By Ravi Mehta
Picasso had oils and canvas. Donatello had raw stone and bronze. And you? Consultants have PowerPoint. It's the lingua franca of the business world: a tool that is lauded for its ability to help us understand inconvenient truths, and maligned for its role in the poor communication that has led to disasters, big and small.
Over the last few years, there has been a renaissance in presentation design. This is part of a broader trend towards design-oriented thinking that is permeating nearly every aspect of business. The bar has been raised, and it's important for consultants to demonstrate the same design prowess that has become an essential part of their clients' businesses.
Unfortunately, much of the conventional wisdom about presentation design is a bit anemic when applied to the sophisticated presentations created by consultants. Six words on a slide and a pretty picture just doesn't cut it.
But it is possible to use the tenets of great design to make your presentations more impactful. Here are five rules I've learned as I've straddled the worlds of design and business:
Rule 1. Draw a Blueprint
Watch a really great designer or illustrator get started on a project. They don't stare at a blank screen or sheet of paper for very long. Instead, they start by drawing guides that establish a framework for their work. Those lines define the margin, whitespace, perspective, and overall composition.
This same process is critical before authoring a presentation. Start by establishing a grid. A typical design grid contains six columns separated by five gutters and positioned between a left margin and right margin. A six-column grid allows you to easily divide a slide into halves (three columns each), thirds (two columns each), sixths, or one large area.
Once you've defined the grid's columns, you can position key elements vertically such as the title, subtitle/takeaway, and main content area. That design grid can act as a blueprint for the rest of your slides. You can now easily create a portfolio of slide layouts by positioning elements such as text areas, icons, photos, and diagrams along the design grid.
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