Chapter 4: Presentation Fonts

Overview

Denny leads a training group within a large computer firm. He regularly works with other members of his organization to improve the presentations are given to other employees , corporate partners and corporate clients . One problem he regularly runs into is helping others understand what fonts to use and why.

I am working with several divisions to ccreate slides for our new product launch. Each division has its own standard for fonts, none of which really look good on screen. Can you provide some tips on picking the right fonts?

I am also going to need to quickly change the fonts on several of the presentations from the current fonts to fonts that work better for our various audiences. Is there any way I can go through a presentation quickly and make the changes?

Denny has discovered a universal truth in the world of PowerPoint users: Fonts are fun! Unfortunately, if you don't know how to choose and use the right fonts, they can also be fatal to your messages.

Fonts that are too small make it difficult for the audience to even see what you are saying. Fonts that are too large limit how much can put on a slide. The latter isn't usually a problem, but if you go to extremes, it can be.

Another thing presenters need to keep in mind is the audience for the presentation. The more formal the audience, the simpler the fonts used on the slides should be. Fun, funky, artistic fonts are fine for emphasis, but not as the main font in the presentation.

Let's look at a couple of the slides Denny received from the various departments as examples. He received slides from four departments, including his own. They are:

• Interface

• Data Warehouse

• Marketing

• Training

Interface is responsible for creating the interface to the new product. They created this slide listing the benefits of the interface:

Figure 4-1: Interface Department Slide

Data Warehouse is responsible for importation of data from other programs. They created this slide listing the various types of data that could be imported:

Figure 4-2: Data Warehouse Slide

Marketing is responsible for the PR for the product. They sent this slide listing the prices and packaging of the product.

Figure 4-3: Marketing Department Slide

Meanwhile, Denny himself created this slide, which details the training available for clients:

Figure 4-4: Training Slide

Ask yourself:

• Which of these slides are easiest to read?

• Which of these slides have more power and impact?

• Which of these are the most and least formal?

So, how does Denny get the presenters started on the path to correct font usage? He needs to start by explaining the basic ways fonts are grouped, what the various font types are called and what they mean.