PowerPoint needs more unique themes so watch this post as I attempt to develop something that goes against the flow.
Cover Slide
The cover slide gives the first impression and has to cover details such as the organisation you are representing as well as the names of the presenters. More often than not, these details are boring and do not catch the attention of the viewer. Hence, a fresh, clean design for the cover slide is essential to capture the attention of the reader. Here, variation in tones and font sizes create a dynamic feel to the slide and viewers will be interested in specific chunks of content placed at various angles.
Who says the title has to be at the top of the slide? With this positioning, the reader is first drawn to the title of the slide before actually reading the points. The key word is clearly highlighted while the rest of the title can be done in a less distracting font as the viewer will read on from the key word. Also, listing becomes a clear priority here as the numbers are huge. However, attention is not completely diverted as it is in an extremely light font. The slide feels clean as there are huge empty spaces. However, the dense content means that there is no empty feel as experienced in half filled default PowerPoint themes.
Content slide
The picture above is actually a slide used the the middle of a fading transition, hence the reduced opacity of text. The main point that is to be brought across here is that points have to be well spaced out. That means one point per slide. Not only does the transition give readers time to absorb all the information that is on the slide, it also gives emphasis to the point that you are making, instead of giving the impression that it is one out of the many points that you talking about. Font size also plays a part here. A large font size will naturally give you an edge since readers do not have to strain to get your point, or look through a mess of small paragraphs. If you really have to drone, the slides are not the right place. Do that in your script, or maybe a hand out for your audience if possible.
Multiple header slides
Some slides naturally require header after header after header. Microsoft's solution is to provide sub-point after sub-point after sub-point, each one uglier than the last. Here, I have another solution for you. How about layering the headers in different styles and orientations such that it does not feel like a header, but acts like one nonetheless? With the main header already settled by the scrolling bar on the left of the screen, we can then include a sub header as seen in this picture with a solid colour filled picture with clearly contrasting text on it. Not only does this remove the monotonous text based feel of the slides, it also serves as a change in terms of stylistic approach. Different categories as presented in this slide can be written in a larger, more visible font with the red text drawing the focus.
Transition slides
Content on slides can sometimes hamper the smooth transition between slides. Hence, customised transitions are the solution to these otherwise jerky slide changes. By blanking out content on the slides, the viewers can focus on the change in topic without having to deal with massive amounts of content being thrown at them. Hence, inserting a blank slide after talking about a point will greatly enhance the visual spectacle while increasing the information absorption rate of the audience. Specialised transitions such as wipe up will work well with this theme as the headers come in a list from top to bottom.
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