7 PowerPoint Design Cheats For Non-Designers

If you're still using bullet points in your presentations, you're doing something wrong. Here are seven things you can do to make your PowerPoints look better than everyone else's!

If you're like most people, your PowerPoint presentations still look something like this...

But unfortunately, these kinds of slides... well, they suck. They're not aesthetically appealing, they look generic, and they won't help you achieve your goals.

Don't worry though. We're here to change that. Today, we're going to teach you...

(So bookmark this page right away.)

Before you begin making your presentation, you'll want to select your Color Palette.

Head on over to Adobe Color CC and you'll get some awesome color palettes that you can choose from.

So... many... colors...

color.adobe.com

Pick one you like, and click on "Edit."

Once you open it, you'll find a little box called "HEX." Take note of this number!

color.adobe.com

The HEX Code is a 6 digit code that you can input onto PowerPoint so that you can get the exact same color. You should pick 3 or 4 of the colors, and then use those, along with white, for your presentation.

Now that you've selected your colors, it's time to pick your backgrounds!

There are a couple that you can choose from. To change your background, select the Themes Tab, and then select Background > Format Background. Here are a few of the backgrounds that you can (and should) use.

The Pale Gray!

Use a 10% or 20% gray to make your backgrounds look a bit less flat! Don't use black text on this; a dark gray will do.

The Pale Gray-dient

You can also use a radial gradient that fades from a very light gray to a less light (but still light) gray. (You can find this in the "Format Background" setting of PowerPoint.)

The Popping Solid

It helps to use a very bright color (like one of the ones you selected earlier!) as a background, and then put white text on it. This works very well for subtitles.

The Grid

To make this, simply create a 10x8 table and then resize it so that it occupies the full screen. (You can use any size, actually, as long as it follows a 4x3 ratio.)

The Pattern

Not many people know this, but PowerPoint has a lot of built-in patterns that you can use. You'll again find this in the "Format Background" panel. Just make sure to select a non-white color as the Foreground Color!

Now that we're done with the background, let's go to...

(and yes, simply changing the weight and size can make big differences!)

This is the key:

Create four (or more) different title styles: one for titles, one for body text, one for text that you want to emphasize, and one for quotations. You'll want to use a font with a lot of weights like DIN, Helvetica, Gotham, or Avenir so that you can use bold, semibold, and light.

You can combine a regular weight and a bold weight to come up with a cool effect, like this!

So, now that we have the text, where do we put it?

Here are a few suggestions:

Consider having the title a bit left of center instead. It makes for a nice touch!

And any subtitles, like an inspirational quote, can go under that.

You can try having your text start on the top left corner...

...or have it end on the bottom right one.

You can have all your text on the left side (no pictures on the right, please!)

You can also use a brightly colored bar to highlight certain texts!

Using numbers? Try to get them to cover 70% of the screen.

Why 70%? Well, why not?

So, you're probably wondering how to use images... Well, here are a few suggestions.

(And yes, by default, you should opt to make them full screen!)

Try combining shapes and images.

Sometimes, three quarters of a circle looks better than a whole one.

You can also put a black rectangle over an image and lessen the transparency.

To make an image translucent, simply go to "Format Picture" and move the Transparency slider.

If you have a lot of text, try putting an entire rectangle from top to bottom.

(And yes, stock photos look great! Here's a Medium article which links to awesome stock photo sources.)

It's a bit difficult to show animations, but here's one that you can use...

(It's especially helpful if you're in the corporate world.)

Okay, strictly speaking, this isn't an "animation," but it kind of looks like one.

To make this kind of progress bar, simply make five chevrons (it's one of the shapes), copy the slide five times, and then change the color of one chevron in each slide. Then you can use a fade transition. This is helpful for showing your progress in a presentation from introduction to body to conclusion.

(For more animations, watch the video at the end of this post!)

Lastly, we'll talk about branding.

This is helpful for organizations (especially start-ups!) that want their logo on each slide. Here are a couple of places to put them.

A small, simple logo on the lower left always adds a good touch!

You can also lower the transparency for a nice-looking watermark.

Try a dark bar too. You can add text there too!

And that's it!

If you want the full presentation (with even more cool tricks!), watch it (and download the slides) on our website! Thanks for reading!