Are you tired of using the same Google Slides templates over and over again for all of your presentations? I’ve been there, not wanting to use the same plain templates, but also not knowing how to make my own or find better ones. In this blog, I’ll be sharing some results from my research and experience while exploring ways to improve the look of my presentations. Keep in mind that I will be focusing on slideshows, but many of these ideas can also apply to brochures, posters, and infographics.
Colour schemes
Utilizing a cohesive colour scheme is the most important part of designing an aesthetic slideshow, but sometimes it’s very difficult to put one together. How many colours do I choose? Do I choose them randomly? Here are a few guidelines and resources that I find useful when choosing colours:
Start with choosing two neutral colours that contrast each other. These colours will be used for the background and the main text, so it’s very important that they’re both neutrals that go well together.
Here are some examples:
Next, choose 1-3 accent colours. This part requires the most creativity, so I find that using a colour generator tool, such as coolors.co, is a great place to get started. These accent colours can be used in the border, in visuals, as a title colour, or as a highlighting/underlining colour.
Here’s an example of a completed colour scheme:
Templates/Designs
So, now you have a colour scheme, but where do you put it? You can always choose one of the basic Google Slides/Powerpoint templates and adjust it to match your colour palette, and this will completely transform it. If you’re looking for something fancier, here are a few recommendations:
There are many websites that offer free slideshow templates that you can import into Google Slides or Powerpoint. Some of my favourites are slidesmania.com, slidesgo.com, and slidescarnival.com. After choosing a theme you can adjust it to your liking, and you can change the colours to match your colour scheme.
Here’s an example of a template that I changed to match my colour scheme:
Canva.com is another great option for making slideshows, as well as posters, brochures, and infographics. It has tons of templates in many different styles and it offers a lot of flexibility and customization when it comes to design. My personal favourite thing on Canva is the element feature, which offers a huge variety of graphics and cliparts to use in your designs.
General Tips
After making an aesthetic slideshow template, here are some general tips to keep in mind while completing the rest of your presentation:
Fonts: Choose two fonts and stick with them throughout your slideshow. Try to use a simple font for body text such as Open Sans, Roberto Slab, or Calibri. The other font you choose will be used for the titles and headings, so it can be a more stylistic font.
Text: Don’t add too much text! This is probably the most common advice given about presentations, and it also applies to making an artistic presentation. Too much text is unappealing, so try to limit the text to around six short bullet points. This will allow the audience to be engaged and interested in listening and reading the slides, but it won’t overshadow your amazing design.
Images: Adding visuals to your slideshow is great, but make sure it’s not too much. I recommend adding 1-2 images on each slide and sizing them so they take up around one-third of the space. This allows for a great balance between the text and visuals. If it’s possible, try to find images that have colours similar to your colour scheme, as that will really elevate the overall look and cohesiveness of the slideshow.
I hope these tips and tricks were helpful, and make sure to keep them in mind for future presentations or projects!
Edited By: Khushi Kumari
I’m Yara, a grade 11 pre-AP student at Martingrove CI in Toronto, Ontario. I enjoy reading, hiking, biking, and I look forward to going camping every summer. I also own an online business called SweetnSourCharms on Etsy and I love designing and creating things.