Whether you are presenting to potential investors, a lecture hall full of college students, or as the keynote speaker at a conference, your PowerPoint presentation is a very crucial element. As the presenter, you are responsible for delivering key points and impacting your audience. While the presenter is essential for delivering the message, the PowerPoint presentation is the vehicle for moving the presentation along. Creating visually appealing slides that tell a compelling story is one of the best ways to ensure that your presentation is clear and engaging. Presentation templates effectively ensure that slides are on brand, message, and engaging.

From the opening click of the first slide, you will only have a few minutes to secure your audience's attention. If your presentation design falls flat, you will soon have an audience glossed over and no longer paying attention to your message. Business presentations with too much text and an overwhelming amount of facts and figures could jeopardize the deal. Similarly, other types of expressions that are difficult to read will also fail to motivate the audience.

Given the importance of each slide, you'll want to pay careful attention to your presentation design. A robust presentation template design will ensure that each slide helps you achieve your desired goal. From the text elements, you include to the colour scheme and graphs, a well-designed template can be the key to crafting the perfect presentation. Let's look at some things that go into a great PowerPoint template.

Create consistency across your slide deck.



Instead of looking at each slide as an independent blank canvas, you should consider each one as a piece of the overall puzzle. Your slides should work together to create a cohesive presentation that maintains consistency throughout. This means your presentation template should include your brand or theme on each slide, and all of your information should be presented similarly. Think about how Disney uses the mouse ears in everything they do. Again, your presentation should maintain a consistent look, format, and branding across your slides to significantly impact your audience.

Make space for visuals.



A powerful PowerPoint presentation uses visuals to help the audience see and understand key points. Graphs, charts, illustrations, and other visuals have improved learning and understanding. A quality PowerPoint template should include space for compelling visuals and infographics. Data storytelling is a powerful tool for creating a persuasive argument or message. You can also utilize images, embedded videos, and even GIFs to help emphasize a point or highlight an idea.

To craft a visual story that engages your audience, you'll want to design a presentation template that uses appropriate visuals to help make your points. Effective presentation templates create the right balance between text, white space, and graphics. Just as a well-placed visual can be effective, however, overused illustrations can have a negative impact.

Keep your slide designs simple.



One of the basic principles for creating effective slides is to keep your presentation simple. The star of each slide should be the information you are presenting, not the presentation design. PowerPoint slides that include varying fonts, multicoloured backgrounds, and flashy animations will divert attention away from your knowledge. Regardless of your audience, they are probably more interested in your main point than your ability to animate text and images. It is always a best practice to stick to the same font family, a simple colour scheme, and minimal elements on each slide. To create an effective presentation template, include clean slides free from ancillary text and other factors that can muddle your PowerPoint.

You will always want to consider your message and delivery when designing presentation templates. A template should outline a presentation that is easy to read, recognize, understand, and digest.