Contrast in color is important to slides for what reasons?

I’m no designer, but I have had my fair share of painting classes and they’ve affected the way I think about color and in turn, the way I think about making slides. Color theory is one of the foundational concepts in fine arts, but it also has great relevance in many other areas, including presentations.

One of the first things you think about when making a presentation is how to effectively communicate your message so that your audience pays attention to the right things at the right time. By using color to your advantage, you can strengthen your message and in turn make it easier to understand, this translates to more effective presentations that won’t leave your audience confused. So, here are three ways to use color to your advantage in a presentation.

Making elements “pop”

One of the ways to utilize color in a presentation is to use it to draw the audience’s attention to certain areas you’d like to highlight. This helps direct their attention so they can effectively follow your train of thought. A great way to do this is to develop a color scheme that uses contrasting colors. Though many color combinations contrast, one of the most powerful ones you can use is a complementary color scheme.

The colors that are located directly across from one another on the color wheel are called complementary colors. For example, red and green, blue and orange or purple and yellow. If you put two complementary colors next to one another, you’ll notice that they create a lot of energy. If you look at a red and green square sitting next to each other, for example the border between the two color fields almost seems to vibrate.

All complementary colors will create this type of vibrancy when you put them on a slide together. Therefore, you can use complementary colors to draw attention to certain areas of your slides. For example, if a slide uses mostly blue tones in its color scheme, you can make elements that are meant to stand out be orange and this will make them obviously stand out. This concept will hold true for any pair of complementary colors.

You can also get elements on your slide to pop by using a limited color palette, for example a monochromatic color scheme, and then adding in splashes of color to draw emphasis. Achieving this effect is fairly straightforward. Let’s say your brand colors are a blue and white for example. By sticking to a palette consisting of those colors and some neutrals (beige, grey, black) you can ensure that your presentation will look like it fits within your brand. You can add a couple of accent colors to this palette if you would like certain elements to stand out, for example an orange, which is the complement to blue. The elements that appear in orange will then “pop” on screen and your audience will focus their attention to them.

The important concept at work here is that unexpected elements will capture the audience’s attention. By using a contrasting color to highlight what you want to stand out, you can ensure that people watching your presentation will pay attention to what you want them to.

Using color associations

Most people aren’t actively thinking about what colors mean on a daily basis, but in reality color associations are impossible to escape. For example, if you’re driving to the store you might pass a traffic light which turns from green, “go” to red, “stop” or see a yellow caution sign alerting you that there may be geese crossing the road ahead. These kinds of color associations make up a huge part of society, and affect how all of our infrastructure and media are created. Because of this, it is easy to apply color associations to presentations and have them be understood.

When I’m creating a slide I usually use a lot of the same colors consistently to mean the same things. For example, if I’m using a checkmark to show something has been successful I will many times color it green. Similarly, I make X’s red, and caution symbols in yellow. By making obvious color choices you eliminate any chances of confusing the audience with their meaning.

You can also use these types of associative coloring for elements like arrows (showing negative or positive effects) graphs, or even just objects themselves. For example, by animating a green arrow to move upwards you reinforce the idea that there are positive effects occurring. If the arrow was grey, for example this message would not appear as obvious.

Bear in mind that there is a difference between a genetic and societal association of color. Some color associations are found in nature and therefore we are programmed to recognize them, for example yellow and black stripes being dangerous. However, other associations are learned from living in a specific area, like red being negative in Western cultures but positive in Eastern ones. It’s important to remember this when making presentations because not all color associations will be obvious to others depending on where you are.

Creating a ‘mood’

The last way you can use color to make your presentations more effective is by using it to create an atmosphere that relates to your brand, your message, or your topic. Colors don’t just exist to look pretty: all brands understand this concept when they’re designing their logos, and you can think about it in the same way when you’re designing a slide. If you want your slides to talk about how your company is eco-friendly, stick to greens in your background; if you’re making a presentation for a modern or high-tech product, stick to a black background with pops of color. Even if your presentation needs to be on-brand, let the other colours in your palette do the heavy-lifting. For example, combining two brand colors (let’s say red and white) and putting them on a black background immediately makes the slides look more sophisticated.

I’m sure most people agree that color is important in many contexts, but when it comes to PowerPoint a lot of them seem to forget this. So, the next time you’re making a presentation, don’t just use the defaults, think a little about how you can use color to your advantage, may it be through emphasizing certain visuals with “pops” of color, using common color associations to enhance meaning or by using colors to create a feeling that matches your brand. You’ll be surprised how much of an impact it can have on how well people pay attention and also how much they’ll understand your presentation.

If you’re struggling to come up with some great colour combinations, head over here to COLRD, and use their free color palette generator to do all the hard work for you. And if you’re looking for more ways to make your presentations pop, read these tips here.

People who are making a PowerPoint presentation should know the basic principles of design. In the following article we are going to overlook the main principle of the contrast. This information can be very helpful and will save you from ruining the overall effectiveness of your PowerPoint slides. As most resources about PowerPoint consider contrast issues unnecessary to be mentioned, we are going to review this topic and pay attention to some vital points.

During our University years and at work we see different kinds of PowerPoint presentations. Have you ever heard presenters apologizing for not being able to see properly the text on PowerPoint slides? Many people from the audience can’t see it as well. So why does this happen to us? In most cases the reason is in the size of the font which is too small. However the same problem can happen due to the sloppy color of the contrast. The most common contrast’s application in PowerPoint is the color. Alternatively the contrast can be made with the help of different shapes, sizes of your objects, types and sizes of your fonts, alignment and so on. You should remember that the contrast principle depend on all the surrounding elements. They should be different from your focal point. Your contrast will easily fail if your difference between the objects is either too weak or subtle.

Let’s focus on the contrast besides colors. The easiest and the most effective way of showing the contrast in your PowerPoint presentation is by using different colors. You should involve and play with the difference in darkness and lightness between the selected colors. The colors of your presentation background and foreground should be different as well. If you need the strongest contrast you should use black and white colors. Always try to remain mindful in applying these basic principles in the design of your future PowerPoint presentation. You should be very careful using hues on your ppt slides. And keep in mind that some people from your audience may have color blindness issues. A person with a normal sight can see a perfect contrast between green and red. However someone from your audience can perceive the difference of these colors. Study carefully the basic attributes of colors, such as saturation, hue and lightness. This information may be very handy.

As a designer of PowerPoint presentation you should always have an extra curve ball that can be thrown at them. Nowadays there are lots of modern and highly effective LCD displays or projectors. Such devices can lighten or alter the colors of your presentation slides while projecting them. You may spent lots of time selecting the best and the most matching combinations. But if your projector is old, everything can be spoilt. Too light meeting room is also not the best place for a successful presentation. There is one strict rule of thumb which you should follow – all the colors of your PowerPoint slides will be seen around 30% lighter comparing to what you see on your PC.

Here is the list of common scenarios of ruining your PowerPoint slides:

Gradient blends and steps

If you use gradients, it is recommended to start with the darker on the lighter side. Your dark text on the slides should be on lighter objects.

Green-colored text

If the color of your background is white, it is necessary to avoid some text colors. As practice shoes green is not the best choice as it may be handled by projectors quite badly. There must be some technical reasons but for sure green is very problematic on white background of your PowerPoint template. Therefore you should always be very careful choosing the text colors for your titles, the main data points and the rest of the key text. Select much darker colors for text with a white-colored background.

Colors on dark ppt background

Avoid using blue or red text color on a black ppt background. Your text may be washed out or indistinguishable to your audience. Standard colors such as blue, red, green should be avoided. Always use light colors for dark backgrounds. They will surely stand out while projecting your presentation.

The final tip is to be always kind and attentive to your audience!