Consistency is very important when making PowerPoint presentations. The best way to keep all the presentations consistent is by using a style guide. It is a guideline that determines things like the background, text color, and branding on the slide. This makes all slides consistent and keeps the focus on the content instead of distracting people with strange changes in formatting and color. Here we will discuss some elements of a style guide and why it is important to have them in a style guide.
Don’t Be Too Specific
It is good to be clear about major details, but being too controlling can actually hinder creativity. Sometimes creative people can be too controlling of these details resulting in boring presentations. Allow some freedom by suggesting elements of the style guide as optional or and alternative options.
Accept That It Won’t be Ideal Every Time
Ideally, we’d want to make one that works perfectly for everything. But, practically speaking this is not what really happens. Do your best and make a style guide that works for the most types of presentations.
Use A Different Slide Master For Each Type of Presentation
If you have to make style guide that covers multiple types of presentations such as workshops, reports, seminars, etc, then you should make multiple slide masters. A different color scheme for each different type should help distinguish them from each other.
Make A Style Guide for the Handouts
A handout master is just like a slide master. It gives a common look to all your handouts. You can set simple thing like header, footer, and page number formatting. You may also choose to include a copyright notice in the footer of the handouts.
Having a good style guide on top of a nice template not only helps making presentations easier. It also helps make presentations that are easier to understand because of consistency and fewer distractions.
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