One of the most important things is that you build your own PowerPoint slides.

You've just looked at the tools you can use to add text and simple graphics to a slide.  And you know that you can use clip art, too.

Now we are concerned with how all these pieces fit together.

The first consideration is that what ever style you adopt, it must help you communicate your topic.  You are giving a presentation to communicate, so this criterion stands above all the others.

It is also a good idea to have your own style.  Not only does an audience respond well to something that is personal, you will likely enjoy doing it more.  Taking a "canned" style may be OK when you're short on time, but developing your own style is a very satisfying exercise.

Once you have a style, you need to be efficient.  You want this to work for you.  It should save you time and effort.  PowerPoint has the tools.  You need to find them and master them relative to producing slides in your style.

The most commonly violated "style" rule is the "7 X 7 rule."

What this rule says is that you shouldn't have more than seven lines of seven words.  That's a maximum.

If you try to put more than that on a slide, the type is too small for your audience to read.

As a PowerPoint rule of thumb, try to use words that have a height of at least 32 point.  There are times when you need to use 28 point heights, but you should never go smaller than that.

This is a law of physics.  Too small and it can't be read!

PowerPoint gives you great choices for colors.  You get to use a rich palette.

Be careful.  It is very easy to use color combinations that lack the contrast that allows them to be read easily.

What looks bright on your computer monitor may not look nearly as bright when you project the slide on a screen.  Old projectors and too much light in the room work against you.

Choose colors that you know will be safe.  If possible, test them under the conditions you'll be using while you still have time to fix them.

As you create your own style, you'll choose colors for the text, lines and background.  Line weights, type sizes, and icons are also style elements that you'll need to select.  There are many more things, too.

Put together a few draft slides and then test your design under classroom (or other venue) conditions.  

In the worst case, you might not be able to use a computer projector.  It is best to know this before you've invested too much energy.  We'll assume that this isn't going to be the case.

Make adjustments to your design if necessary.  It is easy at this stage.  Later, after you have produced many slides, it get harder.

Finally, can you actually use your design elements to produce slides quickly and easily.

Once you have some good design elements, you can shift your focus to production efficiency.

Good design means that you will likely use many of the same elements over and over on your slides.

This includes things like where your slide titles will appear and how they will look.

Bullet lists are another often repeated element.

Get used to copying these elements and pasting them into new slides.  Then simply modify them in their new location.  In this way, you'll have these elements placed in the same location, slide after slide.

You can also use the Format Painter to make sure that some of the appearance characteristics are the same without having to make lots of menu changes.

If you are going to distribute your slides as handouts, make sure that you test your slide design on the printer you will use.  You don't want any last minute surprises.

Not only do you need to get a good master copy, you may need to test how well that copy can be duplicated.

Just as before, a bit of testing can save you much labor later.

Be sure to note that there are a number of useful options when you print your slides as handouts.

For example, you a choice of how many slide thumbnails you want printed on each page.  The newer versions of PowerPoint have added an alternative layout choice for the order of the slides.

Finally, since we're concerned with design, it is worth issuing a challenge and a warning.

The challenge is for you to produce interesting, informative slides that really help you as a speaker.

The warning is that PowerPoint tries to make things easy.  Sometimes this is a trap that will encourage you to produce extremely boring slides.

Be self critical.  Do your slides look too plain?  For example, are they jjust a bunch of PowerPoint generated bullet slides?  If so, you should changing your style.  Make your own slides. Bring some energy to your presentations.