The Most Popular Presentation Tips of 2010

2010 is the second year of my blog. Given that everybody is in a retro mode, I too thought it wise to share with you the most read posts of 2010. If you have missed out on these, check it out. If you are new on the blog, you must check these out. Some of these posts were written in 2009 but remain extremely popular even now.

Here we go:

#1 How to make sponsorship proposals?
#2 How many slides do we need for a 30 minute presentation?
#3 How to make business review presentation?

#4 How to present one bullet point at a time [animation tip]?
#5 SmartArt Graphics: An introduction
#6 Three mistakes to avoid in a sales pitch

#7 How to add hyperlink to SmartArt?
#8 Download free PowerPoint templates
#9 What is the ideal image size for PowerPoint?
#10 Sponsorship proposal checklist

Merry Christmas and a very Happy & Prosperous New Year to you. See you in the next year.

Download free font: NEVIS

If you have seen my last presentation (It's Payback Time) you might have noticed that the font was good. I searched for 'bold' fonts and discovered 'NEVIS'. Click here to download it.


On Dec 3 I wrote a post on why we should start using special fonts in presentations. Fonts which are unique yet legible. NEVIS is my one step towards that. Try it out.

It's PAYBACK time [A Presentation]

It is payback time

View more presentations from Vivek Singh.

and the winners are...

The results of the annual slideshare presentation contest are out. There are some really good presentations among the list of winners. I have cherry picked 4 such presentations. As you go through each one of them look out for the following:

1. Slide design, use of images & fonts
2. Powerful content
3. Story telling (how the content is being said)

Here are the presentations. Starting with SMOKE which won the best presentation award this year.

SMOKE - The Convenient Truth

View more presentations from Empowered Presentations, Honolulu, HI.

Tips on How to Pitch

View more presentations from Project Presentation.

Stopping The Bite

View more presentations from João Paulo Alves.

Hi I am Bo!

View more presentations from Shantanu Adhicary.

Differentiate your presentation; use special fonts

I have always argued for using 'standard' fonts in presentations. Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri. But off late I am changing my point of view. The reason? There are awesome fonts available online for free. Fonts which make our presentations fresh and fun; for us and for our audiences. I discovered two such fonts off late. One when a colleague of mine asked for a font which looks like handwriting (she wanted to fill out a form with that). Second, when I wanted to design an invitation card.

Unless you are presenting to your boss or to your board of directors, try some new fonts. Serve a fresh visual slide to your audience and stand out from the crowd. Get known by the uniqueness of your fonts. Needless to say, your fonts should be stylish yet legible.

What say you?

I have bought into this logic for all my informal (and less formal presentations) from now on. Do check out some fresh fonts. I am giving the links below.

A font which writes like Calvin (click here)
A font which looks like handwriting (click here)

Other resources:
1001freefonts
Simplythebest fonts
Urban fonts

What say you? Give it a shot! At least use them for headings?