A PowerPoint template with just a starting and an ending slide is not a template. Even more importantly and surprisingly for our customers at 356labs is something different…

It’s way more – guidelines, trainings, workshops…

However, from our work up until now, we have noticed that there are a few “common” slides that every template has, so here is the list:

Note: Some of those may be designed in more than one way and have more than one layout!

Title – this is the one you start your presentation with

Agenda – what are you going to cover, but not in a bullet point list

Transition  – those are the ones you use to put a start (sometimes also an end) to a section of your talk

Quote  – interestingly enough, this one is on the list

Charts and graphs – slides with various types of well-designed and predefined charts and graphs, so that the users of the PowerPoint template need to do nothing else, but to enter their data

Image & Video – slides that have just a placeholder for either a high-quality photo or a video

Text-only – this is the type of slide where you have a few lines of text or why not even paragraphs

Text with graphic – maybe you need to explain a list of things — the characteristics of your product or something similar? In this case, you need a slide for that too. Most of the time a few of those are created to give you an easy option to arrange 2, 3, or even more items with an image or icon for each.

About me or Team – either important information for the speaker or a custom layout with or without a bit of info for each team member

Closing slide – the one you close your presentation with. Will there be up just a simple “Thank you!” or your contact details, depends on your needs.

So, are those the complete set of master slides that a PowerPoint template needs? No! These are just the ones that are commonly coming up during a PowerPoint template project.

Always remember – a PowerPoint template must reflect the end-users needs! Those are the people who are going to be using it. The way you know what they need is by interviewing them or by asking them to send you some of their already created slides, or why not even both? Yes, I know you haven’t even probably thought about that, but that’s how a proper presentation template is created.

A PowerPoint template is there to serve you and help you build better presentations without the need for you to be a design guru, PowerPoint ninja, and someone who has unlimited time to work on his slideshow.

You can also check our online course PowerPoint Tips & Tricks. More than 40 tricks await you in it!