How do I get people’s (or dogs) attention?
This second article is another PowerPoint tutorial that explains you how to design a great cover slide following simple rules that are easy to apply.
The Best PowerPoint presentation design starts with your cover slide design. If you want to surprise and thrill your audience, it starts here. If you want to design a PowerPoint presentation that rocks, you have to make sure it starts with THAT slide. The cover slide will set the tone for your entire presentation and allow you to be credible.
The packaging.
Packaging is what’s used to wrap, promote and differentiate a product. Your PowerPoint presentation is the product and your cover slide is the packaging. Its role is to wrap, promote and differentiate your presentation. Remember, PowerPoint presentation slides design starts with your cover slide. Your cover slide must break through the clutter to get people’s attention.
Capture your audience attention.
Creating a beautiful cover and leaving it up while you are introducing yourself or your topic is YOUR opportunity to capture your audience attention. Second good news, this slide will show to your audience that you have put some work into the aesthetic. If THIS slide is great, people will be expecting to see more awesome slides coming up next.
To me, there are two ways to design a cover slide: with photography, and without photography. Let’s check out the first way first. We’ll get the rest covered later on. Before starting that PowerPoint tutorial, make sure you’ve sized your PPT slide 12 * 7.5.
First step: Find an image representing the point you are trying to make.
PPT design starts with this question: What’s your presentation topic? What does it relates to? Answer these questions and then look for ONE really nice picture, illustration or drawing linked to that topic. You could be a sales person, an engineer, a maître d’orchestre or an astronaut, it doesn’t really matter. Remember our SUCCESS rules? Keep it simple and concrete.
Search keywords. Work your imagination. You can use Google, Bing or Yahoo! Images databases to look out for great pictures. You can browse blogs that talk about your topic. Or browse this great Flickr Search Tool. Make sure to choose quality photos with good pixel resolution. Otherwise, it will just look cheap and unprofessional. Why should you get a (good) image? Because once your audience will have viewed it, their attention will come just right back to you because you hold the information. However, if you do have lots of text on the slide, they will be reading it, instead of listening to you. And you don’t want that to happen.
I went to Google images and just typed “engineering drawing”. I picked one of the many cool options offered
Second step: Throw in your presentation title.
You’ve inserted your image. Great, now make sure you extend your pictures to cover the whole slide (just make sure picture doesn’t get deformed to much). Let’s get back to the “engineering drawing” picture I just picked. I am going to have to type down what this PPT presentation is about somewhere, right? I advise NOT TO place the text content on the picture directly.
Even though it’s readable, it’s not easy to read. It could even be worst. So think about your reader, make him feel comfortable. If your content is clear, visible and quick to get, your reader will be comfortable with your PowerPoint presentation, and he’ll listen to you. Your PowerPoint presentation title color can be chosen according to the photography (you’ll note that “power supply stuff” is brown, as a part of the background picture). – Create on text box per line / keyword. You’ll be able to customize font size and style easier. In this slide, there are two text boxes: “Engineering Topics” and “Power Supply Stuff”.
To throw in your presentation title, there are two ways:
The Skinny Bar
Skinny Bar style is my personal favorite, as I highly focus on the photography background. Your photography really must stand out for this option. No crap. The skinny bar width is about 1/3 of the PPT height. As for the shape, you can either use rectangle or rounded rectangle. As for the bar position within your cover slide, I advise asymmetry, it’s less boring.
The Fat Bar
Focus is less on the photography, whether your bar is a bit transparent or not at all. Surprisingly, the fat bar is fat, and takes at least half of your PowerPoint height (from half to 2/3). I recommend the use of fat bar if you have more text to add on your cover slide. Like Presentation title, Business Unit, date, name, etc.