Colors

What software did you use?

That question is a big compliment for your PowerPoint presentation: you have succeeded in making your PowerPoint not look like PowerPoint. Here are some simple steps that can help you:

• No hierarchical bullet point texts (if you have to put three messages…

PPT 2011 for Mac color bug

Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 for Mac has an annoying bug: when you apply a colour to a font, it comes out slightly differently than when you apply the exact same colour to a shape. One: it looks bad on slides, two: it gives surprises when you open a PowerPoint file created on a Mac on…

Lighten up

It can be tempting to splash on the colours in a slide design, especially if you have a colour palette with 3 or more colours. The result: highly colourful slides that still look very “PowerPoint”. Why does the work of a professional designer not look like PowerPoint?



The secret: only use colour or highly…

Too much color

Colours brighten up your slides and are a great way to group related items together: USA is green, Europe is blue, Asia is purple for example.



But applying bold colours to big text boxes makes your slides too busy and nervous. Instead, keep those text boxes light grey and add a very narrow colour…

PowerPoint template mix up

Copying PowerPoint slides from one presentation to another can have disastrous format implications. Some survival advice.

• When saving/defining a new PowerPoint theme, stick to the suggested colour uses that PowerPoint suggests, i.e., text/background dark…

Presentation template recipe

Here is an almost sure recipe to get a good look and feel for a presentation template, even with an Arial font:

• One nice accent colour, but used sparsely for only that: provide an accent
• The other objects in shades of grey…

iOS7 and PowerPoint templates

Most PowerPoint template designers think that what you put on the empty template page sets the look and feel of the presentation. Gradients, watermarks, logos, color bands. I have long been arguing that the template can just be a blank white page, what sets the look and feel…

Useful colors

If you have the freedom to pick the colours of your presentation yourself, try if you can find ones that have enough contrast both with black and white. The Idea Transplant orange for example can be a background for both white and black text. Skype blue also works. Design is always a combination of aesthetics and practicality.