Most people aren’t familiar with presentation design agencies. And on the chance that someone is aware of them, they often have a lot of questions: What is a presentation design agency? How can one help my business? I already have a marketing agency, why do I need a partner for presentations?
The truth is, there’s a big difference between a presentation design agency and a creative agency that will make a presentation for you. If you’re unsure of the value and utility that a presentation design agency can bring to your business, read on to learn more about all the benefits that these presentation specialists can offer.
4 reasons to work with a presentation design partner
Presentation design is about more than just design
Sometimes you need another perspective
There’s more to visual storytelling than pretty pictures
Presentation design is not the same as graphic design
Reason #1: Presentation design is about more than just design
Perhaps the clearest benefit of working with a presentation design agency is having well-designed slides. But to create an effective presentation, you need more than aesthetics.
A presentation design agency will go beyond the layout to give you a thoughtful approach to every element of your presentation. This means telling a story through headlines, enhancing that story with carefully selected images, and even fine-tuning your content.
But the other side of aesthetics is knowing when not to apply them. Maybe you read an article about the best animations to use in a PowerPoint, and now you're adding wipes to every slide. That’s not great.
With a presentation design partner, you’ll have the benefit of working with someone who has made this type of slide, with this type of animation, many times before. That means they know when, and when not, to go for a flourish.
A presentation is the sum of your story, design, and delivery, and the right partner can help you make sure each of those is on point.
Reason #2: Sometimes you need another perspective
No one knows your content better than you. But when you’re intimately familiar with every feature, benefit, and nitty-gritty detail, plus how they all ladder up to the big idea, it can become difficult to separate what’s essential from what’s simply informative.
We see this issue all the time. Slides with far too much content, stories that leave out key ideas, internal acronyms or jargon that the audience won’t understand: without an outside perspective, it’s very common for people to miss something that would otherwise be obvious.
But with a presentation design agency as a partner, you don’t just get an outside perspective to fine-tune your presentation, you have a resource that’s specifically focused on the ins and outs of what makes a presentation effective.
Reason #3: There’s more to visual storytelling than pretty pictures
Think of all the ways you could tell your story in a presentation. You could write out your entire pitch in full sentences. You could break it down into bulleted lists. You could swap out certain ideas for representative photos or icons. But the best way is to use each of these techniques at the right time.
Visual storytelling is all about using images, icons, and other visual cues to support your larger story. While this is straightforward in some circumstances (think photography), it takes a practiced hand to apply it appropriately in others.
To be done well, visual storytelling needs to address both the content on the slide and its place in the presentation as a whole. It needs to communicate your ideas clearly, without getting in the way. And it needs to be easily understood by your audience.
Visual storytelling can be the difference between a good presentation and a great one. If you want to make sure your next presentation is doing everything it can to help your pitch succeed, a presentation design agency is your best asset.
Reason #4: Presentation design is not the same as graphic design
If your company has a traditional marketing agency (or in-house creative group), you might think you could simply ask them to design your presentations for you. And chances are, the results wouldn’t be bad. That’s because the principles of design, like layout, color, and typography, are fairly universal. But when it comes to presentations, “not bad” is far away from “good” and nowhere even close to “great.”
The reality is that design departments are great at many things, but typically not presentation design. Here’s why:
There’s no substitute for PowerPoint
One of the biggest misconceptions about presentation design is that slides matter more than software. This is just not true. We can’t tell you how many sleek slides we’ve seen created in InDesign that are impossible for the presenter to edit on the fly as new information comes in, or that simply don’t render well in presentation mode.
Unfortunately, this is how many traditional designers approach presentations. But a presentation design agency will build your presentation from the ground up for performance as well as aesthetics. It will have fonts embedded, it will work on any screen, and because it’s in PowerPoint, it will be easily shareable across your entire organization.
There are no “final” presentations
More than almost any other type of document, presentations change frequently. They will have multiple collaborators, go through many rounds of revisions, and often are being worked on right until the minute they go up on a screen. If you’re doing the editing yourself, this is where having a presentation that’s built properly truly matters.
But even if you are working directly with an agency partner, you need someone who is prepared for the unique workflow of presentation design. Whether it’s accommodating last minute tweaks or redesigning whole sections on the fly, a presentation design agency knows the expectations of this kind of work, and is ready to get you to the finish line.
Presentations are a unique format
Because presentation design is something of a niche skill, most agencies don’t have an expert on staff. So when a big presentation rolls around, you’re getting their best guess at what will work, not the expertise of someone who truly knows the topic. Creating a relationship with an agency partner for presentation design is a great way to have the resource at the ready when you need them.
And they can help with more than just the big keynotes. Much of what a presentation design agency does is around streamlining sales decks, updating existing PowerPoints, or even converting large batches of PPTs to match new brand guidelines.
If you think about all the ways that you use PowerPoint, you’ll see that there are many times when your company could benefit from using a presentation design agency. And if you’re still wondering if working with one is right for your business, we’re happy to answer any questions!