Power Point Animation

I was recently in a meeting where the presenter had obviously spent a lot of time making her slides visually interesting through the use of color. As she talked us through her presentation I was struck by how pleasant her color scheme was and how she obviously had a good eye for design.

Unfortunately, at the point in her presentation where she wanted to make a really powerful statement, the projector was not able to show all the colors in her slide correctly. Most of the text in her examples was illegible, resulting in the slide looking much like a green - blue blob. Not only did this disrupt her presentation, but it made her point very difficult to get across. It was a shame because, up until that point, her presentation had been quite convincing and the slide that did her in, so to speak, was the one that needed to make the ultimate point.

PowerPoint gives us users a lot of options to enhance our presentations. This often translates into us users falling on our faces because we simply dont know where to draw the line when trying to (in the words of an infamous British Cabinet minister) sex-up our presentations. This is true of something as seemingly straight-forward as the use of color.

With that in mind, Ive compiled a list of things that you should consider when including color in your presentations.

1) Projector proofing: Do your colors work with all projectors?

As in the example given, what may look excellent on your own laptop monitor may look quite different when projected on a screen. Professional designers know about this fact and thats why they spend lots of money on software and other tools to calibrate their monitors and printers. Chances are that this is overkill for your presentation so try to keep a couple of things in mind when employing color.



- Text should usually be dark against a lighter background, ideally black on white. The background color should be significantly lighter than the text, so that should your colors not be projected well, the text will still be legible.

- When using more than two colors, ensure that you use variations of the prime colors for each separate object rather than different shadings of a single primary color. For example, lets say that you have three objects on your slide that you want to color. I would suggest that you use blue, red and yellow rather than red, maroon, orange. Why? Well, the primary colors blue, red and yellow are significantly different form one another and even when projected onto a screen should look different enough to be recognized a different objects. Whereas different shadings of a primary color (e.g. red, maroon and orange) can turn out looking the same when projected.

2) How do the colors look when printed out?

- Ive already mentioned that professional designers use specially calibrated printers to print out their artwork. Since this usually isnt an option in most of us, I strongly suggest test-printing your presentations ahead of time to see if your colors look the way you want them to.

- Also, color handouts are nice and when going to big client meetings, I always use them. However, big client meetings are the exception to the rule and so I usually print handouts from a black and white printer for most of my normal presentations purposes. This is more cost efficient and many companies prefer that employees do use black and white (or grey-scale) printouts. Therefore, make sure that your color slides translate into understandable black and white printouts too.

3) Are you using colors to emphasize a point or to make up for bad structure?

Oftentimes people use color to show the difference between objects or ideas or to emphasize an idea or a point. This is not bad, generally speaking, but do try to be honest with yourself about whether you are using colors to make-up for a lack of good structure in your slide. If you find yourself resorting to colors to make your point, then you most likely need to re-think the structure and design of the objects that you are using in your presentation. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, can I make the same point with this slide without the color? if the answer is no, than you need to work on how you are showing what you want to say first before you use any colors.

4) Does it look professional?

Last but certainly not least, you should always make sure that your presentation maintains a certain level of professionalism. This is really just a question of appropriateness. Is it appropriate to have ten different colors in your presentation? Does the super-cool background you recently downloaded really make you seem like an authority or does it make you look like you are trying too hard? Obviously this is a subjective point, but do take the time to reflect on whether you are keeping within the standards (formal as well as informal) of your company or school. After all, your presentation is not taking part in a design contest; it is you vehicle for making your point. Dont distract from the point you are trying to make by trying to look pretty. Pretty is not always professional. If you doubt this, have a look at a typical McKinsey presentation.



Personally, I prefer very little color in my presentations. I think that a more purist look is less distracting, more elegant and clearer for the audience. That being said, I have seen some really knock-out presentations that have used much more color than I would ever dare to. At the end of the day its your decision but do make certain to use colors wisely in your presentations. It can make all the difference.

Benjamen Bauer is the pen name of an active management consultant who enjoys discussing and writing about good (and bad) presentation technique. Since he currently is still in the employee of a big name consultancy he prefers to remain anonymous whilst writing about of contemporary business presentation culture from the front lines. You can read his blog and tutorials at http://www.professional-powerpoint.com

For information about how to effectively customize your message for your audience, check out this exerpt from Robert Lane's book Relational Presentation: A Visually Interactive Approach.