21 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates] by Carly Stec
21 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design
Main Point: This article provides 21 examples of power point decks from Hubspot, a marketing design
company. The value of each deck is that they demonstrate/highlight or provide an example of a specific
power point technique that can be used to focus audience attention on your message. While the ideas
seem almost intuitive, I found looking at a real example helped me to see how I might apply the
technique. The intention of these is to provide a marketing message without the benefit of a speaker.
Consequently, they are big decks, something you would likely not do because we try to avoid “Death by
PowerPoint”,…. right? However, you could employ one or more of the techniques in your next
presentation or share the ideas with your colleagues to help them improve their presentations. Please note,
I tried to preview the decks on my phone but finally had to move to my computer and load the title of the
presentation in another window, but… you may be more tech savvy than I am. This is a long article but
there is a brief summary of each deck so you can quickly scan for those you are interested in.
Several decks provide techniques to create a message when you have a lot of information and want to
make it more digestible. I liked the idea of using different colors and graphic images that coincide with
each new idea to differentiate between topics and make things seem less difficult. One technique I might
try is to develop a visual image table to use as a guide or outline so the audience can see how far they are
along in the presentation. When you have a lot of data, visualization in a graph or image to illustrate the
point is helpful rather than displaying a lot of numbers.
PowerPoint designs generally provide good designs with varied fonts and color to keep your deck
interesting and visually appealing. But several decks suggested filtering the background image or color to
focus the reader on text. I had not thought of that one. I was also interested in the comment that there are
more graphics and images than just stock photos that will demonstrate your creativity. One thing I had
not thought of, though PowerPoint does have similar design, is the need to have your image or graphic in
a split screen rather than having text printed over the image. It provides a stronger focus on your idea.
I liked the idea of aligning the context of a message with the font, image, and color palette. For example,
one deck employed a technique to communicate a personal feel with a handwritten font. Another used
hand drawn graphic images to communicate out of the box thinking for marketing. One deck for Pixar
had all slides presented with the spotlight that Pixar is known for. I thought this could be a good
technique when you want to carry a specific image in your presentation. One deck suggests using hand
drawn visuals with heavy bullet points that are good for visual learners.
In closing we cannot forget one of our own, Kathy Harris, who made a great presentation about television
She created an excellent slide deck that demonstrated many of the ideas presented in this article. I have
included that presentation on our INL Initiators website for your reference. INLInitiators@inl.gov under
Ideas.
Key Quote: “When it comes to presentation design, for instance, there's no shortage of avenues you
can take. And while all that choice -- colors, formats, visuals, fonts -- can feel liberating, it's
important that you're careful in your selection as not all design combinations add up to success. We're
not saying there's one right way to design your next PowerPoint presentation, but we are saying
that some designs make more sense than others.”
