The Design Tool Kit for Strategic Planners
The In’s and Outs of Deck & Presentation Resources Planners Use & the Differences Between Them
There’s more than meets the eye than just being seen as a “planner”. As planners we are: creative thinkers, innovative problem solvers, visionary story-tellers and empathetic thought-processors, with a keen ability to understand consumer habits.
Moreover, in the lens of communications strategy specifically, we tend to utilize our creative thinking to further support our data findings and insights. We brainstorm and think of ways where the product of a specific brand is best represented to the consumer and in doing so we use our creative mindsets to further illustrate how products based on “human-centered design can lead to breakthrough innovations”.
The best way for us to support and share our learnings and insights are, of course, through the numerous presentations we create. As we build, we are subconsciously gaining the creative confidence to find alternative ways to represent information in more visual ways. And just as any discovery — there are hiccups and new learnings revealed along the way.
PRESENTATIONS vs. DECKS
Step one: really think about what it is you are trying to express and who your audience is.
Establishing whether you are building a reading deck versus a presentation deck is very beneficial in the initial steps of designing. In another article on the Comms Planning Blog, Decks vs. Presentations: A Guideline, we talk about the differences between the two deck formats and presents the the top three tips that support each one.
Use the below guide to structure how you are going to design your reading deck or presentation deck:
STYLE GUIDE vs. TEMPLATE
Once you’ve decided on the strategic format, let’s now take into account how we want to “brand the deck for the client”. Depending on the working style of the planner, account team or collaboratively both — there’s typically two ways of approaching the design. Some clients have a style guide, while in some cases the client may already be used to a certain template. Let’s dive deeper into the difference:
A style guide (aka brandbook, brand guidelines, brand standards) establishes specific rules and principles of the brand in order to enforce style to improve communication. These are primarily the do’s and dont’s of a brand.
A template (aka presentation template) is a group of slides that contain a pattern, themed layout both needed and used for presentation purposes. In the template is where the rules and principles of the style guide/brand book are used to enforce the brand itself and its ethos. These are primarily known as the “shell” or use of brand presentation via deck design.
POWERPOINT vs. GOOGLE SLIDES
Templates are only known to be built in Powerpoint. However, the status quo has changed. Although Powerpoint is the general common denominator when designing decks, collaborative planners and account members have steered in the direction of using Google Slides, which allows multiple people to edit or build a deck concurrently.
Although both programs are great resources to use when building and designing decks, here is what they don’t tell you:
Presentation Templates
Powerpoint has an infinite number of both editable, ready-made default templates and also gives you the ability to create a master template of your own. For a quick reading deck you may choose to use one of the program’s ready-made templates.
For a presentation deck, you may look into designing a master template (branded to the client) and embedding it within the deck itself or saving it as a default template within Powerpoint.
Google Slides has a minimal variety of default ready-made templates. Within the program there are about 20 themed templates to choose from. Most themes are flat and do not give comms planners much to work with. However, the program also allows for comms planners to create customized master templates as well. These templates can be created within the deck itself or added as a theme to Google Slides.
Font
Powerpoint is connected to the default font book on your laptop/desktop computer. For instance, if you do not have the font for the client you are building the deck for, you can download the file and install it. Then is when you open Powerpoint, you will see it amongst other fonts as a selection.
Google Slides is not connected to the default font book on your laptop/desktop computer. For instance, if you do not have the font for the client you are building the deck for, you have to use one of the fonts that Google provides. These fonts come from Google and are more stylized. Most of these fonts do not resemble the generic, historical fonts you will see on Powerpoint. Therefore, when choosing an alternative font to use on Google Slides, it may be harder to find one that resembles the client font.
Video
Powerpoint makes it easy to import video. You can go through the process of going to File — Insert — Video and select a video from a specific folder. However, you can even simply drag and drop a .mp4 or .mov files from your desktop into the Powerpoint file.
Google Slides is a bit trickier. In order to import videos into your deck, you must first upload the video onto YouTube and then link it from YouTube into Google Slides. This works, but can be a hassle because some video content may be confidential.
If this is what you want, simply upload the video onto YouTube through a “private” hub, that way YouTube viewers will not see it. The video will be only been seen by you and strictly used for the purpose of the deck.
Cross-Platform Capability
Powerpoint is compatible across most platforms — Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, as well as online accessibility options via browser using Office 365 and Office Online web apps.
Google Slides is most primarily compatible with Google Chrome. Being that there is not a dock app for Google Slides, the comms planner or user would have to create a gmail account and log on at gmail.com in order to use Google Slides.
Sharing Capability
Powerpoint does not have a dual sharing capability. When planners work on Powerpoint, there are usually different versions of the deck that are being circulated or combined. This can cause a bit of confusion and disorganization in the design process of building the deck; especially if not done properly in terms of keeping track of different versions. Not great.
Google Slides on the other hand, DOES has a shared capability. Google Slides is integrated within Google Drive and enables its users to share and collaborate with other people — including non Gmail holders. Sharing is done virtually through the program itself as you provide the email(s) of the person(s) you would like to share the deck with.
Simply press “done” OR you can “get a sharable link” giving access of “can edit”, “can comment” or “can view” and then send this link via email to those same recipients via your Outlook (if you use that) account. The main reason why planners love to use Google Slides is because of its shared capability. Most decks are built collaboratively and this function makes it easier to see what information is being added and what edits are being made to the deck without having multiple versions.
File Conversion
Powerpoint can convert to PDF, XPS, RTF, ODP, along with image formats (JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF & GIF), and video (MP4 and WMV). However, if you initially build a deck in Powerpoint, it is not a seamless transfer into Google Slides. Once you transfer a Powerpoint file onto Google Slides, the original fonts can distort, the videos will be unable to play and the master will not be recognized and will be seen as an unsupported file.
In order for this to work in Google Slides, you will have to open it within the Google Slides program itself. Once you do so, the original fonts will convert to the default font settings within google slides. If you like this font, keep it, but keep in mind that you have other fonts to work with, and are now open to choosing one that works more with the brand look and feel of the deck. All videos will have to be re-uploaded using youtube links and the master template will have to be rebuilt in Google Slides.
Google Slides can convert to PPT, ODP, PDF, TXT (plain text) and JPEG, PNG and SVG while saving only one slide at a time — not the entire deck. However, if you initially build/design a deck in Google Slides it is not a seamless transfer into Powerpoint at all. Although your master template may transfer over well, the fonts will be corrupted and all video will convert as photos. In this event, you will have to convert all fonts back to the desired client font and drag all original videos back in to be viewable.
As you can see, we are more than just planners. Going above and beyond to develop more concepts and visually representing our ideas leads us along a path to new discoveries. These new discoveries bring new challenges and new challenges welcome the richest opportunities for change — and we are that change.
