Presentation Design Cheat Sheet [11 Quick Fixes]

John, one of our clients, asked us an interesting question while we were working on his investor pitch deck:

“Is there a shortcut to making slides look clean and professional without hiring a designer every single time?”

Our Creative Director answered,

“Yes. It’s called knowing what to fix.”

As a presentation design agency, we work on many pitch decks, sales decks, and keynote presentations throughout the year. In the process, we’ve observed one common challenge—most slides aren’t broken, they’re just cluttered, misaligned, or trying to do too much at once.

So, in this blog, we’ll talk about what to tweak, skip, align, and simplify to make your deck look 10x better using our presentation design cheat sheet.

In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.

Why You Need a Presentation Design Cheat Sheet

Let’s get this out of the way—you don’t need to be a designer to make a decent-looking presentation. But you do need to stop making choices that make your slides look like a last-minute rush job.

Your deck says more about you than your LinkedIn profile ever will. If your slides are messy, unclear, or bloated with text, people assume your thinking is the same. That’s harsh, but true. You might be brilliant, but if your visuals are sloppy, that brilliance gets lost in translation.

We’ve seen investors tune out in the first five minutes. We’ve seen potential clients fidget while trying to read slide after slide of crowded content. And we’ve seen brilliant ideas fall flat simply because the delivery vehicle—the deck—looked like it was built in a panic.

Here’s the part most people miss: great slide design isn’t about colors or fancy animations. It’s about clarity. Structure. Visual breathing space. It’s about saying one thing at a time, in a way that sticks. When you stop trying to say everything at once, your audience actually remembers what matters.

We’re not asking you to become a design guru overnight. But we are telling you this—if you fix just a few things, your presentation will instantly feel more professional, more trustworthy, and more aligned with the quality of what you’re offering.

Think of this cheat sheet as your cleanup crew. It won’t redesign your deck from scratch, but it will make sure your message doesn’t get buried under bad formatting, random font choices, and bullet point overload.

Presentation Design Cheat Sheet [11 Quick Fixes]

Let’s get straight to it. You don’t need a massive design overhaul. You just need to stop making the same 11 mistakes almost everyone makes. Fix these, and your deck instantly feels smarter, cleaner, and more credible.

1. Stop Using the Default Slide Layouts

Default layouts in PowerPoint and Google Slides are not your friends. They’re a trap. Those placeholders? They scream “template.” And not in a good way.

Instead, design your own master layouts or get someone to build them for you. Create a few versatile structures you can reuse—one for headlines and images, one for charts, one for side-by-side comparisons. That alone makes your deck look intentionally designed, not just slapped together.

2. One Message per Slide

Here’s the truth: if your slide has five ideas, your audience won’t remember any of them.

Strip it down. Every slide should communicate one core message. If you need to explain three things, give each its own slide. Your deck isn't a document, it's a visual aid. Space is your ally, not your enemy.

3. Stop Copy-Pasting from Word Docs and Reports

We get it. You’ve already written the strategy doc or business plan. It’s tempting to copy those chunks of text and drop them into slides.

Please don’t.

Slides are not meant for paragraphs. If you have to use a lot of text (say, in appendix or investor materials), at least format it into clear headers and supporting bullets. Or better yet, summarize the core point and let your voice do the rest during the presentation.

4. Align Everything—Even the Tiny Stuff

This is the fastest fix that makes you look like you hired a designer.

Check alignment. Are the titles aligned with the content? Are icons sitting at the same vertical height? Is spacing between bullet points even?

Use guides and grids. They exist for a reason. When things line up, people trust your content more. When they’re randomly placed, your message feels as scattered as your layout.

5. Reduce Font Styles to Two

Stick to two font styles—one for headings and one for body text. Not three. Not five. Two.

And use them consistently. Don’t bold everything just to emphasize it. That only dilutes impact. Use hierarchy instead. Bigger font = more important. Smaller font = supporting idea. That’s all you need.

Also, please, no Comic Sans. Ever.

6. Use Real Contrast, Not Just Color

If your text is barely readable because it’s light grey on white, or orange on yellow, you’re not doing anyone any favors.

Contrast is key. Dark text on a light background. Light text on a dark background. That’s what works. If you’re not sure, print the slide in black and white. If the contrast fails there, it’ll fail in the boardroom too.

And while we’re at it, don’t rely solely on color to show differences in charts or comparisons. Use icons, labels, shapes. Not everyone sees color the same way.

7. Dump the Bullet Points (Most of Them)

Bullet points were useful in the 90s. Now they just make everything look like an internal memo.

If you need to list things, use icons, visuals, or better structure. Stack elements vertically. Break long lists into smaller segments. Show one point at a time. Give your audience room to breathe.

The only time bullets work is in a clean, short list. If it’s longer than five items, it probably needs a reframe.

8. Use High-Quality Visuals or None at All

We see it all the time—pixelated logos, stretched images, clipart from 2003. And they kill credibility faster than typos.

Use sharp, high-res images. Stick to modern, flat icons that are consistent in style and weight. And if you’re using photos, make sure they match in tone and lighting. Don’t mix a corporate stock photo with a cartoon doodle in the same slide.

If in doubt, keep it visual-light. A clean slide is better than one crowded with bad design elements.

9. Stop Centering Everything

Center alignment looks poetic. But it’s rarely readable. It also makes your audience’s eyes work harder to track lines.

Left-align body text. Always. Your viewers read left to right, and left alignment helps their eyes flow naturally. You can center a headline or a one-liner for dramatic effect, but don’t center-align three lines of body copy. That’s just lazy layouting.

10. Think in Visual Hierarchy

Not everything on the slide is equal. So don’t treat it that way.

Make the most important thing big and bold. Secondary info? Smaller. Supporting details? Light or placed at the bottom. This is what designers call visual hierarchy—you’re guiding the reader’s eye by showing what to look at first.

Use spacing, sizing, weight, and position to control attention. If everything looks equally important, nothing gets remembered.

11. Use Animation Only to Guide Attention

Animations are like spices. A little goes a long way.

Don’t use bounce-in, spin, or any effects that feel like they belong in a birthday slideshow. Stick to fades and appear-ons. Use them to guide attention—not to entertain.

Reveal content one step at a time. Especially in charts or complex slides. Let people absorb one idea before you throw the next one at them. That’s what animation is for. Not to show off.

You don’t need to apply all 11 fixes to every slide. But even if you do just five of them consistently—alignment, spacing, message clarity, font simplicity, and contrast—you’ll notice a massive shift in how your slides feel and perform.

Great slides don’t scream for attention. They hold it quietly by being clear, structured, and respectful of the audience’s time. That’s what a good presentation design cheat sheet helps you do—it trims the fat, sharpens the message, and lets your content shine without unnecessary decoration.

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Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?

If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.

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