Why PowerPoint Themes Suck
This is not going to be a rant on the quality of PowerPoint design out there. There is probably plenty of awesome themes available. Not in any of the places I’ve been looking, but somewhere — for sure.
The problem with PowerPoint themes goes deeper. They are conceptually flawed.
“Why?” — you might ask — “Won’t they make my PowerPoint presentations look pretty?”.
Oh, really? Have you tried? No, no: tried and succeeded? …I thought so.
But seriously. The thing is, PowerPoint allows you to do everything. Which is pretty awesome, if you’re a designer. Plenty of your artistic visions may materialize through the power of this software (I guess that’s why it’s called PowerPoint).
But that’s not the case for most of us. That’s why we gullibly turn to themes, hoping they harvest the talent of designers and magically enhance our message. Yet somehow, it doesn’t happen. If you take ugly and add a pretty background, you get… well… ugly on a pretty background. Like a Fiat Multipla promo shot.
So, am I saying we are doomed because of the level of freedom we are given? Basically, yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Before you resign and give in to the world of mediocre design, wait! There might be another way!
PowerPoint Templates
PowerPoint templates are a way more comprehensive solution. What you get are basically finished slides. With the structure, placeholders for your text and images, with icons and — yes, that too — backgrounds and fonts. It’s an attempt to take all the designer work away from you and leave you with content-related activities only. It’s not that creators don’t trust you with moving things around (they don’t), it’s not that they know better what you need (they do). It’s about this principle that we should all do what we do best. Designers should design, writers should write, businesspeople should business.
We should no longer be forced to do things we suck at. It’s time for the PowerPoint revolution!
How It’s Done
It may come as a surprise, but I am not completely impartial here. I devoted last few years of my professional life to improving the quality of presentations, at Improve Presentation, Inc. And let me tell you this:
Creating a great PowerPoint Template is not a piece of cake.
It’s a cross-domain process, starting with the in-depth analysis of the topic, then challenging graphic design to communicate quite often very complex concepts, and finally PowerPoint craftsmanship.
You may say: “Mumbo jumbo! Anyone can design a nice looking pie chart”, and my answer would be: “maybe”. And also: “shut up”. But it takes a whole different level of skills to show e.g. project dependencies. And yet another level to know that’s something you should include in the Project Status Report Template.
Where do I get these “templates”?
I’m happy you asked. Just search the internet for, I don’t know, “best powerpoint templates” or something. Before you do that, let me give you few pointers, though:
- Focus on the content as well as on the design. If you need a template for your social media report, chances are Social Media Template will have all the icons and charts you’re going to need
- Find a reliable source. Some things are hard to verify till it’s too late. E.g., poorly constructed PowerPoint can cause you tons of frustration
- It’s not the fireworks that count. Don’t get lured by animations and pretty photos. Photos you’ll replace with your own. And animations mainly unnecessarily draw the attention away from what’s important: the content. Focus on the clarity of the message
I hope I managed to broaden your perspective a little bit here. The bottom line is, PowerPoint themes are a tool that plays a significant role in the design process. And as that, are very useful. But for you, an end user, templates may just be the way to go. You have the content, let somebody else do the design work.
May your next presentation be awesome.
