Put this down: you don’t need to be a designer to make effective presentations that won’t kill your ideas but sell them.
The author of these words is Slides agency founder Damon Nofar, who joined the Design gurus panel at Present to Succeed 2022. You probably know Damon from his chat with 356labs founder, Boris, on the World of Presentations podcast. But if you missed his conference talk and wondering if you should get the complete design sessions recordings, we’re sharing some of Damon’s insightful tips on creating impactful presentation slides that won’t ruin your ideas.
Visual hierarchy
To start off, Damon broke the myth that slides are there to support you. They support the audience, the people you’re communicating your message to. Thus, visual hierarchy is needed to ease orientation in the sea of information before the audience and basically help them get the gist of it. Visual hierarchy is about the neat composition of graphic elements on the slides and Damon emphasized the importance of having clean and simple slides with no chunky blocks of text.
The right typography
Who says what’s right and wrong with type fonts? There are no good or bad ones, there are only good and bad ways of treating them. Damon’s advice is to think well what typeface would suit your brand identity because this choice can influence decision making.
Tip: If your company uses its own typeface, you should stick to it so as not to breach brand guidelines. This is very important and is probably highlighted in the company brand book, so read it carefully before starting to design your slides.

Relevant imagery
Damon’s message is simple: forget about stock images that literally scream “stock images”. Even if you’re using any, try to come up with more interesting, metaphorical ones.
Of course, you can do what you like but make sure you select visuals that are authentic and relatable, meaning such that represent both your brand and the audience. It’s worth going the extra mile and finding images that are not super literal versions of your ideas.
Design with purpose
One of the last points Damon made was about design being above all functional, not just pretty. So how do we translate this into our slides? We keep our mind on the message we want to convey and try to remove all distractions like too much text, too many scattered visuals, poor composition of elements. Remove the fluff, simplify and go. We second that, Damon!
Re-imagine boring
In the final minutes of his talk Damon gave us a crash tutorial on how to give boring company templates some oomph. Of course, it’s much better to see it, than read about it. The whole video session is in the Design track recordings, be our guest.
By the way, Damon is also joining us at Present to Succeed in April 2023 where he’ll talk about slide design, but of course, with a twist. Make sure you stay tuned for all date and time updates here.
Join Present to Succeed - the biggest presentation skills conference in the world
Whether you are part of an organization or running a business, how your slides look will always factor in your success. Learn how to become an influential speaker by joining our 20+ industry-leading speakers’ sessions.
Start engaging your audience better and influencing them to embrace your concepts, hire you, or buy your products. Now is the best moment to get your ticket!
Join Present to Succeed - the biggest presentation skills conference in the world
Whether you are part of an organisation or running a business, how your slides look will always factor in your success. Learn how to become an influential speaker by joining our 20+ industry-leading speakers’ sessions.
Start engaging your audience better and learn how to influence them to embrace your concepts, hire you, or buy your products. Get your ticket now!