Step One


Steve Jobs was a master slide designer— the best. He always began on paper, sketching out what the slides would include and look like. (I use index cards so I can sort them, organize them, and put them up on the wall.) No mater how you begin the process


of creating your slide deck, the number one thing is to decide what the number one thing is. Steve Jobs always had one main message and three sub points. When you can cut the fluff (the things that aren’t really important) it’s far easier to design a slide deck because you’re not trying to cram everything in. Less is more. When you focus on your


main message (and supporting points) and eliminate (or make smaller) the less important stuff, your type can be bigger, your images more prominent, and your slides less busy and clutered. Clean, simple, and streamlined was the hallmark of Steve Jobs’ slides.


Step Two


Either choose a template or create your own. Consistency is key to good design and a template helps ensure the look and feel of your slide deck stays the same throughout. When choosing a template this checklist will help ensure your slides are readable and enjoyable. • Choose colors that offer contrast. A dark blue background with white type pops, yellow type on a white background does not. Also, choose colors that match your brand, convey the meaning of your message, would be


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popular with the audience. For example, an environmental company would likely choose a palete of greens.


• Choose fonts that are powerful and readable. Te best fonts for headlines and other key information that is big and bold are sans serif—the leters don’t have fancy hooks. Helvetica is a sans serif font. Helvetica is a common sans serif but, it’s also boring. Still, it has many looks in its font family (bold, light, condensed, regular, and italic). Tis allows you to use one font and get different looks. Use no more than three fonts per slide deck. Note: Te key information should be bigger (48 point and larger) while lesser information (but still required) can be smaller . . . much smaller.


• Choose layouts that let information breathe. A good rule of thumb is to not use more than five bullet points per page. Instead, break information up and put one point per page. Tink about it, one main point per page (made big) will be a lot more powerful than ten litle ones all squished onto one slide. More slides with less information per slide is far beter than fewer slides crammed with tiny type.


Step Three


Show what you mean. Tell a story with your slides using visuals. If a picture is worth many words wouldn’t it be beter to create a show-and-tell type of deck? Te same thing is true with numbers. Graphs and charts are good, info-graphics are beter. It’s a new way of representing data


by creating a graphic that makes it clear what the numbers mean. Te most powerful photographs are


usually cropped to just show the most important part of something. Of course we love to look at people, and professional designers know that the most compelling part of a person is their face. Crop your photos to highlight the most interesting part—with a person it’s their eyes. When you cut away the less interesting part of a picture you can enlarge what’s leſt (and have it cover the entire slide with type on top of it). In most cases you don’t want the


audience reading your slides. It's vastly preferable that they be focused on you and what you have to say. Tat’s why less text and more images work well. Tey compliment the presenter instead of being a distraction. Te last step is to triple check for


typos. When projected on a screen, the blunders look a lot bigger and are more embarrassing. ❚


Lee Silber is the best- selling author of 23 books, including Time Management for the Creative Person and Organizing from the Right Side of the Brain. Lee


wants to give anyone who is interested five free things for making it this far in the article, including complimentary copies of his unique Life Planner, Day Planner, Guide to Organizing, Guide to Organizing Your Computer, and Innovative Ideas For Better Meetings. To request one or all of the free items offered, contact Silber at leesilber@leesilber.com.


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