Best practices for tabular data design in PowerPoint — Tables can often present unique design challenges in PowerPoint. Simultaneously, they are very useful for specific types of content layouts. Tabular content is used for dashboards, product comparisons, or lists, as well as displaying tabular data as a companion or alternative to a chart. Tables tend to have a bad…

What to search for and what to avoid — I’ve been keeping busy with a handful of client projects these past few weeks. Notably, the single design challenge all of these projects have had in common is photo quality & selection. A case of bad photos vs. good photos, if you will. A poor photo can detract from your…

Six rules to improve data visualization in your presentations — The shift towards more analytical and data-driven business has resulted in data visualization becoming extremely prevalent in today’s communications. Audiences are more comfortable and fluent with an increasing number of types of charts, maps, and other visualizations. To communicate effectively, knowing how to successfully visualize data is more important than…

Work more efficiently and create beautiful slides with these tips — I’ve been neck-deep in client work lately. It’s that back-to-school September rush of new projects and impending deadlines. When it rains, it pours. When this happens I have to work hard to shift my mindset from a place of overwhelm to one of abundance (it’s truly great to not have…

Proven, repeatable techniques to up-level your slides — Overview This tutorial focuses on a real-life presentation slide design scenario using mockup content with before-and-after slide examples. In the original slide, the choice of diagram is confusing and the look is cluttered and outdated. We’ll reassess the story this slide is trying to tell and select a different diagram type…

Proven, repeatable techniques to uplevel your slide visuals — Hello! My upcoming tutorials here on Medium will focus on real-life presentation slide design scenarios using mockup content with before-and-after slide examples. I’ll walk you through the design process step by step, so please feel free to follow along if you like. Free download: Both the original slide and the…

Plus, the potential of 3d in PowerPoint — I took a little detour yesterday to play around with Illustrator’s improved 3d features in the latest Creative Cloud update. It started with this TikTok video where the artist was making adorable 3d sushi and I had to try it out for myself. Don’t they look yummy?

…and optimizing for presentation design — The definition of accessibility is an experience designed for everyone. This includes me, and you, and also your neighbor, your friend’s dad, your Uber driver, your colleague in a different time zone, your teacher’s student on the opposite side of the planet, and obviously millions more. As social humans we tend to gravitate to the opinions that surround us, which…

Mistakes you’re probably making… that can spell disaster — Confession: I thought I knew everything there was to know about building PowerPoint templates. I’ve been designing them professionally for nearly 20 years and use PowerPoint pretty much every single day to design presentations for my clients. That was until last month, when I picked up a brand new copy…