Time To Learn Something New: Infographics And PowerPoint Presentation Design

It’s Back-to-School season and even if you haven’t been in a classroom in a while, it’s hard to shake that time-to-learn-something-new feeling that happens this time of year. If you’ve got the learning bug, why not start with your PowerPoint presentation design?

At eSlide, we’re always stressing the importance of visuals and giving you examples of how great visual content makes presentations easier, more memorable, and thus more successful. In case you needed another example, check out this fun movement that’s making its way around the globe: PechaKucha. This simple presentation format is spawning a global industry of presenting (think poetry slam for presentations) that is driven by – you guessed it – visuals.

We want you to catch the visual bug too, so this month, we’re going to start teaching you about infographics – the graphic representation of information, data or knowledge.

You’ve likely seen infographics already as they are now being used to explain everything from climate change to sports stats to corporate sustainability.

In the business world, they’re the perfect visual tool for PowerPoint presentation design as they make it easy to distill large amounts of information into easily-read and quickly-understood visual content. However, within the framework of a PowerPoint presentation you need to realize that you cannot fit an entire infographic on a single slide. Instead you need to reveal the content in logical segments as you move through your slide deck.

Here’s why we think infographics are something worth learning more about:

Infographics enable your audience to dip into the content they want

Infographics are a great tool for displaying content in varying degrees of detail. They often start with top-level info and cascade into more comprehensive explanations with each new layer in the graphic. You should place each new level of detail onto its own slide, which builds audience anticipation – but also allows them to literally get the “big picture” first, before diving down into the details.

Infographic-style slides enable you to spend your time discussing the level of information that interests your audience the most. This helps to hold their attention so you can have a productive discussion, and get the results you want from your presentation. They can always revisit the infographic’s other sections when they have more time or need more explanation.

Infographics are great storytellers

You know about the importance of great storytelling within a presentation. Infographics make this job even easier. They are an engaging way to lead an audience through an idea by literally guiding their eye from one point in the story to the next.

However, the story still has to be engaging; a dull or cluttered infographic won’t win you any admirers. But sharing a story in a carefully-crafted infographic will pique an audience’s interest and help them see clearly and easily what your message is and why it’s worth listening to.

Infographics provide fantastic return on investment

Another reason infographics are great is because they deliver fantastic ROI. Once you’ve created your infographic-style slides, you can use relevant pieces with your social media accounts, with other PowerPoint presentation design or add it to printed marketing materials. A great infographic even does some of your work for you because people like to share eye-catching, fast-talking content.

Infographic help is at hand

It is possible to learn how to create your own great infographic slides but if the thought of doing this for your next big PowerPoint presentation makes your head hurt – we’re here to help. At eSlide, we’ve created infographic-style presentations for some of the most successful companies in the world. And we can help you turn your best content into a visual presentation that will get results.

If you’re ready to learn something new, why not give infographics a try? We’re always here to assist if you get stuck or can’t get started.

In our next blog, we’ll share some tips on what to think about when creating an infographic.