🎨 How to design an effective presentation pitch

Here’s this week’s TL;DR

• The three Cs of presentation design (this will be longer than usual newsletters, but I just have so much to say!)

🖥️ The three Cs of presentation design

Last month I talked about my favorite presentation tools. This week, I want to share more about the art of presentation design, and how to incorporate it in your program pitches.

Note: I am not the arbiter for beautiful presentations, but I will share my credentials: 1) I make at least one slide deck a week, 2) I have to read through painfully designed decks once a week, and 3) I had to make 20 (!) Pecha Kucha presentations in grad school. That must count for something!!

1) Clear

Imagine if your presentation fell from the sky, I was forced to read it, then tell my neighbor what your presentation is about. Would I succeed??

Even if I’m not an expert in your program, I should still be able to confidently explain that this presentation covers X, addresses the challenge of Y, and offers the solution of Z.

One way to do this, visually, is to eliminate extraneous load. Extraneous load, as referenced in educational theory, is a type of cognitive load that centers on how information is presented, including unnecessary details or distractions that make it harder to learn the material. In the classroom, this might look like a teacher facilitating a lesson on condensation but spending twenty minutes talking about their dog (this happened, and I’m a #witness).

In the world of presentation design these are the most common culprits:

• Inconsistent formatting: different fonts, and arbitrarily bolded, italicized, or underlined text. Basically, everything Anil Dash said not to do. If a word is bolded in one paragraph but not in another, I'll spend thirty seconds wondering why they're different. That's thirty seconds where I'm not focused on your pitch

• Transition animations: It’s all fun and games until you’ve got an animation for every bullet point and now I’m counting down the seconds until all points are displayed

• Heavy industry jargon: Acronyms, phrases, and technical details might seem clear to you, but there’s no guarantee a stakeholder will understand

• Chaotic design: Inconsistent and cluttered designs, with mismatched colors, shapes, etc. are painful on the eyes. Why was 90% of your presentation on a white background and now it’s orange?

2) Concise

If the first C is clearly conveying your message, the second step is doing so as efficiently as possible. As with many things, less is more, and the value of being concise is that it’s easy to follow. Your stakeholders and colleagues are likely juggling a ton of priorities, so the more streamlined your presentation is, the more likely they are to stay engaged and retain your ask.

Here are common culprits:

• WALLS of paragraphs: If your slides look more like a creative writing essay, rather than a pitch? Burn it.

• Unnecessary data: I love a thorough, well-designed graph, but if it doesn’t support the narrative of your pitch, it’s clutter (extraneous load!)

• Endless number of slides: If we're 24 slides in and you haven’t made your point… TIGHTEN UP! Use an appendix or a live Q&A to handle extra details. Remember class: Too many slides means droopy eyes!

3) Compelling

Last but not least, I need to know why I’m here and what you're trying to tell or sell me. “Compelling” doesn’t just mean “tell me a story.” It means show me why this matters (to your stakeholder).

If you're asking for a bigger marketing budget because application numbers are down, show me a graph of the YoY data. Explain why increasing the budget is critical and how I, a stakeholder, will be impacted if this doesn’t happen. Don’t just tell me your program isn’t working without connecting it to something relevant for me. Remember, presentations aren’t about you—they’re for your audience, so make it relevant.

And that’s it! Let’s make presentations and pitches better for everyone involved. Please 😭.

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