Quick and Easy Ways to Revamp Your Slide Design

A slide deck that’s been around for a while is like a house with good bones. Structurally it’s still working – it holds the roof up, keeps the cold out, and has a comfortable familiarity. But if its best feature is structural integrity, it probably isn’t the most exciting house on the block or making the covers of magazines. If your slide deck just has good bones but won’t turn any heads, you’ve got a problem.

You are representing a forward-thinking authority in your industry – do your slides say that with their design? Will your slides land you on the cover of your industry magazine? If the answer is probably not, you are in luck. We’ve rounded up quick and easy ways to flip your slide design so it feels brand new! 

Clean Up Colors 

The first way to freshen up your slides is by unifying your colors. A typical branding line up looks like this:      

• Colors | light, dark, and an additional color (a medium tone or complementary pop of color)      

• Neutrals | light and dark neutral

Using your brand colors consistently will go much further than using different ones on each slide. This screams “hello, I’m undisciplined and want to do all the things” which is generally out of alignment with most value propositions. Resist the urge to mix it up. Your audience will thank you. Once you’ve eliminated non-branded colors, unify your slides by using the same colors in the same functions throughout.

For example, I love to use the same neutral as a background and layer in colors on top. Using a single pop of color for accents (highlights, borders, arrows) can help provide energy throughout the slides without creating a distraction. 

Use Subtle Transitions 

The second way to revamp your deck is to eliminate outdated and cliché transitions. As a quick technical reminder, transitions are actions to get from one slide to another. The are a key part of the presentation experience and can go very right or very wrong.

So which of these are considered cliché and outdated? A lot of them. If it involves excessive spinning, bouncing, or takes more than one second to complete, it’s likely not a good choice.

These transitions don’t add anything to the clarity of the message – they distract. Plus, when your audience has seen the same transitions in painful presentations for over a decade, you’ll be put in an unflattering category that won’t help your brand put its best foot forward.

That’s not to say that transitions should be completely ignored. The abrupt “click-click-click” between slides can be a bit jarring as well.

So what’s a person to do? I’ve assembled a list of professional-looking PowerPoint transitions that you can apply to your slides for an easy win:      

• Fade      

• Reveal      

• Push      

• Cover      

• Uncover      

• Wipe      

• Cut

Try these out and select your fave. Once you have one, make sure that it’s applied to each slide for consistency and you’re good to go! 

Swap in Real Images 

The last way to flip your slides into the modern era is by ditching the bad quality images. Nothing says “this presentation is from 2009” quite like clip art from 2009.

Also in this category are: super small grainy images, photos with watermarks, and anything else that you would be ashamed to post on social media. Once the only option to incorporate images into your slides, these now tend to age slides back several years.

They come across as unprofessional and amateurish. Since that is not the impression you want your business to leave with your audience, it’s time to change them up! There are many sources for high quality images.

A good place to start is your company’s website imagery and social media profiles as these are already visually representing your brand personality. Low hanging fruit!

If these don’t meet the messaging needs of your presentation, there are a ton of free stock image websites to dig into! Great spots to start are:      

• Unsplash      

• Pexels      

• Stocksnap.io      

• Pixabay      

• Reshot

Explore these resources and replace the outdated photos and clip art with modern and fresh images that will bring your slide deck into the current moment! Your slide deck no longer needs to rely on good bones for compliments. You have three easy ways to flip its design into an asset that represents you and your brand the way you need it to. I challenge you to take these steps and apply them to your go-to presentation!

Go ahead, see the difference it can make. Then share your before and after on social media and tag us @eandmcreative! Can’t wait to see what you create!