Look, when it comes to anything vaguely Microsoft, I confess. I’m no expert. Old school design tools plus QuarkXPress and Adobe Creative Suite for me, with the freebie Pages app for putting thoughts into words. 

But I know a dog’s breakfast when I see it. Something to do, no doubt, with all those decades plying my trade as an illustrator and designer in and for advertising agencies around the UK. And later adding magazine designer and editor, published writer, author and blogger to the CV.

But, suddenly, everyone’s a template away from ‘graphic designer’. Never mind the creative thought, the deliberation, the bits missed out that make it work, the less is more approach, the countless years learning from others, making mistakes, developing a personal, recognisable style, the screwed up scribbles littering the carpet, the chewed up pens, the dried up Magic Markers, the waking up in the middle of the night with a better idea, the worrying whether ‘this one’ or ‘that one’ or maybe neither… and, more recently, the ideas deleted from the iPad before they’ve seen the light of day, the getting to grips with new apps. In other words, never mind the actual creativity.

Same with words — different medium, same principles.

Death by Powerpoint

I mean… be honest, hands up who actually likes Excel? Apart from accountants, number crunchers, control freaks and list-makers that is. Yep, I know. You can make the columns add up by magic and perform ‘complex calculations’ and ‘explore possible outcomes’ (whatever that means)… and even produce ‘high quality charts’. By which I suspect they mean you can fill your pie charts with textures and colours, giving the impression that you have a creative bone in your body. 

Then there’s Word. The answer to all your newsletter needs and the very antithesis of creativity. More templates and ‘formatting options’ with added evil spell check (AKA American ‘English’) to help you write. And please don’t ‘design’ your ads in Word — much less Powerpoint. It shows.

And so to Powerpoint. More templates. More choices. More colour wheels and widgets. But here’s the thing… if you want to give a good impression to the people you’re trying to impress, especially if amongst them is a creative person or two, here’s a clue: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid**. Because it messes with my sensibilities when those on-screen elements fight for attention before my very eyes. When the slides in front of me might have been better designed by a five-year-old.

And I feel sure I can’t be alone.

Here’s a few thoughts…

• I might mock the templates, but they’re there for a reason — to guide those people with not a single creative bone in their body to create something that looks presentable, despite themselves. So use them. Wisely. Don’t just head off piste into a mishmash of boxes, arrows, colours and wacky fonts. 

• Speaking of wacky fonts, Comic Sans, Bradley Hand Bold and their ilk have their place, but choose with care. When he sees them mixed randomly in with Verdana, Candar, Calibri (pick your favourite Microsoft font), our metaphorical post-breakfast dog begins to feel just a little bit queasy. 

• And font sizes. If you’ve more to say on a point, expand on those ideas by adding in extra slides. Resist the temptation to squeeze everything onto a single slide by reducing the font size so it’s barely legible to anyone not furnished with magnifying binocular telescopic spectacles (yes, they’re really a thing). In short, if viewers can’t read what’s on the screen — and relate it to the words spilling out of your mouth — then, rather than submit to cognitive overload, their attention will simply drift away. Possibly never to return. 

‘Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains’. Steve Jobs.

• The whole idea of a Powerpoint presentation is that it’s YOU — as the expert in your field, applicant for the post, sharer of fun facts, presenter of findings, whatever — who is standing there with it, adding your unique point of view, humour and turns of phrase to the content. So keep it lean. You don’t need to add every last thought to your slides. As Steve Jobs is often quoted as saying: ‘Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains’.

• Personally, I question the value of sharing Powerpoint presentations without the presenter there to talk through the ideas therein but, if the plan IS to share it on, without that added dash of you, then accompany your slides with explanatory notes or provide a separate document which works alongside your presentation.

• Pick a colour palette of complementary colours and stick within that range, maybe using different percentage tints of those shades to ring the changes. No need to deploy the entire rainbow just because you can. 

• The jury’s out on the relative merits of white type on dark or dark on white. There’s a LOT of regurgitated opinion online, that white on dark can cause halation (blurring) for viewers with astigmatism. As someone who was diagnosed with astigmatism and short sight, aged fifteen — and has specs to correct both, simultaneously — I would query this collective ‘wisdom’ in terms of Powerpoint presentation. If you want to punch those ideas out, white on a charcoal grey works perfectly well. Providing you’ve not rendered your thoughts in 3-point Calibri. 

• We don’t spell words like organise, authorise and recognise with a ‘zee’ in the UK. And unless we’re talking about an actual computer program, the word is ‘programme’. And then there’s ‘colour’ and ‘centre’ and ‘metre’…

• Finally, avoid littering slides with screen-grabbed, low resolution images and cartoon characters and jovial punctuation marks. But bear in mind that, when you do, it’s courteous to credit where you sourced those image grabs from, even if the presentation isn’t for public consumption.

In a nutshell then: Simplicity is key. So here’s to KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid**

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**If you’ve never heard the acronym KISS, it’s been around as a recognised design principle since the 1960s. Reportedly coined by the aeronautical engineer Kelly Johnson when designing fighter planes, the idea that an aircraft should be repairable under combat conditions, by an ‘average’ mechanic with only basic skills and a handful of tools.