Geoff asks: Should I be using headings/titles in my slides? I’d like to see your view on this, I’m currently fence-sitting on this issue.
Hi Geoff, thanks for your question. Like so many questions there is no easy yes/no answer to this one. My preference is to start with a blank white page and work with that. You can use up the whole space that is provided by PowerPoint (or Keynote) and utilize it fully for your photos or other visual aids.
But I do understand that at work you often will have a template you have to work with in order to comply with corporate identity. I understand the notion of this, and I have this “struggle” as well; because I think those headers (and footers) clutter the slides and I don’t see the point in having the company’s logo on every slide and I often find title texts (sometimes even two or more lines of title texts) distracting. Though if the headers/footers are done in a nice and subtle way, I think they’re not too annoying.
If they are done badly, though, you might want to ask your boss to have them re-made professionally, or if you are self-employed you might want to get a professional to do some work for you on presentation slide templates or maybe consider changing to the blank all-white template.
I hope this answers your question!
Do you have a question as well? Send it to mail@rethinkpresentations.com. I will try to give at least a short answer to every question I receive; frequently asked questions will be answered on this blog in more detail.
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Thank-you for the response Oliver. I figured there would be arguments for each approach.
I guess for me it gets tricky when I am doing an all day training course, and I am using the heading to remind people we are on the topic of Assigning Resources (project management course).
I recently saw a presentation where the headings were in a light grey colour. You could see them, but they did not intrude. I might experiment with this.
At the moment I have a line under the heading, so people can look above the line for the heading and below for the content. I don’t know where I picked this up, but I find it quite effective in creating different spaces for different types of content.
(BTW, the logo is pure marketing, and I think it needs to be subtle if it is included.)
…Geoff
Hi Geoff,
if the logo is very subtle (as you pointed out in light grey color) I suppose they don’t clutter as much.
I understand your reasoning for having the heading with the lines under it and I see it in a lot of presentations. If you want, maybe you can try something unique, e.g. you can have the agenda list written on a flip chart and each agenda point is covered by a piece of paper. And as you progress through the workshop you uncover each agenda item, so people know which points they already went through and where they’re currently at.
Or you can write the agenda items on pieces of paper, and as you progress through the workshop, you pin the agenda item on a wall.
These are just some ideas that pop into mind, I have used them in some of my workshops (in which I almost didn’t use any slides) and found it to be very simple and effective.
Regards,
Oliver
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