7 Tips to Make your Presentation Balanced and Appealing

Did you know that your audience can judge the effectiveness/appeal of your presentation in as little as five seconds? Or the attention span of most people (during a presentation) is for about 10-15 minutes?

Intimidating? Well, not really. Most of us go through the hassle of balancing text and images in a design.

According to data, 41% and 7% of presenters find it difficult to use visuals and fonts in their presentations, respectively.

Balancing your presentation right will help you pitch to the investors/clients and accentuate your brand image. Though a little tricky, getting the right ratio of text and pictures will help you get the most out of the content of your presentation.

In this article, we have listed a few tips to help you balance text and images in your presentation.

 Before beginning, we want to point out –

• Your personality plays a major role in your presentations.
• Storytelling is the best way to make your presentation memorable (people were 22 times more likely to remember the content).
• Don’t stuff your slides with content.

Now, here are a few tips that will help you make crisp and compelling presentations.

1. Chalk Out Your Ideas On a Piece Of Paper First

The first step to making a compelling presentation is to sit with a piece of paper and pen to map out the structure. It will help you streamline your ideas and provide an appropriate structure to your presentation, including how and where to align your text and images. Also, try going for catchy and crisp one-line headlines. 

Answer questions like -

• The purpose and core message of your presentation.
• Important points that you need to deliver.
• Required action plan after you deliver the presentation.

2. Use The Magic Ratio

Keep all your text on one side and visual content on the other to determine the right proportion of both in your slides. Opting for a design having both text and images in a similar ratio might be a feasible option. 

Here are a few tips you can keep in mind to keep the balance -

• Try not to use words when you don’t need them. Excessively stuffing your slides with text will only make them look less appealing.
• Don’t use repetitive images or text.
• Don’t use text for things you can show visually.
• Create a balance (equal surface area) between text and images on each slide.

3. Choose Your Images Appropriately

Don’t stuff your presentation with pictures. Including one image per slide can be a good option. You can also work around rhetorical devices to make your visual content more meaningful and interesting. Rhetorical devices are a technique of using metaphor, irony, etc., which will help your audience see the subject matter from a different perspective.

• You can use pre-designed templates for a coherent layout. If your pictures are too detailed, it will make your text look illegible and messy (if any). There are various websites such as SketchBubble offering PowerPoint and Google Slides templates.
• Try adding a transparent layer over the background image to make your text more legible.
• You can also try techniques like masking, using shapes, strips, ribbons, pattern fill, line separators, color filters, artistic effects, etc.

4. Go for White Space When Placing the Text

Though there is no harm in putting text over images, not getting it right can make your content look obscure and messy. Placing your text over white space will make it legible and maintain the integrity of the image. Go for images with a low-pattern area and place text where it contrasts with the image.

You can remember the following points -

• Avoiding too many bullet points.
• Break your text into smaller chunks and use icons, clipart, shapes, etc., to make it look more catchy and digestible.
• You can also add animation effects to the text to make it look more vibrant and catchy.

5. Use Creative Ways to Include Text as Part of the Image

You can include text as part of the image by incorporating them in ways that conform to the intended message. That way, you will not have to add text and image separately, but rather both components get added into one. 

Some useful tips -

• You can add icons and typography to relay your message to the audience instead of solely relying on words.
• You can highlight keywords in your image to draw the audience’s attention to the message. You can also increase the font size or put that in bold.
• Go creative with the angle or orientation of the text to create a balanced and aesthetically pleasing look.

6. Go for Graphs and Charts for Better Alignment

Charts and graphs are other things that offer a lot of white space to write text. They make the text look pleasing with impactful information and sit well with your visual content. Create as many tables, graphs, and bars as required to make your presentation crisp and appealing.

Consider these points -

• Increase the width of the bars to make them more prominent over the background. You can change the gap width to 40-60% to create a more coherent look.
• Remove gridlines and legends to create better space for the chart.
• Add a chart title or explanatory text to convey the message and purpose of the chart, avoiding the risk of any misinterpretation by the audience.

7. Mark Each Slide as a Separate Visual Content and Review it as Much as You Can

Create cohesion and unity in your slides by going for one font family. You can use different font sizes for headings and sub-headings and incorporate high-quality images to create a distinct look on each slide.

• Revisit each slide with a fresh perspective after finishing.
• Make sure your slides are relevant individually and act in synergy with each other.
• Let your slides convey the message but make sure that it is your message that plays the focal role.

Getting the right balance between text and images by going creative will help you create compelling presentations. It will not only keep your audiences’ attention intact but also convey a powerful brand image.