How to Create a Professional PowerPoint Like a TED Speaker?

Have you ever watched or at least heard about TED Talks? Of course, you have. And in case you have not, then try to get out of your cave and find someplace that can provide you with a good internet connection to browse about what it is.

TED (abbreviation of technology, entertainment, design) Talk is a well-regarded presentation showcase. Here, presenters talk for up to 18 minutes long before the audience about various innovative or inspiring stories and thoughts.

If you have never watched any of the presentations, you should try to check them out now. Because then, you will witness how every single presentation done by the presenters is neatly arranged and look professional.

Don’t you want to have such a professional-looking presentation every day? Now, don’t you know that you can copy the professionalism of the presentation for your own? That’s the thing that we are going to talk about here.

To talk about something serious

Try to talk about something serious for 18 straight minutes, and make sure your audience follows every word you said, or at least they can explain your presentation step-by-step. If you think that it is easy to do, you should try to do it at least once.

Yeah, it is not that easy to do that because many factors are needed to keep your audience’s attention focused on you. Brilliant presenters usually use humor to reset the audience’s attention span, but sometimes this method doesn’t work.

For an extended period, talking about something serious is a skill that not every person has. Some people have glossophobia or the fear of public speaking, which affects 40% of people in America.

Worse, something profound is not what most people will enjoy listening to unless they earn something to do it. For example, when you are listening to your teacher, you are expecting good grades, and when you are listening to your boss, you are expecting an upgrade in your job.

Now, look at TED speakers. How can people enjoy listening to various serious stories brought by multiple presenters? Of course, the presenters can present severe topics without making them seem so serious and more enjoyable. How can those presenters do it?

How do people enjoy TED Talks?

Let’s look at how the presenters make serious talks enjoyable. First, let’s identify what aspect(s) can make the presentation lovely. To do that, try to listen to TED podcasts and watch some TED Talk videos.

Do you notice the difference? When you listen to the podcast, you don’t have the cue about the visualization and are free to imagine things by yourself. However, when you are watching TED Talks, you have to look at people talking and presenting slides.

Not only is TED Talk limiting your imagination, but it is also basically boring in its visual concept. So, what is so special about the showcase? You know the answer very well. Didn’t you also find that the slides are exceptional?

Yes, even though not all TED Talk speakers use slides in their presentations, they should look exceptional once they use presentation slides. While the ones that do not use slides usually have a different visual approach to the audience.

Using professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker

Talking about the slides, don’t you know that you can also create outstanding presentation slides using PowerPoint? Here in this article, we really should talk about using professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker.

According to TED, “Not every speaker decides to use slides, but if they do, there’s one cardinal rule to follow: Keep it simple.” In this case, “A single, strong, graphic image or succinct line of text will tell your speaker’s story better than a crowded collage of pictures or long paragraph.”

TED itself explained how to create such “less is more” presentation slides, as follows:

When it comes to the design of a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker:

Make sure the slides are visually attractive and easy to understand. You can even hire a designer if you need.

High-resolution pictures and graphics are a must, don’t settle for less.

Make sure graphs are visually clear and understandable, regardless of how complex the content is.

When it comes to content to create a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker:

Does it have too much text? 

Text-heavy slides will only distract the listener from the heart of the message.

Do the slides are too cluttered with information? 

No slide should support more than one point.

Does each slide need to be presented? 

Too many slides can be distracting, and worse, it can be tedious. Cut the ones that you don’t think are needed.

The point of using a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker is to allow your audience to absorb any information that the slides contain. At the same time, they need to process any information that the speaker is telling them.

This is a complex process; thus, we aim to make one of those two things as simple as possible so that the audience’s minds are not overburdened. Since your speech is the central slice of the presentation, your slides’ complexity should become the thing that’s sacrificed.

Designing a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker

Now, let’s talk about how we can create a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker. As mentioned above, the main point is to keep things as simple as possible, yet still, contain as much information as possible to help the presenter present.

Again, TED explained this thing on its official website. The main point is still the same, which is to make the slides as simple as possible. However, keeping things simple is not as easy as it seems because you have to maintain or even improve the quality of your final product.

Here are the tips you might want to copy:

Be considerate of your text size

Usually, people who sit in the far back of the audience find it hard to read your slides, let alone read the texts in them. That’s why make sure your texts in the slides are visible to the ones sitting farthest from you too, and you can check it out during rehearsal.

This point is crucial because you have to deliver the message to everyone in the room. Another thing that you should notice is that different font used in your typography has different visibility.

Times news roman has different visibility compared to Arial, even though the font size is the same. Be very careful in choosing a font, because if you don’t pick it carefully, your presentation will not be 100% like you want.

Simple background

Using too a dreamy background might not be a good idea to make your professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker because it can distract your audience. A simple experience is better because you want to maintain their focus on your presentation, not the background.

You can even choose white over other colors because the white background will look clean and simply calm. Again, what you should consider is the visibility of the contents.

Subtle transition

Please, please never use that barrel roll animation in your professional presentation. If you have watched some TED talk videos, you will notice that the energies used in their slides are so subtle and not distracting.

Two of the most favorite transitions usually used by TED speakers are simple dissolve and fade. Try to focus on those two transitions instead of the barrel roll. Come on, you are not a teenager anymore, and you don’t present in front of 8th graders.

Be coherent

Don’t put all of your ideas in one cluttered slide, but put each thought in one separate slide and make the design as straightforward as possible. Look at how TED speakers can do this neatly and coherently and try to copy their methods.

You can only do this if you can simplify your presentation contents because you surely don’t want to have 100+ slides to present from breaking down that one cluttered slide.

See also: Steve Jobs’ Fascinating Presentation Style: How to Create It Smoothly

We can help you create a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker

Well, it seems complicated to create a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker, right? Let alone create such high-quality slides at the same time when you have to study for the presentation.

Relax, if you find it too challenging to work on your slides, you can ask for our help, and we will happily help you through it. We can split the tasks. What you need is to focus on your presentation, and we will do the design job.

TED Talk is one of our favorite presentation showcases, and one of the reasons is their simplicity in using presentation slides. We have broken down the characteristics of the slides and learned the details about them so we can produce such simple yet high-quality slides.

But if you still find it hard to trust us, check our portfolio or our presentation templates in the marketplace.  We are confident that you will be interested in working together with the RRGraph Team after you see our products. We are waiting for your call to create a professional PowerPoint like a TED speaker!

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