I’ll probably end up supporting what everybody else has said, but to answer the OP…
Consistency.
This cannot be stressed enough. Consistency in font usage (I do one font per presentation, myself), size, and weight, across all slides. Consistency in text placement–my first line of text always begins at the same X and Y coordinates on each slide. Consistency in word usage and grammar, as far as possible: a widget is always a widget (not a “widget” on slide 3 and a “gizmo actuator” on slide 26), “Smith & Jones” is always as you see it (never “Smith & Jones” on slide 8 and “Smith and Jones” on all other slides), and each bullet point begins with the same part of speech (noun, verb, adjective + noun, etc.). There are other ways in which you can ensure consistency, but I’m sure you get the idea.
I like the suggestion given above, where all slides from all sources pass through one person (like an editor) to ensure consistency. We had that process in place at a company I once worked for, and presentations were quite effective. We also got a lot of compliments on them.
I have to say also, that I avoid cutesy stuff like animations and builds and sounds and similar things, unless they are absolutely necessary. When would such things be necessary? Well, I did one presentation once for a hearing aid company, so sounds (in our case, before and after such-and-such a feature was turned on in the hearing aid) were necessary. Similarly, an animation might demonstrate how the widget fits onto the gizmo. But unless use of the animation etc. supports your talk, I suggest avoiding it. I’m a big fan of the KISS principle in this regard, and have said more than once, “Just because PowerPoint can do something, doesn’t mean that it has to.”
Remember also what was said above: PowerPoint is simply a presenter’s tool. Other presentation tools include white boards and flip charts. You are the presenter; it is up to you to use your tools effectively–but no to rely on them so much that you expect them to do the work for you. IMHO, bad presenters rely on PowerPoint to do their job for them, but good presenters use PowerPoint as a tool to help with what they have to convey in the presentation.
Those types of pictures can backfire BIG TIME if given to a co-ed group unless you are very sure that all the women in the audience are on board.
I find that pictures/photos illustrating the point being covered work better than text, so try to use more pictures than not. But, pictures that are just thrown in to be cute or as filler are nonprofessional, IMHO.
I hate seeing presentations that have a logo or saying every frikkin slide. They busy up the screen and make the text difficult to see.
Humorous cartoons are a nice way to make points or divide the talk. BUT - nothing blue, nothing that makes fun of dumb blondes, groping bosses, ethnic types, etc. etc. Absolutely G rated. And, if you are tempted to use Far Side Cartoons, I beg you not to fall into that temptation. In my world, Far Side Cartoons outnumber every other humorous visual like 100:1 and they are now beyond cliche.
Just kidding, but I would echo the thoughts above about have a consistent template across your own slides and maybe even across different presentations. I write mine to be useful in the presentation but also for later reference, and use them only as guidelines of what to talk about.
**What tricks do you use in your powerpoint presentation to make it look good? **
One word … GEOMETRY. I’ve worked for very senior management in the corporate world and that’s what works. In other words, minimize the words (boring!) and try to say it with pictures and diagrams. Avoid any cutesey stuff because it could fall completely flat and make the presentation appear trivial. Custom animation is OK, but don’t overdo it because your audience should be paying attention to what you’re saying and not focusing on the animation. Keep slide transitions simple. I personally stick with muted colors, nothing that are too stark or bright. One last bit of advice … have someone (ideally from your intended audience) give you some honest feedback on your slides. From my experience, everyone falls in love with their own slides and can’t see any defects!
I love PP, but I use it for history talks, not business presentations. I give what are essentially slide shows; very rarely is there any text at all.
This, of course, makes the quality and selection of images key. I know from being an audiencemember that the images in an educational slide talk can make or break the whole production, and I’ve seen too many presentations that look sloppy, dull and artless.
Fortunately, I have become something of a master at Photoshop and I dote over every image until it is as perfect as possible – sharp, clean, well-cropped, even sumptuous sometimes. My philosophy is that even if my talk bores some listeners, they will have great pictures to look at.
The best Powerpoint presentation I ever saw contained no text. It was all images. The presentation was about the rise of civil rights in the USA, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Powerpoint was set up to run automatically, several seconds per image, and loop continuously.
The speaker was so good that you ignored the Powerpoint and just watched and listened to the speaker.
Graphs can be your friend if you can point out something relevant and interesting in them. Just showing a graph of customer responses over time is boring and uninformative. Pointing to a specific portion of the graph and saying something that places it in context --like “Notice how this dip in satisfaction corresponds to when we changed vendors” – will make the image stick in people’s minds.
Seth Godin wrote the definitive work on PowerPoint. You can find it here. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
Speaking as an art director, I agree with most everything people have said here, except for the fancy builds – I only use a simple cut or a fade. Fancy builds call attention to themselves and away from your content. It’s like a big, overdone gaudy picture frame.
Here’s the deal: you will benefit from creating 3 presentations:
[ol]
[li]The content that you read (or better yet the notecards that drive your speech. These do not appear on any screen at any time. These are yours and yours alone. There will be no audience reading ahead. For your eyes only.[/li][li]Your audiovisual (PowerPoint) aspect. Images help people remember things. Take the major points from your presentation and think of visual metaphors that help punctuate your message. istockphoto.com is a great place to get good dirt-cheap photography. I encourage you to keep as much text off these slides as possible.[/li][li]The leave-behind. People don’t remember details (see above). If they try to take notes during your presentation, they may miss important points you’re saying when they’re jotting down the last thing you said. Make it easy on them and do yourself a favor by preparing a leave-behind booklet that has all the facts, figures, details and contact information you want them to remember. This is typically an adaptation of your notes possibly augmented with your PowerPoint images. A word about these leave-behinds: remove as much industry-speak and business jargon as possible. Write to be understood. Be as brief as possible.[/li][/ol]