When it comes to presentations, content is just one piece of the puzzle. While it may be an afterthought, slide design is just as important. Effective presentation design can convey professionalism and expertise, while poor slide design can lead to total confusion.
Not a graphic designer? No problem. Read on to learn our top slide design principles for creating powerful presentations.
Establish visual hierarchy
Ever stared at a presentation where every element was the same size and felt total confusion? Your slide is missing one very important slide design principle: visual hierarchy.
Visual hierarchy is central to effective presentation design. This slide design principle uses size and spacing to instantly tell viewers the order in which they should process the information. Techniques involved in visual hierarchy include:
Size: Make the most important elements on the slide largest. Not only do they draw the viewer’s eye, but their size also conveys a greater importance.
Placement: Similarly, but the most important information at the top or center of the slide. We’re naturally compelled to look at these areas first.
Color: Use contrasting colors to make certain pieces of information stand out more.
Gamma handles all visual hierarchy for you. There’s no need to think about sizing, placement, or color. Gamma automatically optimizes all three.
Don’t forget whitespace
When we think about slide design, we often think about the arrangement of its elements—but the space between elements is just as important. That’s known as whitespace, and it needs to be used wisely. Follow these slide design principles regarding whitespace:
More space helps elements stand out: To draw attention to the most important information on your slide, add more whitespace around it.
Group related elements: Minimizing the whitespace between related elements instantly conveys a relationship to one another.
Increasing whitespace can make content more digestible: If you’re feeling like a block of copy is too dense, try adding more whitespace. Visually breaking up the copy can make it easier to read.
Keep fonts and colors to a minimum
Too many different fonts and colors can make your presentation look busy and overwhelming. For a professional-looking and effective presentation design, keep your selection to two fonts, one for headers and one for body copy, and four colors to be used throughout your presentation.
Gamma tip: Use Gamma’s slide customization to establish global heading, body, and background colors, as well as a primary accent color for your presentation. Then, select a pairing for header and body font, or select one of Gamma’s curated pairings.
Make one point per slide
Speaking of digestible content, here’s a slide design tip to live by: make one single point per slide. Adding too much information on a single slide makes it hard to read and hard to follow. Remember, people have limited attention spans. If you take it slowly, each point will make a lasting impression.
Keep it short
Another rule of thumb for effective presentation design is to keep written content short. Your slide content is meant to provide the basics, not act as a script for your presentation. Fewer words make a larger impact.
A good rule of thumb is known as the 7x7 rule. Each slide should have no more than 7 bullet points and 7 words per bullet point.
Gamma tip: Gamma AI slide design tools will instantly make your text shorter or longer as needed. Click on your text, then hit the sparkle icon. You’ll find prompts to “Make text shorter” or “Expand text.”
Bolster text with visuals
The visual elements included on your slide should always be selected with care. They’re not just there to make your slide pretty; visual elements add context clues that help your viewers understand your slide.
Think about adding these visual elements to your slide:
Icons: Select icons that visually represent the content of your bullet points or slides.
Images: Add images that help convey your message or provide visual supporting evidence to your argument.
Infographics: A well-designed infographic can make complex content easy to digest.
Gamma tip: Insert images directly from Unsplash or a URL into your slide. Or, use Gamma’s generative AI to create or modify images to better relate to your slide content.
Alignment makes it neat
One last slide design tip: when you’re finished creating your slides, make sure everything is aligned. Alignment keeps your presentation looking neat and tidy.
Gamma tip: Alignment is simple in Gamma. Click the top left corner of each card, then select “Card styling.” Go to “Content alignment” and choose from top, center, or bottom aligned content.
AI slide design with Gamma
Thanks to Gamma, you no longer need to be a professional designer to create professional-looking presentations. Use our free, built-in templates as a starting point for your presentation, then let AI modify your slides as needed.
Instantly transform your slide layout into one that’s more effective. Gamma will display an array of AI slide design suggestions for you to try. Find one you love and apply it in a single click.
