• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
SlidesCarnival

SlidesCarnival

  • All templates
  • By color
    • Blue templates
    • Green templates
    • Red templates
    • Yellow templates
    • White templates
    • Black templates
    • Purple templates
    • Orange templates
    • Pink templates
    • Magenta templates
    • Brown templates
  • Formal
  • Inspirational
  • Creative
  • Simple
  • Elegant
  • Playful

6 design styles to help your next presentation really stand out

6 design styles to help your next presentation really stand out

No matter how interesting a topic, if it’s presented in a boring way it can suddenly seem like the most mundane thing on earth. People are clueing into this, making their presentations more visually appealing with clean designs, well-placed images, and eye-catching color schemes. 

There are tons of online design tools that can help you take your deck from blah to wow with just a couple of clicks, but you can’t deny that they stick to a certain style. Yes, they look great — sleek, professional, and business-oriented. But when you’re at a conference and sit through ten presentations in a row that were clearly put together with the same online design tool… the novelty wears off pretty quickly. 

We want to show you six original design styles that will set you apart and help you deliver a memorable presentation. With different templates that you can use right now, depending on which one best reflects your goals, brand, and audience. 

  1. Hand-drawn style
  2. Illustrated-style
  3. Vintage style
  4. Photo background
  5. Bold color
  6. Mimicking the “real world”

Hand-drawn style

Free fresh Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme for startups

It’s not easy to draw in PowerPoint or Google Slides — they’re much more focused on text and .jpg images. Can you remember the last time you saw a hand-drawn presentation? They’re not very common!

That means it’s a great way to make your slides stand out. Using a hand-drawn style can really add a personal touch, and is especially great for small audiences with whom you want to make a genuine connection. You want it to look almost like you sketched each slide by hand before scanning them into the computer.

While that’s certainly one way to do it, our hand-drawn style presentation templates remove all that hassle for you. They’re fun and friendly, and work everywhere from boardrooms to auditoriums. If you’re trying to give your presentation an injection of young energy or just a hand-made touch, these are the way to go. 

You can easily change the background and theme colors to suit your brand, and add in as many of your own images as you need. While it obviously can be adapted for any industry, a hand-drawn template is a great choice if you’re a creative, or presenting on something in the education world.

Free creative Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with doodles and green color

Green Doodles Presentation Template

Free educational Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with sketchnotes

Education Sketchnotes Presentation Template

Free creative Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with scribbles

Creative Scribbles Presentation Template

Free fresh Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme for startups

Creative Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with sketchy borders

Pastel Scribbles Presentation Template

Illustrated-style

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with environment theme

Block-color backgrounds can be so snooze-worthy, especially if you’re presenting in a more casual setting. Leave behind the taupes and navy color schemes and move onto a more expressive style for your presentations. 

Illustration-style presentations always invoke positive surprise from audiences, as it’s still not something we see that often. You can go for something more subtle, like floral borders or silhouette illustrations to spice up your slides. 

Or go all-in with full-on illustrations and graphic renderings! It’s all about finding a style that matches your content –– and we’ve got plenty of illustrated templates for you to choose from. 

This type of visually-appealing slide design is most often used for presenting to children, because they’re so attention-grabbing. But we believe they’re suitable for all ages, and anything that’ll help captivate and maintain attention is surely a good thing.

Again, you can fully customize the colors of your illustrations to match your brand, to make it more of an impactful use of drawings. We’ve also got some great seasonal options for you to try out if they suit, like Christmas and Halloween.

Free marketing Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with isometric illustrations

Blue Marketing Presentation Template

Free technology Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with transparent conceptual illustrations

Spark Business Presentation Template

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with galaxy and space illustrations

Galaxy Drawings Presentation Template

Free marketing Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with illustrations of working people

Clean Teamwork Presentation Template

Free medical Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with doctor and patients illustrations

Medical Illustrated Presentation Template

Vintage style

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with historical style

Vintage style slides really take you on a trip back through time. With them, we’re embracing the design style of decades past, which somehow just seem that little bit more distinguished. 

Vintage-looking presentations appeal to the emotions of your audience without them even realizing, and convey an overall sense of quality and nostalgia. If you’re going for a vintage style, you should embrace a warm color scheme and some classic old-timey fonts. Serif fonts or Hand-drawn lettering is usually the way to go for titles.

As for backgrounds, you could go for an earth-toned block color, or a texture that looks like old parchment or newspaper. A popular template of ours utilizes an old world map for a touch of history.

While this style mightn’t be appropriate for presentations on modern innovations, it’s great for history, geography, literature, or art classes, or anything related to vintage nostalgia. 

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with historic architecture illustrations

Historical Architecture Presentation Template

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with vintage maps backgrounds

Vintage Geography Presentation Template

Free elegant Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with blue and gold nature backgrounds

Midwinter Blue Nature Presentation Template

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with historical style

Renaissance Drawings Presentation Template

Free creative Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with flowers

Amazing Botanical Presentation Template

Photo background

Free inspiring Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with big typography

One of the main tips we often hear for creating eye-catching presentations is to prioritize images over text. A picture does paint a thousand words, after all, and it’s so much easier for audiences to digest a visual than a big block of text. 

But often, that’s easier said than done — don’t worry, we get it! Finding the right images to fit your messaging can be hard, but we promise you that it’s worth it. 

Go big with your images, instead of letting them take up half the slide, make them your background. This will force you to use minimal text. While that may feel uncomfortable at first, it’ll help ensure that your audience’s attention is really with you and what you’re saying, they’re not getting bogged down in the words on-screen.

Even though we all know the importance of image-driven slides, it’s not something we see all that often in practice. 

Of course, you’ve also got to make sure that you’re using the right images, not just random stock pictures. We’ve got you covered: here’s our essential guide for picking the perfect background for your presentation slides. 

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme formal and corporate

Business Photographic Presentation Template

Free inspiring Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with photo backgrounds

Big Photos Presentation Template

Free modern PowerPoint template and Google Slides theme with food photos

Modern Food Presentation Template

Free inspiring Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with photo backgrounds

Inspiring Photos Presentation Template

Free blue Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme for business

Blue Professional Presentation Template

Bold color

Free modern Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme in neon colors

Color really is key. Even the most fascinating of subjects can easily be dulled down with a stock-standard white-with-a-touch-of-navy design scheme. 

Remember that you’re here to get your audience’s attention, so you’ve got to get out of your comfort zone. Using bold colors is an excellent way to do this — color can have such a huge impact on our moods and emotions. 

You can go with a vivid color scheme that sticks to one tone, or you can opt for contrasting colors that clash and create tension. Honestly, when it comes to colors, your options are literally endless. But unless you’ve got an eye for art and design, it can be tricky to know which shades best go together. 

It’s important to have one dominant color, a similar secondary color, and a contrasting accent color. Have a read through our handy guide that’ll help you pick the best colors for your presentation, complete with ten combinations to get you started. 

Free lgbtiq Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with colorful gradients

Rainbow Gradients Presentation Template

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with teamwork illustrations

Blue Team Work Presentation Template

Free professional orange Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme

Orange Professional Presentation Template

Free green geometric Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme

Green Geometric Presentation Template

Free art Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with watercolors

Colorful Art Presentation Template

Free modern pink presentation - Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme

Beautiful Magenta Presentation Template

Mimicking the “real world”

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme that looks like a composition notebook

These are presentations that bring real, unfiltered “behind-the-scenes” images into your slides. Kind of like the hand-drawn style, this approach will help make your presentations seem more open and relatable. 

Instead of using stock images, vector graphics, or computer-generated charts to illustrate your presentation, incorporate real-world objects. Photos of your hand-written notes, your post-its and whiteboards, you and your team working on the project…go wild!

This will bring the audience into your process, helping them feel like a part of the world you’re building. By showing them your day-to-day and personal method of working, they’ll feel more receptive and inclined to connect with your presentation.

Free Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with desk and stationery scenes

Photographic Desk Presentation Template

Free inspiring Powerpoint template and Google Slides theme with vintage moodboard style

Vintage Moodboard Presentation Template

Free wood and paper Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme

Polaroids & Notebooks Presentation Template

Free education presentation design - Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with whiteboard

Education Whiteboard Presentation Template

Free education presentation design - Powerpoint template or Google Slides theme with book

Open Book Presentation Template

Are you looking for an easy way to make your next presentation shine?

At SlidesCarnival we’ve got a huge array of professionally-designed templates that have been put together with the best presentation techniques in mind. Check out our free presentation templates library, then use your favorite to create a killer deck that you can tailor to suit your needs.

Learn more about presentation design

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Couzon says

    24 February 2021 at 14:24

    I love all your presentations but I have not found any good ones so far for our business activity: transport & delivery of furnitures & parcels to domestic homes… hope this might inspire you in one next project. Great job otherwise.

    • Jimena Catalina Gayo says

      25 February 2021 at 08:53

      Hi, try using one of SlidesCarnival templates with photo backgrounds and replace the photos with some that convey your topic.

  2. Kale says

    4 March 2021 at 12:55

    Thanks for sharing such useful resources, nice article.

Footer

Professional designs for your presentations

SlidesCarnival templates have all the elements you need to effectively communicate your message and impress your audience.

Suitable for PowerPoint and Google Slides

Download your presentation as a PowerPoint template or use it online as a Google Slides theme. 100% free, no registration or download limits.

Content

  • All templates
  • Formal
  • Inspirational
  • Creative
  • Simple
  • Elegant
  • Playful

Help

  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Google Slides Help
  • PowerPoint help
  • Who makes SlidesCarnival?
SlidesCarnival

Copyright © 2022 · Terms of use · Templates License · Privacy Policy