How to do your keynote right. Part 2: Design

Published in

Badoo Design

5 min readApr 1, 2019

This is a second part of the article which might be useful for managers, designers, speakers, teachers and everyone who wants to be understood and heard. The first part was dedicated to preparing the content for your presentation. In the second part, we’ll give you useful tips on how to design nice and clean presentation slides avoiding common mistakes, even if you’re not a designer.

One idea per slide

Packing too much information into a slide will completely undermine its purpose. Keep your slides simple, with one main idea on each one, preferably expressed in six to ten words. Keeping the text short and brief will deliver the need-to-know highlights.

Your audience shouldn’t be reading along with you, nor should they be distracted by reading something else while you speak. Your slides can be an outline of what you’re saying, but never, ever, ever write your speech word-for-word.

Avoid bullet points

One idea per slide — this also applies to your favourite bullet point lists. Avoid them if possible, and remember that the audience often has to process everything you say while they view the slide. Packing too much information into your slides will completely undermine you.

If you must use a list on one slide, reveal the bullet points one after the other. That way, the audience will be able to focus on each point.

If you must use a list, reveal the bullet points one after the other.

Be mindful of scale

Chances are you’re designing your presentation on a laptop — and that’s very different in size to the final presentation screen.

When sizing your fonts, keep in mind that the text should be large enough to be read by the person at the back of the room. The same applies to imagery, interface elements and whatever you want to show.

Use colour wisely

Stick to the limited colour palette and use it systematically. Apply colour to emphasise important points, or differentiate between elements. However, make sure you don’t overdo it. Use it only where it’s really necessary.

It’s also nice to have hints of your corporate palette in your icons and images.

Use imagery wisely

Photos and icons help to illustrate the content, but should not replace it. Don’t use a beautiful photograph if it doesn’t help to express the idea. Remember: visuals are there to support your message.

Don’t get carried away with too many on one slide, either. Try to limit yourself to a single image where possible, with simple or no text, and stick to your corporate colours if you can.

Use graphs wisely

Using graphs is OK, but remember: it’s not just about the numbers, it’s about what those numbers mean. So, don’t overwhelm your audience with complex graphs and tables, simplify your data as much as possible, and don’t forget to explain the outcome of the graphs you show.

Alternate your slides

It’s boring to read a text consisting of sentences that are all the same length and structure — there’s no rhythm. In the same way, be sure to alternate your text slides and image slides Add graphs. Make jokes.

Above all, you should have a balance. 80 plain text slides — boring and tiresome. 80 creative slides — the audience is overwhelmed.

Use consistent layouts

In your presentation, all the repeating elements should be consistent. That way, it’s easy for the audience to know what to expect and pick up the content of your presentation without having to rethink each slide.

Having the same elements in the same place on each slide makes for a neat presentation. Use several templates for each type of slide: a slide with text, with an image, a graph. Then simply duplicate those slides and change only the text and images.

One slide per minute

If you’re not sure how many slides you should prepare, there’s a simple formula you can use: one slide per minute. If your presentation is designed to run for 30 minutes, the optimal number of slides is also 30. Easy.