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Here’s the brutal truth about PowerPoint presentations:
Most of them are terrible. Ya, I’m talking about the pull your hair out and stab your hand with a pen kinda terrible!

Let me ask you a question …
Are you getting tired of the same boring stock images, the same so-so fonts, the same unengaging text, the same plain vanilla graphics, the same tired vectors?

If the answer is YES, then we have some really awesome presentation design tips that will turn your slides from super lame to sleek and professional in the blink of an eye. We are going to share with you a bundle of really effective slide design techniques, focusing specifically on images, fonts, whitespace, and custom graphics.

Yes, today we are going to be talking about 5 presentation tips and tricks that will set your PowerPoint slides on fire

Creating a visually appealing and engaging PowerPoint presentation is crucial for effectively communicating your message. Here are five expert tips to help you craft stunning slides:

Presentation Design Tip 1: Find Amazing Images for Your Slides with Unsplash

Photography has always been an integral part of presentation design. A good PowerPoint presentation image helps people relate more to what you are talking about and illustrates the practical rationale behind your presentation – whether you are discussing sea urchin biology or the hottest new nightlife apps.

Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing lame presentation stock images of people in suits jumping up in the air. Not only are a lot of these stock photos tacky, but some of them cost a lot of money! Why waste your money?

Luckily, these days there are tons of places to find high-quality, commercial-free images for presentations, but our personal favorite is Unsplash. Unsplash has nothing but awesome presentation images — no bull$%&# ones. Their high-resolution image library is practically an art gallery in itself.

Their website is also super simple to navigate. It’s clearly been done by professional PowerPoint designers — and their search bar makes it quick and easy to find the type of presentation images you’re looking for. For example, if you want to find stock images of someone hiking, you can type in “nature” and you will see tons of beautiful nature images with and without people in the shot.

And there are so many different types of images to choose from for your presentations. You can find photos of high-rise cityscapes, foggy forests, laughing children, or neatly-organized hipster worktables in all their high-resolution glory.

If you know you want to utilize beautiful-looking presentation images but don’t want to deal with the burden of choice, you will probably really like the curated collections on offer. The themes are as varied and plentiful as the oeuvre of Unsplash itself, with different Unsplash users showing off their curatorial talents to come up with the best possible grab bag of designs they can think of.

Keep in mind that these collections aren’t always completely related – for example, you might see a shot of a cute and cuddly walrus in the same collection as a super sleek black and white shot looking up at gleaming steel skyscrapers. But there’s plenty of design inspiration to be gleaned from the Unsplash collections – check out their website if you haven’t already!

Presentation Design Tip 2: Spice Up Your PowerPoint Deck with Cool Fonts from Font Squirrel

Every computer comes with a set of fonts pre-installed as standard. This includes fonts like Arial and Times New Roman (we write these blog posts in Arial. Ugh). Many people don’t realize that there are other options out there – there are loads of beautiful, simple fonts for a good PowerPoint presentation to choose from.

Today there are tons of custom fonts that you can download for free from places like Font Squirrel. They have categorized their entire font collection into dozens of different easily searchable categories, making it easy for you to find the ideal font for your type of presentation.

Some personal font favorites that can be downloaded from Font Squirrel include:

• Bebas Neue – just like Frank’s Red Hot Sauce you can put that $*&% on everything. We like this font so much that we decided to include it in our award-winning PowerPoint template Influencer.
• Pacifico – a presentation font that is not for the faint of heart, this is a great style to use for headers and your title page. Especially great if you want to give off more of a laidback vibe – it’s all in the California-cool name, after all.
• Mathlete – like all good presentation fonts, Mathlete is the perfect choice for you if you want to impress your audience with big multi-syllable words in your headers. It only comes in CAPS, which gives off a go-big-or-go-home element to your presentation. But you’ll go big, we’re sure.
• Chunk Five – this bold (literally) font is like Arial with a much louder personality. Don’t use this font if you want your audience to be captivated by your every word.
• Lobster – not to be confused with Lobster 2, this versatile font makes a great choice for headers or subheader fonts – you can go anywhere on the spectrum of formal to informal with this one.

For an additional list of awesome fonts that can be downloaded from Font Squirrel, click here. You can even click on the “most popular” tab and Font Squirrel will pull a list of the most popular fonts people are downloading.

Since Font Squirrel’s fonts are all free to download, there’s really no reason why you wouldn’t want to browse through their highly extensive collection (they have literally hundreds of them available) and see if there’s one that is particularly eye-catching.

Presentation Design Tip 3: Create Whitespace for Your Presentation Images Using Focused Blurs from PicMonkey

As we have talked about in the past, there are ways to create more whitespace when using “busy images” (images that have a lot going on and make it difficult for any text you may add to stand out – not get drowned out by the noise of the image). Blurring is one way to add whitespace and make room for your text to shine.

PowerPoint has its own blur tool under the Artistic Effects Tab (you can access this tab when you double-click an image on the slide). However, sometimes you may not want to blur the entire image because you want a particular part of your image to remain unblurred. That way you can keep the more aesthetically pleasing parts in the focused section of your photo while you fade the unwanted sections of it into the background. So, how do you go about doing this?

Enter PicMonkey, a free online photo editor that makes it super easy to create all-important whitespace without having to waste a lot of time doing it. By using my “Focused Blur” technique using PicMonkey, you will be able to create … wait for it … a focused blur on a specific part of your image.

Does it seem a bit too intimidating for you to appropriately blur out a photo yourself? It’s actually quite simple to pull this off. Here are the steps:

1. Find an image you like
2. Upload it to PicMonkey
3. Click Edit Image
4. Select the “Focal Zoom Feature”
5. Select the area that you don’t want to blur and the tool will blur everything else other than that area

Of course, if you have PhotoShop, you can easily create a focused blur using that as well, but I assume many people do not have a copy of PhotoShop – and when you have free photo editing tools for presentations like PicMonkey, you don’t really need to have PhotoShop anyways (that’s a lie, but you know what we mean).

There are lots of super neat tools that PicMonkey has on offer. The Focal Zoom Feature is just one of many of our favourites. There are tons of other great editing possibilities including canvas cropping, image sharpening, and colour saturation – go ahead and check out what they have to offer. Once you start using PicMonkey to edit your photos and create lots of beautiful white space for your display text, you won’t ever want to go back!

Presentation Design Tip 4: Use Shape Union to Make Your Own Custom PowerPoint Graphics by Combining Shapes

Okay, so what if you go to Unsplash or onto GraphicRiver looking for a good image or template to use for your presentation, but still come up empty? Sometimes, the quickest way to get your hands on the perfect image is to create one yourself.

You’ll be surprised how the careful combination of shapes and lines can help you to create awesome presentation graphics, templates, or layouts for your slides. And, the nice thing is that this can all be done straight from PowerPoint or Keynote – so you don’t have to go onto some unfamiliar website or download a new software program.

Without trying to sound too general, we should point out that the standard drawing toolbars in PowerPoint or Keynote are SOMETIMES no match for the stunning professional stock imagery that professional PowerPoint designers can put together using advanced image creation tools.

Regardless of your skill level, you should definitely be able to adapt your slides to accommodate some really nice graphics. Creating your own custom PowerPoint graphics using shapes isn’t difficult. Here are the three simple steps:

1. Arrange some shapes however you want
2. Select all of your shapes you want to combine
3. Click on the Shape Union tool

Voila! Now you have a quick and dirty custom-made graphic for your presentation, and you did it without having to consult with an expensive professional designer.

Presentation Design Tip 5: Save Time Creating Custom Graphics for Your PowerPoint Slides with FreePik

If you have ever come across a stunning presentation, there is a good chance that it was filled with nice-looking vector graphics. What are vector graphics? Vector images are not like bitmap images that are based on pixels. Vector images use a mathematical formula to draw the images on screen. That’s why they always look nice and crisp when scaled to fit anywhere from a wall-sized projection screen to your laptop.

Generally speaking, vector images are made up of a bunch of shapes that when combined represent the image. Because of this, they can be ungrouped and the individual shapes can be edited. That might sound pretty intimidating if you have never tried playing around with image editing software before, but we promise it’s really not that hard to figure out.

With Freepik, you can download the images for free and use them commercially IF you provide attribution (give credit). If you don’t want to provide attribution, you can pay a monthly fee of $10. We highly recommend putting up the $10 (just charge it to your company credit card) so that you don’t have lame copyright attribution blurbs making you look like a complete amateur.

Freepik offers a vast array of presentation graphics, making it a treasure trove for PowerPoint designers. Whether you’re looking for intricate icons, modern infographic elements, or beautifully illustrated backgrounds, Freepik has it all. The beauty of using vector graphics is that they remain sharp and clear, no matter how much you resize them. This versatility makes them perfect for any good PowerPoint presentation.

Conclusion

The design of your presentation isn’t something to be underestimated or overlooked. A simple, elegant PowerPoint presentation makes a positive and strong impact on your viewers. PowerPoint designers who take the time to enhance their slides with high-quality presentation images, unique fonts, and custom graphics will find their presentations more engaging and memorable.

Hopefully, the presentation tips and tricks we have shared with you here will help you master the important details that make a good PowerPoint presentation great. Utilising resources like Unsplash, Font Squirrel, PicMonkey, and Freepik can significantly elevate the quality of your presentation graphics and overall slide design.

So, are you already using any one of these presentation hacks that we’ve discussed? What are some design deficiencies you have battled before that maybe you can fix by utilising one of these principles? Let me know what you think and please try to be as specific as possible. Sound off in the comments below!

Lastly, do you have a friend that could benefit from learning about these presentation design tips? If so, email them this post.

Thanks for reading and be sure to post this article on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever your favourite social media channel is (by using the sharing buttons to the left).

Hungry for more presentation design tips just like these? Check these out:

• 5 Presentation Tools That Will Make Your Slides Stand Out
• Impress Your Audience by Following These 5 Presentation Design Trends
• 5 Presentation Font Trends Worth Seeing

By incorporating these tips, you can ensure your presentations stand out with top-notch presentation graphics and effective slide designs. Happy presenting!

Call to Action

Ready to transform your presentations and captivate your audience? Start implementing these tips today and see the difference high-quality presentation images, unique fonts, and custom graphics can make. Don’t settle for ordinary – make your next PowerPoint presentation extraordinary!

If you found these tips helpful, share this post with your colleagues and friends. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more expert advice and resources on creating stunning presentations. For personalised assistance and professional PowerPoint design services, contact our team at INK PPT. Let us help you create presentations that leave a lasting impression!

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Transform your presentations today – your audience will thank you!

Presentation Design Tips Feedback Questionnaire

Section 1: General Information

1. Name:
2. Email:
3. Company:
4. Job Title:

Section 2: Content Evaluation

   5. How helpful did you find the tips provided in the blog?

• Very helpful
• Helpful
• Somewhat helpful
• Not helpful

    6. Which tip did you find the most valuable? (Choose one)

• Find Amazing Images for Your Slides with Unsplash
• Spice Up Your PowerPoint Deck with Cool Fonts from Font Squirrel
• Create Whitespace for Your Presentation Images Using Focused Blurs from PicMonkey
• Use Shape Union to Make Your Own Custom PowerPoint Graphics by Combining Shapes
• Save Time Creating Custom Graphics for Your PowerPoint Slides with FreePik

     7. Do you currently use any of the resources mentioned in the blog (Unsplash, Font Squirrel, PicMonkey, Freepik)?

• Yes
• No

    8. If yes, which ones? (Check all that apply)

• Unsplash
• Font Squirrel
• PicMonkey
• Freepik

Section 3: Implementation and Impact

    9. Have you tried implementing any of the tips mentioned in the blog?

• Yes
• No

     10.  If yes, which tip(s) did you implement? (Check all that apply)

• Find Amazing Images for Your Slides with Unsplash
• Spice Up Your PowerPoint Deck with Cool Fonts from Font Squirrel
• Create Whitespace for Your Presentation Images Using Focused Blurs from PicMonkey
• Use Shape Union to Make Your Own Custom PowerPoint Graphics by Combining Shapes
• Save Time Creating Custom Graphics for Your PowerPoint Slides with FreePik

      11.  How did these tips impact your presentation design process?

• Significantly improved
• Somewhat improved
• No noticeable change
• Made it more difficult

Section 4: Specific Feedback

      12.  What other tools or resources do you use for PowerPoint design that were not mentioned in the blog?

      13.  Are there any topics or areas related to presentation design you would like us to cover in future posts?

       14.  What challenges do you face most often when creating a PowerPoint presentation?

       15.  Any additional comments or suggestions?

Section 5: Sharing and Engagement  

        16.  Would you recommend this blog post to a colleague or friend?

• Yes
• No

        17.  How did you hear about this blog post?

• INK PPT website
• Social media
• Colleague/friend
• Other (please specify)

       18.  Would you like to receive our newsletter with more tips and updates?

• Yes
• No

Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback! Your insights are invaluable in helping us improve our content and services. Please submit your responses to [your email/website/contact form link].

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