Excellent Presentation Design
SlideRabbit is an elite presentation design agency, specializing in helping our clients create powerful presentations. We provide a wide variety of presentation services to clients of all sizes.
But the truth is, we hear more often than we’d like to, “Wow! I didn’t even know these services existed!”
This longer-than-usual article outlines all there is to know about presentation design, presentation services, and selecting the right presentation agency for your needs.
1. What is presentation design?
Definition
Presentation services in general encompass tip-to-tail presentation generation, from conception to delivery.
Presentation design is more than just graphic design. The term “presentation designer” if often used to describe all manner of professionals, from writers to speaking coaches to creative thinkers through designer and even event producers.
For the purposes of this article, we with use presentation design to refer to the actual work of design that fits into the presentation services suite of any true presentation design agency. But keep in mind that presentation services can begin even before you’ve written a word.
Goals
Anytime one presents, there are a few foundational goals:
- To look smart and in control
- To convince or inform your audience
- To keep your audience engaged
There may be additional goals by situation, but the three of these almost always apply. Whether presenting live or virtually, great presentation design will support you in these goals.
Benefits
Good design means you’ll look great in front of your audience. Think of the quality of design we see every day. When you show up with undercooked slides, or heaven-forbid, clip-art, you are showing your hand as an amateur. Come with your best foot forward and invest in professional design.
Spending more time creating meaningful visual aids means coming to the table better prepared to inform or convince your audience. With well-made and intentionally designed visuals, your arguments will be clearer and more memorable to your audience.
Fighting distraction and paper-thin attention spans, an expertly built presentation can go a long way to keeping your audience glued to the screen. Not only can a presentation agency help you start with a bang, but they can help you keep the attention once you’ve gained it. Strong visuals and design tricks will make the difference.
2. Why is presentation design important?
So now that we know what presentation design is and a few of its benefits, why and how do professional presentation designers accomplish those goals?
Presentation designers are communication experts. We are well-versed it communication tactics that help your audience digest and process your information effectively.
General level of everyday design
Keep in mind that we are bombarded with professional design from every direction. Whether its digital billboards, social media ads, or websites we use regularly, the level of everyday design is high.
When a presenter is selling a product or even introducing a new idea, the design quality is an immediate cue to the audience on whether this is a professional and trustworthy presentation.
Stock templates and clip art no longer cut it. To rise above the noise and earn an audience’s trust, presenters must invest in better design to be believed.
Working memory
Did you know that in addition to short term memory and long term memory, there is something called working memory?
The working memory is where we process now information, draw conclusions, and make associations. When it comes to presentation, its crucial to keep the limitations of the working memory in mind. Most agree that the working memory can only handle about 5 to 9 pieces of new information at once.
This means, that to avoid overwhelming your audience, simplifying your messaging and the information on your slides is vital to keeping your audience.
Presentation agencies are here to help you sculpt powerful and simple messages, and then illustrate them with clear and concise visuals.
Attention Span
According to recent study by Microsoft, we are down to only about 8 seconds of attention span in most adults.
With such a short time to make an impression, presenters need to rely on more than their presenting skills to keep their audience. A presentation agency can help.
By designing with distracted audiences in mind, presentation designers employ visual tricks (like movement, frequently changing backgrounds, et cetera) to keep the presentation feeling fast-paced and lively.
Ease of use going forward
Well-made slides stand the test of time. Not only will the aesthetic quality last longer, but well made graphics are easy to edit as needs change. Update content, change labels, adjust text – editable slides made natively in presentation software are an investment that keeps paying off.
3. Principles of good presentation design
How can you spot good presentation design? While design can be highly subjective there are still objective tenets of presentation design, many of which come from informational design principles.
Simplicity
Presentation professionals focus not only on design, but also on messaging and communication. During all stages of presentation production, professionals keep a keen eye on the complexity of information.
As mentioned above, the working memory is easily overloaded, so it’s important to continually evaluate and simplify.
Simplification can be accomplished through narrative, through concept-honing, and of course, through design.
White space
An experienced presentation designer will help find opportunities to create visual space. White space on slides creates resting room for the audience members’ eyes, which reduces visual overwhelm, and allows other content to stand out more affectively.
Data display
Correctly expressing data in a way that will be meaningful for those receiving it can be a huge challenge. Presentation professionals deal with expressing data regularly and can guide presenters to use the right graph types, simplify the message, and create impactful annotations and take aways.
Image Usage
No more images with murky copyright obligations or cheesy pictures from Google. Presentation agencies will source high-quality stock photography that is both salient and powerful. Moving images make a strong impression on audience members.
4. How to sculpt a presentation narrative
Besides design, presentation design agencies are here to help sculpt powerful narratives.
Don’t go it alone when preparing for an important pitch, or an upcoming chance to rally the troops. Consult the experts to create narratives that will work for your purposes, your audience, and your ultimate goals.
There are different appropriate approaches to different types of presentations. Here are just a few.
Sales or investment pitches
The classic mistake we see in pitch presentations is an error in focus. So many start with a boring intro about themselves and slowly get to their offerings. Change your focus!
Capture attention quick by starting with the pain point. Whether its the client problem your product will solve, or the opportunity that your solution will capitalize on, focus on your audience’s concerns from the start line.
Motivational/Aspirational
A motivational presentation’s goal is to inspire the audience towards actions that will result in a positive change for them. Powerful narratives focus on the end-goal, painting a picture of what life will be like if these actions are undertaken.
Annual Sales Kick-Off meetings usually take this shape, but so do self-help seminars. Aspirational presentations find themselves at home in many different venues.
Motivational speeches benefit from dynamic presenting and especially a refrain-focused cadence that can become a sort of rallying cry.
Informative
Probably the most common presentation purpose in corporate communication, informative presentations can be the most difficult to keep engaging. Remember, if the audience is not engaged in an informative presentation, you have failed in the goal of sharing that information.
Creative narrative is crucial to sharing information effectively. Include context for the information: What caused this? What does it mean moving forward?
Setting information into context for the audience will help them connect with the information and seat it into their memory.
5. How important is a good template to good presentation design?
If you work at an organization with multiple slide producers, a well-built presentation template can elevate your internally-produced presentations at the same time that they alleviate stress on your team. It’s a win-win.
Templates are not just set fonts and colors, but instead can function as full presentation toolkits for your internal team. Ranging from simple to very complex, decide what will work best for your team and have a template built to suit.
Importance of brand identity
A company’s visual identity is its face to the world. Brands are such a big part of our world that people can often recognize brands just based on color pairings. It follows that a cohesive visual representation is crucial for a business.
With a well built template, internal slide-producers have a tool that makes brand adherence a breeze. From hard-coded theme colors, to custom fonts, to brand-approved elements and images, a template is a toolkit for better slides.
Ease of production
Not only will slides be higher quality, but a well-built template also increases speed and productivity. With pre-built layouts, easy-to-use assets and graphs, and approved icons for copy & paste, internal slide-producers will spend less time creating presentations and more time on their actual job responsibilities.
A warning about non-expert templates
Beware: Templates are complex creatures and those built by novices in presentation software often fall short in functionality. Do not ask your marketing agency or your internal team to attempt a template unless your needs are very minimal.
True presentation agencies will have expertise in presentation building. For instance, SlideRabbit keeps up on the appropriate literature and attends conferences on the subject.
6. How do I find the right design agency?
Not every agency is right for every client. Think first about your needs. Do you prioritize speed of production? Quality of visuals? Help with narrative and comprehension?
Different presentation design agencies specialize in different things and you will find a continuum of performance in your major deciding factors. Ask about the following as you weigh your options:
Design Level
Are you looking for a brand re-envisioning? Or do you just need some clean up on your diagrams? Different firms offer different ranges of design, and this is a crucial factor. Hiring a high-design shop for minimal clean up isn’t great for your wallet, and a clean-up shop will not be able to accommodate the need for a new sophisticated look & feel.
Turnaround time
Need slight clean up over night? It is possible – check out overseas options where people can work during their day times to clean up slides as North American sleeps.
Looking for something more purposeful? Make sure you have a firm idea on your timeline and that it will work for the presentation design agencies you’re considering.
Price
It stands to reason that price of services will be affected by the above categories of quality and turnaround time. It is true that nothing is ever all three: Beautiful, Fast, and Cheap. Make sure you know where your priorities lie.
Process
Are you looking for a dedicated project manager? Would you rather work directly with a designer? Do you want an agency that has oversight and quality checks built into their process?
Ask questions about project intake, delivery and communication. Will the practices of the firm work well for your working process?
Samples
Beyond just the quality of the samples, are the samples something that fits with your vision? While design agencies are adept at adjusting to brand and style, it’s also important that preferred styles align.
Template expertise
If you are looking for a template, it is vital to select an agency that specializes in the deeply technical intricacies of PowerPoint (or GoogleSlides, depending on your preference). Many marketing agencies will include a “template” in a brand package, but these are usually not built at all by the standards and will not be an efficient tool for a corporate team.
7. SlideRabbit Services
Working with a presentation agency can be daunting. Once you’ve used located a shop or two that might work for you, how does it work?
At SlideRabbit, we aim to make our client’s lives as easy as possible. Many of our clients are busy C-Suite professionals or marketers that have a lot on their plate. To help them get back to their real jobs, we can take presentation production off the to do list.
What exactly can we help with? Below are our services categories, but we build each project to suit the needs of the client and that specific presentation.
Narrative sculpting
Lost in the minutiae of your message? Seeing your audiences tune out? SlideRabbit can help with narrative so that messages grab the audience right away and keep their attention all the way through.
Our Creative Director, Bethany Auck, will review your materials, whether that be an existing presentation or an assortment of documents and work iteratively with your team to create an ideal narrative, along with identifying the content and visual approaches to support the messages.
Content & concept consulting
Are the visuals in your presentation working? Can the audience quickly understand them and do they aid in bolstering your main points? Is there too much text for your visuals to even be effective? Before it’s time to design the content, the visuals themselves need to be evaluated for efficacy.
While concept evaluation is a part of content design, we also offer round of evaluation here where SlideRabbit will present the client team with proposed concept lists, paired with a narrative outline.
Custom look & feel development
As we discussed above, brand adherence is crucial to maintaining the integrity of your visual identity. However, getting a presentation template from a branding agency is chancy. If an agency does not specialize in presentation, it’s unlikely that they have the software expertise to build a functional presentation file.
SlideRabbit is adept at creating presentation-appropriate expressions of your brand. While respecting and adhering to all brand standards, our designers create a presentation base file in accordance with the specifications of your preferred presentation software.
Event presentations
Looking to create more of a splash than the day-to-day brand expression? For events, or high-visibility decks, SlideRabbit will work with any event branding, any custom screen sizes, and any other venue needs.
Event presentations are an exciting opportunity to push a typical presentation even further. SlideRabbit provides custom animation, even animated 2D videos if desired!
Custom templates
Nearly every company produces slides. However, many are working from broken, differentiated, or out-of-date templates. In order for a company to produce streamlined slides efficiently, a well-built template is the first step.
SlideRabbit builds custom templates from the ground up,. Each is customized to brand guidelines with modern and sleek design. Additionally, we are experts in PPT and Google Slides functionality as well as extras to build in for additional functionality and productivity tools.
Content design
Lackluster slides? SlideRabbit provides content design as our main service. Content design projects do not need to include redesigns or templates – we will happily take in any deck and provide professional design improvements for the content.
Content design can include all sorts of improvements from the basics like alignment and standards to diagrams, graphs, animation, imagery, and all manner of design elements in order to elevate the final product. We are happy to work within an existing corporate template or established look & feel.
All of our content design is fully editable and natively built in with PowerPoint or Google Slides. That means our clients do not need to come back to us for edits, and can update their slides as needed. Of course, we are always here to help with any edit rounds, with no project minimums for existing clients.
Additional marketing collateral
While 90% of the work we do is in presentation software, we also supply additional marketing materials like long-form reports, event branding, signage, and swag.
For those with smaller marketing needs, we can be your one-stop-shop.
Workshops & training
Our partnership does not end when we complete a project or template. SlideRabbit offers a full range of training options and will build a customized curriculum around an organizations specific goals.
Our workshops and training sessions range from basic software skills, to technical deep dives, to workshops on how to think and execute like a presentation designer.
The attendee feedback indicates that 99% of attendees would recommend the sessions and learned something they could use immediately. Contact us to discuss your presentation training needs.
Are you ready to up your presentation game and simplify your life? Let us help!
SlideRabbit is an elite presentation agency that creates killer presentations. From narrative sculpting to slide design to template construction, we help our clients show up looking their best.
All presentation design is custom for each client, fully editable, and brand adherent. We work in both PowerPoint and Google Slides.
Looking to train up your team? We also provide workshops, ranging from technical training to how to think like a presentation designer.
Reach us at hello@sliderabbit.com.
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