Can you learn how to make better slides by looking at a few signs around your local IKEA store? This may sound absurd, yet the lessons are all around you, and you can indeed learn a lot from a well-designed billboard, including those created by IKEA. On page 140 of Nancy Duarte's Slide:ology, Nancy says that good slides in many ways are most similar to billboards.
8 lessons from standing outside an IKEA store
(1) Make it visual.
Slides are visual aids, not "text aids," right? Again, it must be noticed (we notice compelling visuals), understood, and remembered (we remember images). We are visual beings. You do not have to use slides, but *if* you do, make them highly visual. And remember brain rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses. (See the book Brain Rules.)
(2) One slide, one point.
IKEA does not try to cram many products into a sign or give a lot of information about that product in a sign, though there is plenty of space to do that if they wanted to. Instead they feature a single item at a large size — it gets noticed, read, and remembered. For presentations, "one slide, one point" is a good general principle to follow. Don't be afraid to tell your visual story over many frames.
(3) Make type big.
As designer Robin Williams says, "Don't be a wimp!" People are indeed too wimpy when it comes to text on a slide. Have some grapes! The type on the IKEA building, for example, is enormous and the billboards too feature bold type that sticks out. Display type should get attention and get the point across. Big gets noticed and read, and big makes for easy contrast with small, aiding in guiding the viewers eye. Kerning becomes an issue with text at larger sizes because the spacing that worked automatically at 12 point may be unbalanced at a much larger point size, but since you are not using so many words at the larger size, adjusting a few letter pairs here and there (such as WA, etc.) will not be such a big deal. Also, the size of symbols can be adjusted at larger sizes (e.g., $, ¥, &, #, %, etc.). Notice how the "¥" mark on the IKEA signs is reduced in size to fit more harmoniously with the numbers. The monetary symbol can still be seen perfectly fine, but it would be overpowering if the yen mark and numbers were of the same point size; the "¥" would be unnecessarily large. A minor thing, yes, but it all adds up. Display type and body type are different.
(4) Contrast rules!
Contrast is perhaps the most important principle of all. You can achieve contrast in many ways, size (big/small) space (near/far), and color (light/dark, warm/cool), etc. IKEA achieves great contrast with color by using a vivid warm color which comes at you (yellow) and a cool color for background (dark blue) on the side of their gigantic building. White and black (the greatest color contrast) is also often used in the IKEA billboards. Although I do not recommend the IKEA brand color scheme (unless you work for IKEA or one of the Swedish Olympic teams), IKEA graphics make good use of contrast.
(5) Don't be afraid to bleed.
The product images displayed on IKEA signs bleed off the edge. That is, part of the image does not appear or "fit" in the frame. The frame (billboard or slide, etc.) seems bigger and more engaging when an image is bled over the edge such as those pictured above, as if the entire image is too big to fit. This is a common effect but ignored by many presenters who are careful to keep every element within the slide frame. Bleeding off the edge can make the images seem larger while at the same time leaving more empty space on the canvas, giving more clarity to the overall visual and plenty of breathing room for another element.
(6) Rule of Thirds.
The rule of thirds is a good general principle to follow for arranging elements on your canvas (slide). The IKEA samples above do not follow it rigidly — it is only a general principle — but each billboard has plenty of empty space and clear design priorities. Usually the eye is drawn to the large image first and then the large display text (although personally I think my eye goes to the type first, but I'm oddly attracted to fat and clean sans-serif typefaces). There are many more examples of the rule of thirds applied to slides in Presentation Zen (pp.151-152) and in Slide:ology (p.161)(7) Empty space.
The rule of thirds is useful for achieving a more balanced look that utilizes empty space. Others will tell you to fill that empty space for myriad reasons including that "it looks more serious" if every bit of the slide is filled with text, data, and images. Resist the urge to add more. There are no prizes given for making your slides as dense as possible (besides, the competition for that dubious honor is fierce anyway). See this recent Dilbert comic on this issue.
(8) Have a visual theme.
The IKEA signs are all different but they are clearly from the same "brand" and follow a theme, yet there is no decorative template. For slides you do not need to follow a pre-packaged template found in the software, but there does need to be a visual theme. This can be achieved by using the same typeface, the same genre of photography, same background color, and so on. You do not have to use your company logo on every slide, however. If you don't have a visual theme across a slide deck, putting your logo on every slide to "tie 'em together" will not help much and it may just imply that your visual brand is one big mess tied together with the ubiquitous logo. Keep it simple.
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