To learn more about Presentation Panda’s design service visit:
• Stunning Visuals • Well-Crafted Structure • Rich Storytelling
As a full service presentation design firm, the Presentation Panda
team works with its clients to transform thoughts, visions,
strategies, goals, and objectives into a coherent and compelling
presentation that is customized for each specific audience. Adam
has been designing professional presentations for 10 years,
delivering hundreds along the way to senior executives at Fortune
500 companies, and to large and diverse audiences at marketing
events around the world.
Adam and the Presentation Panda team pride themselves on creating
professional & HIGH-IMPACT presentations that combine:
Adam Noar is the founder and owner of Presentation Panda, a presentation design firm
that specializes in creating and delivering professional presentations for startups, large
businesses and individuals.
“Courage is the willingness to speak the truth about
what you see and to own what you say.” – Seth Godin
To set the record straight, I didn’t start out as a presentation design expert. No one does. I never even considered myself as
someone with a designer’s eye for viewing the world. It was only after many years of real world experience and designing
countless presentations that I began to understand slowly the universal principles of great design. YOU get to bypass the years of
trial and error I endured in order to understand the WINNING design principles contained in this book. I am going to share with
you all of the knowledge, tips, and tricks I have gathered over the years in this comprehensive guide to KILLER presentations. By
the time you finish this eBook, you will know exactly what elements make up a well-designed presentation and how to execute
accordingly.
I created this book for YOU.
Note that this book takes a different approach
in explaining the art of presentations. After
reading countless books on presentation
design, I was shocked to see how BORING and
NON-ILLUSTRATIVE many of them are. I
didn’t want you to have that kind of experience
reading this book. Slides Made Simple was
designed to reflect how presentations should
be: SIMPLE & VISUAL.
SIMPLE – My goal is to provide useful tips,
tricks, and resources for designing great
presentations. You will not find any fluff or
complex language in this book.
VISUAL– If I’m preaching about creating
visually stunning presentations, then it only
makes sense that I make this book highly visual
too. This book is filled with relevant images
and slide examples to help illustrate key points.
This is not your typical boring eBook! There will be tons of slide examples
and explanations throughout this eBook for your viewing pleasure.
“Wise men talk because they have something to say;
fools because they have to say something.” - Plato
Thinking of whipping up a world class presentation in just a few hours? Think again.
Presentations that are rushed and under great time pressures (i.e., started and
completed overnight) never turn out that great. Why? The creative process simply takes
time. As mentioned on the previous pages, there's a whole process of information
gathering, idea generation, and story creation involved. Then of course, there is all the
time needed for designing your slides. You also need to be able to give yourself time to
take breaks if you want QUALITY OUTPUT. Think of creativity similar to a battery that
slowly loses its juice over time. When you take breaks from your presentation you can
get a slight charge, and when you get a solid night’s sleep you get an even stronger
charge. It’s only when your creativity battery has a strong charge that you can think
outside of the box and present things in a dynamic way. So, make sure to take frequent
breaks, eat well, exercise, and get a good night’s sleep.
I make a habit of stumbling
over and collecting great
presentations from other
designers on the web. This
always gives my creativity a
jumpstart and springboards
new ideas to mind for my
projects. There are many
websites to browse and
research great presentation
design work. Two of my
favorites are Note & Point
and SlideShare (see Tools
and Tricks for more on
these). Sites like these can
really fuel your imagination
as to what is possible with
presentation design and get
you excited for your new
presentation project as well.
One of the fundamental problems many
people face with presentations is that they
don’t understand the difference between a
PRESENTATION SLIDE and a
DOCUMENT. When you give a presentation,
your audience needs to understand each
slide’s message in THREE SECONDS or less.
If your audience can’t quickly understand
your message they will stop paying attention
to you. Many people like to fill their slides
with heavy text because they are afraid they
will forget what they are going to say.
Consequently, when you read your slide
word for word you simply end up putting
your audience to sleep. People can always
read your slide faster than you can say it. If
you are simply reading from the slide then
there is no reason for you to even be up
there giving the presentation. People know
how to read themselves.
Presentation Panda’s Slide Bandits Presentation – Click to View on SlideShare
Being able to match EXACT colors from one
element to another is critical for creating a
harmonized look for your slide. By using a
“color grabber” tool such as Color Cop (see
“Tools and Tricks”), you can copy the exact
color code from an image, text, etc., and apply
that color to whatever you want on the slide.
Color Cop works by identifying and
representing various hex color code formats. To
use it, simply drag the eyedropper control to
any location on the screen and release. The hex
color code for the selected color will then be
automatically copied to the Color Cop
clipboard.
For example, let’s say you have a really cool
looking brain diagram where you want to
highlight specific parts of the brain. Let’s now
say that you want to apply the EXACT neon
pink color from the top right section of the
brain to fill the blank box on the right of the
slide.
1. Color Cop – A life saver tool for finding out what the exact color code is in any color. I use this all the time for finding
out what colors are in pictures so I can match the exact colors of the slide to the picture. Note: PowerPoint has now
developed a similar tool called Eyedropper (Shape Fill – Eyedropper). However, the Eyedropper tool will only pick up
colors within PowerPoint. In other words, you could not grab the color codes of anything off the web unless you cut and
pasted it into PowerPoint. I still prefer Color Cop for this reason.
2. COLOURLovers – Great place for finding exciting user-generated color palettes. With this site, you’ll find custom
created color palettes from its enthusiastic community of people who have a passion for color.
3. Design Seeds – Another great resource for finding color palette inspiration.
4. Adobe Color CC – Enables you to generate color themes that can inspire any design project.
5. Color Hunter – Upload a picture and have it pull out the main colors.
6. Colors Scheme Designer – Great designer tool that allows you to create computer generated color palettes.
7. Color Matters – Great resource for understanding the meaning and perceptions of different colors.
8. Oto255 – Ever find a color that is almost perfect, but could be that little bit better? 0to255 is a really neat tool for
finding variations of a color. You can use it to find lighter and darker colors based on any color.