Presentation and Infographic Design People Actually Understand

Sales decks, reports for leadership, training sessions, investor pitches: millions of slides get made every day, and most share the same problem, too much text and no clear idea. For a designer, that's a huge market. Companies pay for branded templates, for redesigning high-stakes presentations and for infographics that explain a process or a set of results. You'll apply everything you know about hierarchy, typography, color and grids to a medium with its own rules.

A slide isn't a document

A presentation supports someone who's speaking. If the slide holds all the text, the audience reads instead of listening, and the speaker becomes redundant. Three principles transform any deck:

The template: grid, styles and masters

The standard format is 16:9, at 1920 × 1080 px. Apply what you learned in lesson 5 with a 12-column grid:

Side margins: 96 px · gutter: 24 px · 12 columns
Column width = (1920 − 2 × 96 − 11 × 24) ÷ 12 = 1,464 ÷ 12 = 122 px

With that grid you can build one-column layouts (centered text), halves (text and image) or thirds (three cards) that always line up with each other.

Type sizes for projection

If you have to go below 24 px to make the text fit, the fix isn't smaller type: it's splitting the slide or cutting text.

Slide masters

In PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote or Canva, define the master layouts (title slide, section divider, title and content, two columns, big number, closing) with the brand's text styles and colors (lesson 9). That way anyone in the company can build consistent slides without "designing," which is exactly what the client is paying for when they order a branded template.

Data people understand in seconds

• Pick the chart for the question: bars to compare, lines for change over time, stacked bars for composition; pie charts only with two or three slices.
• Highlight what matters: every bar in gray and the important one in the brand color. The eye goes straight to the message.
• Label directly: the value on the bar and the series name next to its line, instead of a distant legend.
• Remove what adds nothing: heavy gridlines, borders, 3D effects, shadows.
• One big number is sometimes worth more than a chart: "+15%" at 160 px with one line of context.

Want to go deeper into choosing charts and telling stories with data? See the data visualization and data storytelling lessons in our data analytics course.

Infographics

An infographic explains something visually so it can be understood without a speaker: a process, a comparison, a set of results, a timeline. Before you open the software, answer these in writing:

1. What should the reader understand or do? One main message.
2. Where will it be seen? On a phone (vertical format, large text), printed as a poster or inside a report.
3. What type is it? Process (numbered steps), comparison (two columns), statistical (data and charts), timeline or map.

The structure of an infographic

1. A title that promises what you'll learn   "How to brew the perfect French press"
2. A short intro (1–2 lines)                 why it matters
3. The body in blocks                        steps, data or comparisons with icons
4. A takeaway or call to action              "Order Sprout coffee, roasted this week"
5. Data source and logo                      always, in small type

Design tips:

• A clear reading path: top to bottom with numbers, arrows or a guiding line.
• Icons in one consistent style (same stroke weight, filled or outlined). Mixing styles is the most visible mistake.
• Space between blocks: an infographic doesn't need to fill every inch.
• For social media, a vertical format (1080 × 1350 or 1080 × 1920) or a multi-slide carousel (lesson 7).
• Accessibility: good contrast, text that's legible on a phone and, if it's published on the web, the content also available as text for screen readers.

Case study: a startup's investor pitch in Chicago

A Chicago startup that delivers produce from local farms (illustrative case) had 10 minutes to pitch a seed fund. Its deck had 32 slides, nearly all with titles like "Market," "Team" or "Financials," and paragraphs pasted from the business plan. At rehearsal, the founder read the slides with his back to the room.

The redesign started by writing only the takeaway titles, like a script: "Chicago families throw away more produce than they realize," "We deliver in 24 hours because we buy directly from 40 farms," "Every order turns a profit starting in month 6." If a title didn't move the story forward, the slide was cut. Fourteen slides survived, each with a big number, a simple chart or a real photo of the product, and everything else moved to an appendix emailed after the meeting. The founder stopped reading and started telling a story, which is exactly what a presentation should make possible.

Common presentation and infographic mistakes

Slide 1
Title: "Medium roast was the favorite: 2 out of 3 customers picked it"
Evidence: horizontal bars (medium 68%, dark 22%, decaf 10%), the
          medium roast bar in Sprout's color and the rest in gray.
Footnote: "Pilot with 120 customers, October 2026."

Slide 2
Title: "Price doesn't decide: it wasn't a deciding factor for 74%"
Evidence: "74%" at 180 px and one line of context.
(The packaging comment goes in the notes or on another slide.)

Infographic (1080 × 1350, 4-column grid, 72 px margins)
Title: "The perfect French press in 4 steps"
1. Grind coarse: 1 oz (28 g) of coffee per 16 fl oz of water (grinder icon)
2. Water at 195–205 °F, just off the boil (thermometer icon)
3. Steep for 4 minutes (timer icon)
4. Press slowly and serve right away (cup icon)
Footer: Sprout logo and website.

Summary

• One idea per slide, with a title that states the takeaway and the evidence underneath.
• A 1920 × 1080 template with a grid, brand styles, slide masters and a how-to guide.
• Body text of at least 24 px; if it doesn't fit, split the slide.
• In charts, highlight what matters with color and label directly.
• An infographic starts with its message, format and type, then follows a clear path with consistent icons.

Next lesson: Digital Ad Design That Converts: Meta, TikTok and Google Ads. You'll design ads with the right sizes and safe zones, a hierarchy that stops the scroll and variants ready for testing.