

In the  Home tab, in the  Slides  section, select  New Slide .

In the Slides section, select Layout , and then select the layout you want from the menu.

PowerPoint slide layouts

Add and format text

Place the cursor inside a text box, and then type something.

Select the text, and then select one or more options from the Font section of the Home tab, such as  Font , Increase Font Size , Decrease Font Size ,  Bold , Italic , Underline , etc.

To create bulleted or numbered lists, select the text, and then select Bullets or Numbering .

PowerPoint format text

Add a picture, shape, and more

Go to the  Insert  tab.

To add a picture:

In the Images section, select Pictures .

In the Insert Picture From menu, select the source you want.

Browse for the picture you want, select it, and then select Insert .

To add illustrations:

In the Illustrations section, select Shapes , Icons , 3D Models ,  SmartArt , or Chart .

In the dialog box that opens when you click one of the illustration types, select the item you want and follow the prompts to insert it.

Insert Images in PowerPoint

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How To Create a Slide Deck: Templates & Tips

How To Create a Slide Deck: Templates & Tips

Written by: Unenabasi Ekeruke

How to create a slide deck

Wondering how to create slide decks that hit the mark? Look no further; you've come to the right place.

Whether you're pitching investors or making a keynote presentation, the quality of your slide deck matters a great deal.

Well-designed slide decks can pique your audience's interest and win them over.

In fact, about 91% of presenters swear beautiful slide decks boost their confidence during presentations.

In this article, we'll discuss what a slide deck is and how to create one. We've also included templates and helpful tips for creating powerful slide decks that leave a lasting impression.

In this video, we've also put together 13 presentation design tips for creating awesome slide decks.

Let's dive in!

Table of Contents

  • What Is a Slide Deck

How To Make a Slide Deck in 5 Steps

10 slide deck templates for creating successful presentations, slide deck faqs, create attractive slide decks with visme, what is a slide deck.

A slide deck is a collection of slides used as visual aids during a pitch or presentation. Think of each slide as a single card in a deck with unique content, meanings, value and structure.

Like a deck of cards, you can queue up your slides to tell a story about a topic. Depending on your story's angle, tone and mood , you can shuffle your slides or eliminate some of them.

How you build your slide deck depends on these three things:

  • The type of presentation you're making
  • Who your audiences are
  • What you want to accomplish or the message you're passing across

Slide decks like the one below are a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, marketers and businesspeople.

presentation design elements

When used to pitch a startup or idea , a slide deck is also called a pitch deck . But you could call it a presentation deck when you're using it for other purposes like presenting a proposal in a professional or academic setting.

Slide decks help you present ideas in an organized format and aid delivery during presentations. Many presentation programs like Visme and PowerPoint let you add as many slides as you want to your deck. The best part is that you can design and customize your deck, making it look professional and attractive.

Create a stunning presentation in less time

  • Hundreds of premade slides available
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How you craft your slide deck can play a big role in the success of your presentation. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create an effective slide deck.

Step 1: Build Your Deck Around Your Story

Want to up the value of your presentation? Start by focusing on your core message. Regardless of your presentation type, your slide deck outline should answer these key questions:

  • What is the purpose of your presentation?
  • What do you want your audience to understand or remember?
  • What actions do you want them to take after listening to you?

Many people, including experienced presenters, tend to fill their slides with points that don't add value. This leaves the audience confused about whether to listen or read the slide.

Remember, the pitch deck should visually enhance your audience's learning experience. Once you weave your narrative around your main story, you can organize your supporting points around it. You're sure to engage your audience and drive your message across.

Dealing with busy execs who won't sit through your presentation? Use a startup one pager instead. It'll get their attention quicker and more efficiently. You can then secure a meeting to present your pitch deck.

Step 2: Use Premade Templates

Templates give you a creative head start. They provide consistency in design, layout and ideas. Visme has thousands of editable slide deck templates to help you create presentations quickly.

Here's how to customize your slide deck in Visme.

1. Select and Edit a Template

Each slide deck template in Visme has two or more slides. Feel free to add, remove or reorder slides to your deck as you proceed. Once your presentation structure is ready, pick out slides to edit and input your own content.

If you have an existing presentation in PowerPoint, you can import it and continue editing your slides in Visme.

2. Input and Edit Text

After you've selected your slides, add custom text to them. Our templates have built-in text placeholders. Click and drag the placeholder to change the text position. Or click each placeholder and highlight the block of text to edit it.

Type your text or paste the text you copied from elsewhere. Repeat the process throughout the rest of the slide deck.

Want to add more fun and personality to your text? Visme editor makes it easy for you to change font style, text color, size, style, direction and much more. Animate your text and add other special effects to make your text alluring.

3. Use High-quality Stock Images

High-quality images capture and convey abstract concepts like color and emotions. Upload images stored on your computer and use them in your design. Or select from Visme's rich library of free high-resolution images to find the perfect one for your slide deck.

4. Add Shapes, Icons and Animated Graphics

Use these elements to bring boring presentations to life. They are effective for creating minimalistic designs and explaining complex ideas.

Visme has a comprehensive library of more than one million shapes, icons , illustrations and animations . Click the graphics tab, select the asset, and add it to the slide. You can change the color, position and size of your design assets.

5. Add Data Visualizations

Use data visualizations to share statistics, financial and other numerical data in your presentation. You'll find bar charts, pie charts , graphs , timelines , flowcharts , maps and more in Visme.

Select the chart or graph and customize the title, color, data, legends and more.

6. Eliminate Unwanted Elements

Pre-built slide decks contain lots of placeholder content. They serve as a guide to help you create the perfect presentation. You don't have to use all of it.

Feel free to eliminate anything that isn't useful to your deck. Watch this video to learn more about creating beautiful slide deck presentations in Visme.

Step 3. Make Your Design Count

When preparing for your big day, invest as much time into your slide design as your content. What's in it for you? An engaging slide deck can draw in your audience and get them excited about what you have to offer.

Be Consistent

If your company has a brand guideline, apply your brand elements to the slides. But if you haven't got one, Visme helps create a strong and memorable brand identity .

Use the brand style guide template below to define your brand personality and ensure consistency.

presentation design elements

After creating your logo, fonts and colors, you can save them in Visme's brand design tool . Your team members can easily create presentations in Visme and your brand theme will automatically appear on their designs.

Watch the video below to learn how to set up your branding kit in Visme.

Use the Right Font Pairing

Choosing the right font pairing and sizes can be a big deal, especially for non-designers. But getting it right can turn a boring slide deck into an appealing one.

Stick to two or three typefaces and assign distinct roles to each font —the more contrast between your fonts, the better.

For instance, you can use the same font for headings, another for the intro, another for the body and the fourth for quotes.

Use typefaces that connote your personality and style. If you're pitching art or design themes, incorporate classic and contemporary typefaces that connote creativity and elegance.

Not sure how to pair fonts? We've created this detailed guide to help you choose the right font combination for your designs.

Step 4: Incorporate the Right Visuals

Without a doubt, the human brain is wired for visuals . The mental capacity to process visual content far exceeds that of written and spoken words.

Attractive visual aids help you tell more compelling stories than text. Incorporating images, video animations and sleek transitions to break up static slides will get people's attention.

Bar charts that show patterns or trends can boost investors' confidence and convey excitement. The same goes for pie charts, which are great for comparing growth areas.

Use infographics to condense lengthy text into visuals that people can easily relate to. Luckily, Visme has the right tools for every job. With our infographic maker , you can easily translate your ideas into digestible graphics.

Step 5: Make Your Slide Deck Clear and Brief

One big mistake people make is that they want to keep adding content to their slide deck. They end up filling it up with tedious details irrelevant to their audience.

Remember, your slides are supposed to aid your presentation rather than contain every word you say. If you fill it with text, you could quickly lose your audience. They'll keep longing for the end and leave the room with little or no information.

To make your slide deck impactful, eliminate fluff. Keep it brief yet filled with key action points. Fit your information into three key blocks- a persuasive intro, a strong body and an actionable conclusion. You will have a more focused, shorter, and memorable presentation .

Whether you want to create slide decks for business, education, or nonprofits, Visme has everything you need. We have thousands of templates to help you create stunning slide decks you can be proud of. Here are our top 10 templates from each of these categories.

Template #1: HybCab Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Got a new business idea? Or do you want to scale your business? Get your investors pumped up with this Uber-inspired professional pitch deck template.

The editable 20-slide deck template covers every element of a winning pitch. It features a striking slide layout, a beautiful color scheme, and high-resolution photos and icons. The interactive data visualizations allow you to share compelling numbers that attract investors' interest.

presentation design elements

Template #2: Buyer Presentation Template

Use this attractive slide deck template to win over clients for your real estate business. The simple and classy design makes it unique and impactful.

You'll find a lot of space to play around with colors, fonts and other design elements. Feel free to tweak the layout design, add compelling images of your properties, key stats and much more.

presentation design elements

Template #3: BuffIT Pitch Deck Presentation Template

This template is a perfect pick for companies looking to pitch to customers or investors. Use this Buffer-inspired slide deck to share your key information like goals, traction, milestones, financial projection and more.

The consistent blue color theme and elegant styling provide a refreshing visual experience. Notice how charts, timelines and images are used to draw attention to critical data. You can add or remove slides, edit the content, and use your brand colors, fonts and logo to keep it on brand.

presentation design elements

Template #4: Training Course Presentation Template

Bridge the skills gap in your organization with this training slide deck template. The template has a minimalistic design and seamlessly blends different shades of blue across all 13 slides.

The slides feature valuable elements and sections to help your audience retain the information better. You'll find quality icons, images, a chart, timeline, checklist and evaluation matrix.

Use this template to onboard new hires and get them in the mood for work. You can also use it to prepare training courses or introduce new policies and procedures.

presentation design elements

Template #5: Coffee Lover Statistics Presentation

Here's another cutting-edge slide deck template for education, training and informational purposes. The coffee-themed presentation has a rich blend of white, brown and black color themes.

You can use it to highlight the benefits of a product with relevant statistics, charts and graphs to make it digestible. The text, icons and images are evenly spaced, making it easier for your audience to grasp key information.

Create the perfect slide deck with Visme's design collaboration feature. Team members can view, edit and leave feedback on your presentation in real-time. You can reply, resolve and delete comments till the design is top-notch.

presentation design elements

Template #6: Nonprofit Report Presentation

Are you starting a nonprofit or growing an existing one? This editable slide deck presentation can serve multiple purposes.

You can use it to share what you and your volunteers have been up to in the past year. It's also helpful in building support for your charitable projects.

It features sections like executive summary, introduction, map of projects, number of incidences, cases, casualties and more. Use images, data visualizations and widgets from Visme's library to tell stories that pique your audience's interests.

presentation design elements

#Template 7: Lesson Plan Presentation

With this slide deck template, you can build a learning trajectory for your students. It outlines what students need to learn, how lessons will be delivered, and how learning will be evaluated. You can also list resources needed by teachers and students, methods and assignment types.

Change the color, font and logo to fit your brand and your deck is ready for use.

presentation design elements

Template #8: Creative Product Presentation

Weave a captivating narrative about your product with this slide deck template. The template has a dynamic layout, creating room for you to present any information.

It highlights key information like the product mockup, milestones and timelines, revenue projections, product pricing and more. Use this template to visualize the creation process for SaaS-based platforms, cloud solutions and tech products.

Template #9: Financial Report Presentation

Looking to communicate financial activities and performance within your company? This visual-rich slide deck template fits the bill. It contains bars, charts, and graphs, making your data easier to comprehend.

The dark background and bright-colored fonts and elements create the perfect visual contrast. Liven up your presentation with animated icons, illustrations and special effects. Also, incorporate hover effects and clickable pop-ups to make your slides interactive.

Template #10: Parenting Keynote Presentation

Use this appealing keynote presentation template to deliver a powerful presentation on parenting. This colorful slide deck can help you connect with other parents, teachers and child caregivers.

Utilize our crisp stock photos, icons and illustrations to make your audience engagement more rewarding.

presentation design elements

Why Is It Called a Slide Deck?

The term slide decks date back to an old technology where slides were physically inserted into a carousel projector and projected on the wall or screen. These slides were shuffled like a deck of cards to create a presentation. Hence, the name "slide deck" has stuck with the modern age.

Today slide decks are created and projected digitally using software like Visme , PowerPoint, Google Slides and more.

What Is the Difference Between a Slide Deck vs. Powerpoint vs Presentation vs Pitch Deck?

A slide deck is a group of slides put together to tell a story. PowerPoint is a software application used to create slide decks or presentations. A pitch deck is a distinct type of slide deck used to pitch a solution, idea, or product when seeking financing from investors.

How Do You Make a Beautiful Slide Deck?

Whether you're sharing strategies or performance updates, you don't need to build your slide deck from scratch. Visme has a rich library of beautifully-designed slide decks that leaves a lasting impression on your audience.

Now you know what makes a slide deck great. It's time to create one for your business.

Visme presentation software and templates provide everything you need to create beautiful slide decks for any purpose. Our software has helped thousands of businesses and professionals nail their presentations.

Each template comes with pre-designed slides. You can replace your content and customize other design elements according to your preference. With Dynamic Fields , you're sure your personal, company and other critical information will be accurate and updated throughout your presentation in real-time.

Visme lets you download your slide deck in multiple formats or share online using a link . You can generate an embed code and paste it on your website or blog. From your analytics page , you can see who has viewed your presentation and other metrics.

Easily put together winning slide decks in Visme

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Trusted by leading brands

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Recommended content for you:

15 Successful Startup Pitch Deck Examples, Tips & Templates

Create Stunning Content!

Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.

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About the Author

Unenabasi is a content expert with many years of experience in digital marketing, business development, and strategy. He loves to help brands tell stories that drive engagement, growth, and competitive advantage. He’s adept at creating compelling content on lifestyle, marketing, business, e-commerce, and technology. When he’s not taking the content world by storm, Unenabasi enjoys playing or watching soccer.

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Category 9 minutes read

10 creative ideas for presentations

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December 8, 2022

banner-img

Ready to step up your presentation game? Let’s talk about creative ideas for presentations so you can deliver killer presentations every time. Whether you’re preparing a pitch deck for potential investors or onboarding new hires, you’ll need an engaging presentation to keep your audience interested. That’s right: even if you’re already a pro at public speaking, creative Powerpoint presentations can instantly upgrade your next meeting.

So, what’s the secret to creative presentations? You don’t have to spend hours on every slide, but you should design your slides to impact your audience. Well designed slides can add more power to your words, and they can make you feel more confident during presentations.

Why should you make presentations?

Creative ideas for presentations might not be easy to come by, but they’re important. Why? Presentations are all about storytelling. From business ideas to online classes, presentations offer a unique opportunity to inspire, educate, and persuade your audience.

At the same time, they’re an incredibly flexible (and cost-effective!) communication tool. Even if you’re using presentation design templates , you’ll have the flexibility to tweak the design based on your needs. This way, you can create presentations for different audiences—all while easily adding and removing information to pique your listeners’ interest.

Types of presentation slides

There are all kinds of creative ideas for presentations, but they ultimately serve a few similar purposes. Before diving into presentation design, you’ll need to choose the right slides. Remember: you need well designed slides to leave a lasting impact on your audience. Not only that, but your slides should be visually impactful, easy to understand, and convey key information in just a few words.

So, how can you choose the best slides for your next presentation? Here are some of the most common slides to inspire your presentation design.

Informative presentations

informative presentations

Informative presentations are educational, concise, and straight to the point. While other presentations might entertain or inspire their audience, informative presentations share information to educate their audience.

For example, you might create informative slides during an onboarding program. During new hire onboarding, HR needs to explain what benefits employees will receive, how to file complaints, where employees can find information, and other important hiring details.

Educational presentations

Educational presentations

While informative presentations are typically used in the business world, educational presentations are usually used in academics. They’re a great communication tool for sharing ideas, detailing study results, or presenting a hypothesis.

In both in-person and online classrooms, teachers give educational presentations daily. Using beautiful presentation slides, eye-catching visuals, and fun design elements can help keep students interested while conveying key information.

Progress reports

Progress reports

Your business builds a new marketing strategy to achieve its long-term goals. After the newest marketing campaign starts driving results, it’s time to report on the campaign’s progress. Progress report presentations share updates, progress toward deadlines, collected data, and potential areas of improvement.

Inspirational presentations

Inspirational presentations

One of the biggest examples of inspirational presentations? TEDTalks. During TEDTalks, motivational speakers inspire people to rethink their approach or change their behavior.

Most inspirational presentations aren’t as life-changing as TEDTalks, but they keep their audience engaged. For example, a company overview presentation might present information about a company, from its origins to values. Most importantly, it tells the company’s story to show listeners what the company stands for.

Infographic presentations

Infographic presentations

Whether you’re reporting marketing stats or presenting study results, infographics can be your MVP.

Simply put, an infographic is a multimedia graphic that helps you share information through beautiful designs. It’s an amazing tool for highlighting key statistics, visualizing data, and flexing your creative muscles to spark your audience’s curiosity.

Top 10 unique presentation ideas

Right, so let’s get to our creative ideas for presentations section. Most people tune out of presentations within the first 10 minutes . You need an engaging presentation that keeps your audience hooked, but finding creative ideas for presentations isn’t always easy.

The good news? Whether you’re presenting your master thesis or marketing analytics, it’s possible to create exciting presentations that don’t put your audience to sleep. Here are the best creative Powerpoint ideas to upgrade your next presentation.

1. Channel your inner minimalist

minimalist example

When it comes to unique presentation ideas, minimalism is one of the best ways to make an impact. The key to minimalist design is including just enough information and visual detail to keep your audience engaged. When done right, minimalist presentation slides can make your audience feel relaxed and focused.

2. Use a monochrome color palette

monochrome example

A monochrome color palette uses a single hue with different strengths. For example, you might create a presentation with different shades of orange. For the best results, change the background color to the palest shade, and use the strongest shade for the title. You can even make your photos match by adding an orange-tinted filter.

3. Tell an amazing story

story example

If you want to leave a lasting impact on your audience, storytelling is the tool you need to create a memorable presentation. Sharing personal stories, whether they’re funny or inspirational, can help you connect with your audience and make your presentation more meaningful.

4. Make an impact with bold fonts

font example

Want to draw your audience’s attention to the slide title? Use a bold, chunky font to make your title stand out (bonus points if your title is short, sweet, and straight to the point). The best presentation fonts are easy to read with minimal visual decorations and sharp corners.

5. Experiment with different textures

textures example

Mix up your presentation design with different textures, like scrunched paper or textile backgrounds. Here, you might experiment with different types of backgrounds to match your topic. For example, if you’re creating a back-to-school presentation , use notebook paper to match your student’s note-taking style.

6. Use a geometric background

geometric example

A geometric background can add a pop of color to your presentation without distracting your audience. If you’re feeling bold, use dynamic titled polygons to create movement. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a softer vibe, use circular backgrounds to infuse your slides with creativity.

7. Explain complex concepts with mind maps

mind maps example

Presenting study results? Reporting marketing stats? Instead of playing it safe with snore-worthy slides, keep your presentation fresh with mind maps. By creating mind maps, you’ll be able to showcase complicated information in a visually impactful way.

8. Engage your audience with questions

question example

Make your presentation more interactive by asking questions to your audience. For example, to keep your slides minimal, try displaying only the question on the slide. Once the audience has pitched in their opinions and answers, you can click to the next slide to reveal the actual answer.

9. Stay on brand

brand slide example

Once you’ve captured your audience’s attention, you need a consistent design to keep everyone on the same page. When designing your slides, use your brand’s style guidelines to choose the right color scheme, font styles, and design elements.

10. Replace bullet points with fun design elements

bullets replaced example

Let’s face it: bullet points can get boring, especially if you’re using them on every slide. Instead of using the same design over and over, create fun slides by replacing boring bullet points with fun designs, like icons, stickers, and pictograms.

Apply creative ideas for presentations through Picsart

Now that we’ve learned all about creative ideas for presentations, it’s time to put that knowledge into practice. An amazing presentation can bring your story to life, helping you keep your audience engaged with pro-grade slides.

Even if you’re not a seasoned designer, you can add fun design elements, bold color palettes, and attention-grabbing visuals with Picsart. Here’s how to bring your creative vision to life with a professional slideshow.

On the web:

1. Open the Picsart Slideshow Maker and start a new project.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial web 1

2. Choose the desired size for your slideshow. Then, click Upload to upload your own photo or video.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial web 2

Or, you can explore photos and videos from the Picsart library.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial web 3

3. After you’ve picked your favorite design, click Text on the left panel sidebar to add text to your slide.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial web 4

4. To add music, click Audio to explore our library of #FreeToUse music.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial web 5

5. Click the + button on the right panel sidebar to add a new slide.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial web 6

6. When you’re finished, click Export , choose the image quality and file type, and download your slideshow.

presentation design elements

1. Open the Picsart app and tap on the plus sign (+) to start a new project. 2. Scroll down to Video and choose Slideshow . Then, choose the pictures you’d like to include in your slideshow. Or, you can tap Search to explore the Picsart photo library. 3. After you’ve picked your photos, tap Next .

creative ideas for presentations tutorial app 1

4. Choose your desired slideshow size and add transition effects to your slides. 5. Upgrade your slideshow with fun effects, music, text, and stickers to engage your audience.

creative ideas for presentations tutorial app 2

Create at the Speed of Culture

Picsart is a photo and video editing platform and creative community. A top 20 most downloaded app worldwide with over 150 million monthly active users, its AI-powered tools enable creators of all levels to design, edit, draw, and share content anywhere. The platform has amassed one of the largest open-source content collections in the world, including photos, stickers, backgrounds, templates, and more. Used by consumers, marketers, content creators and businesses , Picsart tools fulfill both personal and professional design needs. Picsart has collaborated with major artists and brands like BLACKPINK, Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Warner Bros. Entertainment, iHeartMedia, Condé Nast, and more. Download the app or start editing on web today, and upgrade to Gold for premium perks!

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Death By PowerPoint: Tips To Avoid In Your Presentation

Death By PowerPoint: Tips To Avoid In Your Presentation

The phrase “Death by PowerPoint” first appeared as a criticism of badly planned and executed presentations that were unable to engage or educate the audience. These presentations lack visual appeal because of the excessive text and complicated slides. Presenting information is essential, whether you are creating slides for a team meeting, delivering a class, or a business proposal. A well-created presentation always makes the message clear and engaging and leaves a lasting impression on your audience.

Table of Contents

  • Real-Life Examples and Consequences 
  • Audience Needs and Preferences 
  • Engage Your Audience 
  • The Role of Visual Design in Presentations 
  • Key Design Elements: Fonts, Colors, and Layouts 
  • Tips to Avoid Death by PowerPoint 
  • Utilize Technology to Improve Delivery 
  • Tools and Resources for Better Presentations 
  • Conclusion 

What is Death by PowerPoint?

“Death By PowerPoint” refers to presentations that are so monotonous and tedious that fail to get the audience’s attention and interest, leading to disengagement and lack of audience retention. 

Real-Life Examples and Consequences

Think about the meetings where people have completely lost interest or the sales presentations that were so overwhelming that the audience was unable to convince them. These examples show how bad presentation techniques can lead to missed opportunities, weakened credibility, and time wastage in real life. 

Understanding Your Audience

Audience needs and preferences.

To create an effective presentation, first understand your audience. Ask yourself: 

  • What expectations and interests do they have?  
  • How much experience do they have with the subject?  
  • What are their primary concerns or areas of discomfort?

Engage Your Audience

Make the content specifically targeted at your audience’s needs and preferences. Maintain their interest throughout the entire presentation by using language and examples that they can relate to. 

Design Principles for Effective Slides

The role of visual design in presentations.

Using effective visual design in your presentation makes it more engaging and memorable. A poorly created slide could be confusing and tedious to your audience, on the other hand, a well-designed slide will clearly communicate the actual information quickly and clearly. 

Key Design Elements: Fonts, Colors, and Layouts

  • Fonts : Make sure the presentation is consistent throughout by using a limited number of fonts. Choose fonts that could improve visibility. 
  • Colors : Try a color palette that is visually appealing and creates contrast. Use colors to highlight key points. 
  • Layouts : Maintain your slides layouts clean and structured. Use whitespace effectively to avoid overwhelming your audience. 
  • Avoiding Clutter and Overload : Be focused on the key points to make your slides simple and easy to understand to the audience. Avoiding information overload in a single slide is the primary factor to consider. Also, using bullet points will help to make the slide clear and easy to understand. 

Tips to Avoid Death by PowerPoint

  • Keep Slides Simple and Focused  

Your presentation should convey the exact information. Make it structured and break down complex data and information by keeping them concise. 

  • Use High-Quality Visuals and Graphics  

Always use high-quality visuals and graphics throughout your presentation and make it more engaging to your audience. But make sure that they help you share the exact message of the presentation. 

  • Limit Text and Bullet Points  

Don’t make slides with a lot of text. Try to use key phrases and bullet points to highlight important points. Explain and interact with the audience instead of just reading the exact sentences in the slide.  

  • Incorporate Storytelling Techniques  

The storytelling method could engage your audience. You can also include case studies and other examples to strengthen your points and presentation. 

  • Practice Good Slide Transitions and Animations  

Don’t make the presentation filled up with animations and transitions, that could distract the audience. Instead, use it wisely to guide your audience. 

  • Engage Using Interactive Elements  

Another technique to engage your audience is including Q&A sessions and games in between the presentations. 

Delivery Techniques

  • Strategies for Confident and Clear Speaking  

Practice makes perfect. Practicing also helps you deliver presentations confidently and clearly. Always try to use a conversational tone while delivering. 

  • Questions and Interactions  

The audience will have questions so be prepared for that. Encourage the audience participation thoughtfully. 

  • Utilize Technology to Improve Delivery  

As we have advanced technologies like remote clickers and laser pointers available

Utilize Technology to Improve Delivery

  • As we have advanced technologies like remote clickers and laser pointers available  

Tools and Resources for Better Presentations

  • Recommended Software and Online Sources  

Make use of software and online sources like SlideBazaar, SlideKit, Prezi, and Canva to design a better presentation. 

  • Forums and Communities   

Many online communities and forums like SlideShare and TED Talks are available over the internet in which you can discuss, share, and get feedback for your presentation. 

To avoid Death by PowerPoint, the presentation should have a good visual design, interesting content, and a better delivery. Create informative and engaging presentations by following the tips and focusing on your audience. 

Practice as much as possible and try to get feedback from the audience to improve your delivery skills. Your presentation will be better the more you refine your skills. 

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  1. PowerPoint Slide Elements: Best Practices and Tips

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  2. Free Flat Elements for PowerPoint Infographics

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  3. Creative 4 Elements Slide Layout for PowerPoint

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  4. 120 Presentation Ideas, Topics & Example

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  5. 5 PowerPoint Design Principles to Make Your Presentations Stand Out

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COMMENTS

  1. A Beginner's Guide To Presentation Design [+15 Stunning Templates]

    1. Business plan presentation template. This is a crucial business presentation template with a significant emphasis on visualizations and graphics. To create a business strategy, you need this presentation template. It consists of several crucial elements, such as a mind map, infographics, and bar graphics.

  2. Presentation design guide: tips, examples, and templates

    Too many elements on a slide can be overwhelming and distract from your message. While you want your content to be visually compelling, don't let the design of the presentation get in the way of communicating your ideas. Presentation design elements need to elevate your message instead of overshadowing it. 2. Use contrasting text colors

  3. How to Make Your PowerPoint Presentation Design Better

    First, display the graph (or all the statistics) that display the context of the key number. Display the key percentage on a single slide. Try this without any further elements. Use this as a follow-up to make people pay attention to this number. This is known as letting your design (and content) breathe.

  4. A step-by-step guide to captivating PowerPoint presentation design

    In conclusion, by following these steps, you've embarked on a journey to enhance your PowerPoint presentation. These initial steps are just the beginning of your exploration into the world of design elements and styles that can cater to your specific presentation needs. The key to a stunning PowerPoint presentation lies in the details.

  5. Presentation Design: Beginner's Guide (Tips, Tools & Templates)

    Tip #2: Stick to 2-3 Fonts and Colors. Our next tip focuses on your presentation's typography and color scheme. While it may be exciting to use as many different fonts and colors as possible, design best practices dictate that you should only utilize two or three total. Your fonts and colors should have jobs, as well.

  6. 18 Presentation Design Tips For Success

    Emphasize key points with text and images. Label your slides to prompt your memory. 1. Include less text and more visuals in your presentation design. According to David Paradi's annual presentation survey, the 3 things that annoy audiences most about presentations are: Speakers reading their slides.

  7. 30 Presentation Design Ideas & Tips to Impress Your ...

    Presentation: The Art of the Presentation by Jeffrey Stevens. 6. Leverage the Power of Whitespace. This is a blank space left between design elements in the composition. It is a great tool when you want to make a point and focus the viewer's attention on a particular part of the design.

  8. How to design a presentation that shines

    5 essential principles for designing better presentations. 1. Apply basic color theory. Colors can make a big impact on how people perceive your message — so it's worth learning some basic ...

  9. 17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

    Getting Started. 1. Open PowerPoint and click 'New.'. A page with templates will usually open automatically, but if not, go to the top left pane of your screen and click New. If you've already created a presentation, select Open and then double-click the icon to open the existing file. Image Source.

  10. Best Practices and Tips for Good Presentation Design

    Graphs and charts are a business presentation design staple. However, you can also think about different design elements that can be both surprising and effective. For example, a simple illustration instead of a dull stock photo will delight your audience and keep them engaged. 5. Pay attention to the layout.

  11. PowerPoint design templates

    Bring presentations to life with customizable PowerPoint design templates. Whether you're wowing with stats or putting your latest ideas on display, find a PowerPoint template that pops. ... Swap out fonts, colors, design elements, animations, effects, and more to sync up with your style or brand. 3. Show it off When you're done, you're ready ...

  12. How to Design a Professional PowerPoint Presentation

    2 Million+ PowerPoint Templates, Themes, Graphics + More. Download thousands of PowerPoint templates, and many other design elements, with a monthly Envato Elements membership. It starts at $16 per month, and gives you unlimited access to a growing library of over 2,000,000 presentation templates, fonts, photos, graphics, and more.

  13. Free Google Slides themes and Powerpoint templates

    Download the Branded Content Minitheme presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources.... Multi-purpose.

  14. 100+ Free PowerPoint Graphics For Better Presentations [Free PPT]

    1. How to insert graphics into PowerPoint. Once you've created your presentation it's time to add those all-important PowerPoint Graphics. And it's easy, easy, easy. Step 1: Go to the slide and create a space for your graphic. Step 2: Go to insert on the toolbar at the top of PowerPoint, click on it.

  15. 20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

    This is one of my favorite PowerPoint design ideas because it uses graphic elements such as lines and bars to give structure, contrast, and modern flair to your slides. ... Good Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design. Here are 20 of my top sources of inspiration for PowerPoint presentation designs. 1. "The Search for Meaning in B2B ...

  16. Top 31 PowerPoint Design Ideas, Examples & Tips

    This post will offer tips for creating different types of presentations, including: Pitch decks. E-learning slides. Class presentations. Webinar presentations. Marketing presentations. I'll also give you design tips to customize our presentation templates and share ppt design ideas. CREATE A PRESENTATION FOR FREE.

  17. Presentation Templates & Themes

    Explore fully customizable presentation themes for PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides to help you deliver a standout presentation. Infographic Solutions. P1. Powerpoint Template. Download Templates and themes for your next presentation. Including Google Slides, PowerPoint and Keynote.

  18. 120+ Best Free PowerPoint Templates (PPT) 2024

    Download thousands of PowerPoint templates, and many other design elements, with a monthly Envato Elements membership. It starts at $16 per month, and gives you unlimited access to a growing library of over 2,000,000 presentation templates, fonts, photos, graphics, and more. ... This template is most suitable for creative fashion and design ...

  19. 105+ Creative Presentation Ideas to Engage Your Audience

    Now, let's jump into the creative presentation design ideas. 1 Use Neon Colors. Neon colors will give your presentation enough color kick to keep the viewer's attention. Use neon colors either as the background, as specific elements or as details inside the slides. The trick with neon is to not go overboard with the contrasts.

  20. How to Design a PowerPoint: A Visual Guide to Making Slides with Impact

    Most presentations will have a fourth: a section slide. Section slides are used to transition your presentation from one major topic to the next. Many presentations can also benefit from callout slides, which are used to designate unique types of content that show up periodically—like for direct quotes or polling questions to audience members.

  21. 12 Important Elements of a Successful Presentation

    Here are 12 elements of a successful presentation that you may consider when creating your own: 1. Thorough preparation. One important element of a successful presentation is thorough preparation and ensuring that you tailor your presentation toward your audience and its needs.

  22. Create a presentation in PowerPoint

    To create a presentation from scratch, select Blank Presentation. To use a prepared design, select one of the templates. To see tips for using PowerPoint, select Take a Tour , and then select Create , .

  23. How To Create a Slide Deck: Templates & Tips

    Template #4: Training Course Presentation Template. Bridge the skills gap in your organization with this training slide deck template. The template has a minimalistic design and seamlessly blends different shades of blue across all 13 slides. The slides feature valuable elements and sections to help your audience retain the information better.

  24. 10 creative ideas for presentations

    In both in-person and online classrooms, teachers give educational presentations daily. Using beautiful presentation slides, eye-catching visuals, and fun design elements can help keep students interested while conveying key information. Progress reports. Your business builds a new marketing strategy to achieve its long-term goals.

  25. Death By PowerPoint: Tips To Avoid In Your Presentation

    The Role of Visual Design in Presentations. Using effective visual design in your presentation makes it more engaging and memorable. A poorly created slide could be confusing and tedious to your audience, on the other hand, a well-designed slide will clearly communicate the actual information quickly and clearly. Key Design Elements: Fonts ...

  26. @meisa.brands on Instagram: "I incorporated authentic ...

    I incorporated authentic Sudanese cultural elements into my packaging graphic design for my Sudanese client, adding a touch of home to their product presentation.