The art of presentation. General design of slides

You can argue for a long time what an ideal presentation should be. On the way to this ideal, you need to know the basics of design, from which it will be easier to build on and develop presentation creation skills.

You will need

• - a computer

• - program for creating presentations

Instruction manual

1

First of all, think about whether you have written text for the presentation or are you going to tell without it, creating speech on the go. In both cases, you will need a storytelling plan. With it, it will be easier to talk and create a presentation. If you already have a text, you can just follow it.

2

Remember the limitations. This may be a time limit, slides, presentation style. Such a framework, on the one hand, makes the creation process more complicated, as you have to adapt to it. On the other hand, you will have a clearer understanding of what to include in your presentation. If there is any restriction, it is best to reflect in the work the most important information, the key positions of the text.

3

Do not overdo the text on the slides. People can read, and a large amount of text distracts them from your speech. Also, a canvas of text simply looks ugly on the screen. Write the main theses, keywords so that the audience does not forget, for example, important names or the main idea.

4

Dilute the presentation with pictures, if allowed by the format. However, the pictures should carry a semantic load, convey the meaning of what you are talking about. That is, if, for example, we are talking about the Tower of London, then the slide should not contain pictures with teddy bears and any other things that are not related to the subject of the story. Pictures should be large enough for everyone to see. You should also pay attention to picture quality. Avoid cloudy images, small pictures, eye-cutting colors - all this makes the presentation unattractive.

5

Follow the logic in the presentation. This is especially true for presentations for any scientific events. If you are given a clear plan, for example, introduction, content, description of parts, resources used, and at the end of gratitude, then you do not need to mix these parts. The pronounced structure in the presentation is always winning. People understand what part of the story is now, and are not distracted.

6

Use illustrative materials. In addition to ordinary pictures, you can use graphs, charts, diagrams, and more. They are quite difficult to explain in words so that everyone understands. The illustration will allow the entire audience to delve deeper into the information on the charts / diagrams, and you will not need to memorize a large number of indicators and values, it is easier to highlight trends and draw conclusions.

7

Maintain a balance between the time allotted for the presentation and the number of slides. If you are given 10 minutes to tell, you do not need to create a presentation with 40 slides. You physically do not have time to tell everything that is written there, and this will only tire the audience.

8

Pay attention to the overall design. Choose a background that will be pleasing to the eye. The font of the words should be large enough to be easy to read from afar, and its color should not merge with the background of the presentation. That is, a pink background and yellow letters will not work. Colors should be contrasting enough, but not bright, so that it is comfortable to look at them. Avoid backgrounds that are overloaded with textures such as rulers, rhombs, and other geometric shapes and pictures.

9

Do not blindly copy text from the Internet or your source into a presentation. Edit it, remove links, unnecessary underlines. Align the font size throughout the presentation. Make sure the font style is the same everywhere.

10

Avoid using soundtracks for slides, for example, when switching them. This, in fact, is very annoying to the audience. Also, do not be zealous with various types of appearance of text on a slide such as stars, rollouts, rotation, and more.

note

Pay attention to the information you want to include in the presentation. It should be meaningful, carry meaning.

Useful advice

The presentation design should match the text. That is, if the goal is to talk about holidays on the sea, then slides are preferred, for example, with a blue-green design, pictures of beaches, sea, fish, and not slides like "white background / black text" without pictures.