To create effective backgrounds in PowerPoint is one of the most challenging tasks for a presenter, as balancing visual impact, layout balance, properly matching colors while keeping great legibility is nothing that I would consider easy.
You really have to had to spend some time studying visual design, or better yet Information Design, the discipline concerned with organizing and structuring information on a specific medium in order for the information to be easier to understand, more intelligible and comprehensible to the reader.
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Often the rules and guidelines that govern effective Information Design are quite unnatural to us as we have been long brainwashed to think in terms of "nice", "good-looking" or "elegant" instead of more universal and important values such as "easy-to-read", "well-organized", "simple".
So, while I myself have my own recommendations for creating effective presentation backgrounds, I like to give open space to other views and ideas no matter how distant or similar to mine.
Ellen Finkelstein, author of an excellent PowerPoint book, has just released a free PDF mini-guide, explaining how-to create your own personal presentation backgrounds, while sharing some useful strategies to do this in the most effective way.
The background of your slides sets the tone for your entire presentation.
Of course, a gorgeous background won’t save a boring presentation. On the other hand, a dull background can make a great content seem boring.
You can create your own great backgrounds or visuals, for free, and without spending lots of time. Yes, you can!
Overview
Besides offering good looks, a background should be original and appropriate. And who can best judge that but you?
So, instead of using canned backgrounds or paying for a
professional designer, here are five easy, backgrounds that always look great.
With digital cameras available everywhere, you can easily take your own photographs for some of these backgrounds. You can also search in PowerPoint (Insert > Picture > Clip Art) — limit the search to photos — or use Microsoft’s Clip Art and Media site.
You don’t need to use the same background throughout the entire presentation.
Many people do, but you can also use an image that relates to the content of a particular slide.
If you do change images for each slide, find a common style, design element, or metaphor to unify them. You don’t even need to create a full-slide background. You can use many of the ideas here as illustrations or metaphors to back up your text, in the style of Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullets (which I recommend).
First I’ll explain how to create the backgrounds. Then I’ll show you how to insert them into PowerPoint.
To get Ellen Finkelstein 10-page PDF entitled "5 Easy, Sure-Fire PowerPoint Backgrounds" just sign-up for Ellen's PowerPoint Tips newsletter and you are on. (Find the subscription box on the top left side of Ellen's home page.)
The PDF is completely free and distributed to all subscribers of PowerPoint Tips.
