PowerPoint Design 202 (intermediate level), a workshop I presented in January 2014. Useful for business, consulting, sales, marketing, and case competition presentations.

1. Presentation Design 202
Prepared by Laura Wong

2. Laura Wong
• Self-taught graphic designer
• 1st place in CMABC Case Competition
(2011), 1st place in Manitoba International
Marketing Competition (2013), 3rd place in
Brazil Case Competition (2014)
• TA for COMM 202 and works full time for
the Vancouver Canucks

3. Learning Outcome

4. Design P!inciples
§ Keep it simple
A selection of
1

5. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Keep it simple
• Limit fonts and colours
• Say no to gradients, glows, borders
• As few words as possible – every character
must count!
• Use visual representations where possible
• Simplify graphs and data (remove unnecessary
axes, labels, background colours, lines)

6. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Keep it simple
Who
should
I
give
my
extra
concert
6cket
to?
Mom
Roommate
Boyfriend
Best
friend

7. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Keep it simple
Who
should
I
give
my
extra
concert
6cket
to?
Mom
Roommate
Boyfriend
Best
friend

8. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Keep it simple
Who
should
I
give
my
extra
concert
6cket
to?
Mom
Roommate
Boyfriend
Best
friend

9. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Keep it simple
Who
should
I
give
my
extra
concert
6cket
to?
Mom
Roommate
Boyfriend
Best
friend

10. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Keep it simple
Who
should
I
give
my
extra
concert
6cket
to?
Mom
Roommate
Best
friend

11. A selection of
Design P!inciples
§ Keep it simple
1
§ Limit fonts & colours
2

12. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Limit fonts and colours
• Find colours that work well together (use a
colour scheme)
• 2-3 colours; designate 1 for emphasis
• 1, maybe 2 fonts à don’t want to visually
overwhelm viewer or create visual confusion

13. A selection of
Design P!inciples
§ Keep it simple
1
§ Limit fonts & colours
2
§ Consider contrast &
readability
3

14. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Contrast & readability
• Clashing colours
– Safe background colours: Black, white, grey
(avoid actual colours)
• Font size: 30pt minimum
• Sans serif vs serif fonts
– Sans serif fonts (Arial, Helvetica) are easier to read
for large chunks of text
– Generally use serif fonts for titles

15. A selection of
Design P!inciples
1 § Keep it simple
§ Use motifs
§ Limit fonts & colours
2
§ Consider contrast &
readability
3
4

16. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Motifs
• Motifs = objects/shapes/patterns that form a
theme throughout your presentation
• Can appear in your title slide, in your tracker,
numbering, bullet points, emphasis
• Shapes, colours, symbols, or patterns of
using style/formatting to emphasize text

17. A selection of
Design P!inciples
§ Keep it simple
§ Limit fonts & colours
§ Consider contrast &
readability
§ Use motifs
§ Create emphasis
1
2
3
4
5

18. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Emphasis
• Can be done through colour, font size,
bolding, spacing, CAPS
• For graphs/data: highlight key points using
colour
• Don’t overdo it or it will lose its effect!

19. A selection of
Design P!inciples
§ Keep it simple
§ Limit fonts & colours
§ Consider contrast &
readability
§ Use motifs
§ Create emphasis
§ Visuals vs. words
1
2
3
4
5
6

20. DESIGN PRINCIPLE:
Visuals vs. Words
• Use symbols or fonts (such as Wingdings/
Webdings) to visually represent words
• Use simple images (not clipart!) to convey an
idea faster than words can

21. DEMO:
Slide Master
• Learn the keyboard shortcut!
• When you open up the Slide Master, do NOT
edit the top “daddy” slide unless you want
something to show up on EVERY slide
• When creating a tracker, duplicate the slide
multiple times and change the colour of the
tracker on each of the slides
• When you exit the slide master, you can use your
templates by [Home tab > Layout > Title and
Content (or whatever slide you used)]

22. DEMO:
Smart Art
• Use smart art to save time
• Can use it to make a quick tracker
• Not really that “smart”… difficult to format
and rearrange/position to your liking

23. DEMO:
Alignment & distribution
• If you have 3+ shapes and want to space
them evenly, go to [Home tab > Format >
Arrange > Align or Distribute > Distribute
horizontally/vertically]
• Use the same path above to align shapes/
text boxes to the same line
• When moving shapes around, a dotted line
may appear to help you center/align objects
in relation to each other

24. DEMO:
Colour schemes
• Once you have chosen a colour
scheme (see resources), go to
[Themes tab > Theme Options >
Colors > Create Theme Colors]
• To input your colour scheme,
double click on one of the Accent
boxes – you will need the RGB
code of each colour
• Click Apply to All – this colour
scheme will now always be
available when you open
PowerPoint!

25. Laura’s Parting Tips
§ Save as a PDF
§ Use a colour scheme
§ Match the colour scheme to company’s logo/colours
§ Fonts: Helvetica/Arial, Myriad Pro
§ No gratuitous pictures/clipart
§ KEEP IT SIMPLE!

26. Colour schemes:
§ Colourlovers.com
§ Adobe Kuler
Fonts:
§ Fontsquirrel.com
§ Dafont
§ Myfonts.com
§ Exljbris.com
Resources
Symbols:
§ Insert – Symbol
§ Entypo
§ Wingdings/Webdings

27. Contact Me
Questions about PowerPoint? Design? Marketing?
Email me anytime J
Laura@alumni.ubc.ca!
!
Also, feel free to add me on LinkedIn (just add a note that
you attended the workshop!)
www.linked.com/in/lothwe!