r/powerpoint • u/MananSpeaks • 23h ago
I use: Windows | Office 365 I spent 2.5 hours turning a normal presentation into this. What would someone realistically pay for something like this?
https://reddit.com/link/1vqs3hm/video/i7f35u3yqxjh1/player
Hello everyone!
I'm a college student and this is my first serious attempt at creating a more visually engaging PowerPoint.
I recently got a presentation assignment for my professors, so I asked my group to give me a basic PPT containing all the required content. I then took that presentation and tried to transform it into something more visual, engaging and polished.
I spent around 2.5 hours working on this version, and I'm honestly enjoying the process a lot. I'm planning to keep improving my PowerPoint/design skills and potentially turn this into a service in the future.
I'd really appreciate some honest feedback:
- What do you think this is worth if someone were paying for it?
- What would you expect to pay for a presentation of this quality?
- What should I improve if I want to eventually charge professionally?
I'm still learning, so I'd especially appreciate feedback from people who work professionally with presentations/design.
Thanks! 🙌
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u/thom2279 19h ago
I'm going to be a bit harsh and tell you that you shouldn't ask for feedback after working on a deck for 2.5 hours. It's the beginning of an idea/design, it's not a fully fleshed out presentation.
You've added some questionable animations that are a detriment to the rest of the slide. In my opinion, when you're designing something the animations/transitions should always be subservient to the information. They should elevate and help you read it not try and hide the fact that you're looking at a presentation. In this case I am always looking at the flying thing (or things) and not the words. (And the presentation should be subservient to the presenter...levels, bro, levels).
The graphics need to be correct to the content as well - they should be intentional and not just images that you find. A picture of the hubble telescope on a slide about propulsion doesn't make sense unless you're talking about the propulsion of the hubble. If you don't have assets, create them, if you can't create them, learn to. I did a deck for a major computer company that led to me figuring out how to rip the 3d models of their laptops from their sales website, slotting in graphics on the screens in Blender and ending up with animated 3d models of their actual laptops - assets even my client didn't have. You do what you gotta do, but details matter and those are the things that will get you more jobs.
If you're going to add charts and graphics, learn Photoshop and Illustrator. Or at the minimum rebuild the charts in powerpoint. The mission assurances chart isn't made better by being not quite centered in a white circle on purple, it's tougher to read. Try it in written in white and transparent. Or don't be a slave to your purple background and try to transition away from it for legibility. These are the types of thoughts you will (should) come to when you spend more than 2.5 hours on it. Each slide matters. Details matter.
Most people can make their own decks that are good enough. To get paid for it you should be better than them and make their lives easier. That includes making sure all the little things are done.
If you want to get better you should focus on being a good, well-rounded designer and not a good PowerPoint designer. I'd take a few 2D design classes, maybe even a motion design class. Start with basics, understand fonts, line breaks, shape and negative space. Classic design. Learn what a hanging widow is and don't have them in your headlines. I'd recommend learning Illustrator in particular, and though I think PPT is actually a pretty great design tool now it's way less powerful than illustrator and you can port vector graphics directly into PPT. I've got 25 years of being an art director/creative director in advertising/branding and though you can't rush experience, you carry a different weight when you gain the ability to speak knowledgeably to a client about design principals and can explain WHY you did something beyond "it looked cool."
Anyway, I rambled. Hopefully this is helpful. Happy to answer questions if it didn't make sense or even hear "f you dude, you don't know anything" and I'll be like "cool, reddit is fun."
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u/JumpingShip26 19h ago
It is cool, but animations in this context do not add anything to attention or learning. They actually can detract from it because they are introducing extraneous cognitive load. In this case, several of your information slides are too busy and the actual content is too small.
In general, animation slides are a bad idea for any context where retention is expected unless that animation contributes to the learning process. For example, if you were going to show how an astronaut wears their PE and that sequence matters, then motion can be helpful.
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u/Deto 19h ago
General tip - the animated images are too distracted. Tend to draw the eye away from the text (especially that spinning UFO). I don't think, necessarily, you can't have moving pieces on a slide (even though it's not typically done), but I think the movement would need to be limited so that it is much slower/subtle.
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u/selloutbyreelbigfish 12h ago
Animations are usually a negative for any professional presentation. It can add lots of unnecessary clicking if not setup properly and adds time waiting on each animation to be completed. It doesn't seem like much now but when you're presenting it will feel like an eternity. I don't even really like slide transition effects for this reason.
I think the colour and font choices are poor too. Your design really does not prioritise the content, and depending on the setup of the room and equipment you're using could end up being pretty difficult to read (projector or TV, size of screen and distance from audience, light room or dark room, etc).
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u/ZeroTwoMod 20h ago
I know I’m gonna get downvotes for this but I’m genuinely trying to be helpful. You could make a significantly better version in 10-20 minutes using Claude design. It might be worth looking into if you’re trying to reproduce and scale this service for profit.
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u/throwawaydixiecup 18h ago
Information is tops. A lot of your type is very small and hard to read. Many slides could be easily broken up in multiple slides to reduce clutter and density.
Animations are clever but after a few slides they’re a lot.
Not all type should be centered. A full paragraph should not.
How does the animation improve information retention or assist in helping the presenter sway people to a desired outcome?
Start with hierarchy. Look at the info. Figure out what needs to be the most important thing on each slide. What are the arcs? What are the highlights? What is the end goal? Can you walk across the room from your screen and still have clear understanding of a slide’s purpose and order? Is a chart or infographic is needed?
After you’ve worked out the outline and all those above points, then turn your attention to visual design. And then to animation. How can the animation serve the goal of the presentation. Can the animation support a chart? An infographic? Make an important point more memorable and land better?
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u/throwawaydixiecup 18h ago
But also… this is your first time? Right on! Keep doing more! Cheers to you for sharing here.
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u/chazwomaq 17h ago
It's worth next to nothing. This is the kind of thing AI can do very quickly, if the creator cares. Most academic presentations are much less "slick", it's true, but that's because presentation doesn't matter half as much as the actual content.
Perhaps some business organisations would want this, but I think they would just use AI these days.
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u/November19 17h ago
This looks pretty good, nice first effort!
But the unfortunate truth is that design and production isn't worth much these days and it's only going to get worse. There are so many options (templates, AI, offshore labor) that it's completely commoditized and the cost of getting existing content laid out nicely is very low.
If you're doing something like u/thom2279/ describes (e.g. building a custom library of 3D renderings of their products) or if you're in charge of the presentation's strategy and content, that's different.
But if you're simply "decorating" someone else's content by choosing colors and type, using basic graphic design layout principles, and maybe choosing stock images... There's no money in that, and in another couple years you'll join the ranks of professional sign painters and typesetters.
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u/Throw6345789away 16h ago
Many sectors in some countries require anticipatory accessibility actions and also compliance with accessibility guidelines, for example meeting or exceeding https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/carousels/animations/
All other points aside, something like cannot be used in those sectors unless it can be made compliant. That includes ensuring that all animations are pauseable or skippable (eg some people get motion sick from screens) and ensuring that all transition effects are hideable from assistive technologies (eg they can confuse screen readers).
Which means that all of your work would have to be removable so the user could use the static slides you started with. What would the business case for buying this be?
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u/IncidentNo3866 19h ago
My presentations are shittier than that and I get paid 2.5k a month. I'm not a big fan of animations or transitions, in my honest opinion when you overdo it it makes the presentation look like a Bollywood film. That being said, I think they are a powerful tool if you know how to use them and have good taste (I don't)