Believe it or not, it’s 37 years since PowerPoint became the gold standard of corporate business presentations. Mind boggling, isn’t it, that we would still be using a piece of software designed that long ago? Yet, here we are in the 21st Century, still designing slideshows to present our ideas.
While PowerPoint itself hasn’t changed materially over the many decades, the business landscape has, and almost everyone has to do a presentation at some time or another. But while anyone can, of course, make a slideshow very easily, not everyone can design one that has impact. This is where a strong library of templates comes in, which brings us to this review of SlideUpLift.
This is a sponsored article and was made possible by SideUpLift. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.
Massive Library
SlideUpLift is a huge template library of over 30,000 ready-to-go PowerPoint templates for you to adapt and use. With such a large library, you can bet they have everything from soup to nuts as far as variety goes. They have everything for the busy professional, with strong templates for project managers, marketing departments and entrepreneurs.
These have been designed by PowerPoint consultants and business specialists to provide cleanly-designed and impactful templates. They have also incorporated techniques of “vision science” and storytelling to enhance the comprehension of your viewers. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Yes, the library is a paid subscription service for full access for a modest monthly or yearly fee, but there is a free plan with some excellent templates for the low-frequency home user or small company. Either way, this is an easy and relatively inexpensive way to go from zero to 60 in your corporate presentations.
The Power to Present
We’ve been here before, have we not? Library stock assets for marketing or business worry me slightly and almost always suffer from a few downsides. Often the templates have a single designer style, quirky and just one person’s idea of stylish. When I first opened the SlideUpLift site I was concerned this was going to be the case yet again. Fortunately, I was delighted to be wrong.
The overall style of the templates in the library is not extreme – it’s classy and neutral, not boring at all, but professional and solid. There are good balanced layouts in sober colors, nothing too garish or “out there.” Obviously, if you want to plow in and change up the color schemes and make them somewhat wacky, then that’s your choice. The point is they are good to go, beautifully simple and stylish, well designed and clean.
The next thing which struck me is the range of templates – not just in approach or tone but in content. Each template not only contains a bunch of useful page layouts, but it prompts you for each stage of the “story” of your presentation. In this way, just by filling in the blanks, you can tell the story of the ideas in an organized and comprehensible way every time.
Now that question of “vision science” or the science of vision: what the heck is that about? According to SlideUpLift, the four principles of vision science are:
- How to choose colors 2) How to choose fonts3) Adjusting proportions of the visual elements4) Which shapes enhance effective communication
In developing their library of templates they’ve consulted with experts in how fonts and color and shape affect communication and how to design slides which tick all these boxes. Design for clarity is one thing, and almost any designer can give you that, but this is the first time I’ve heard about scientists being brought into the design process.
Each template is offered in 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios – which is more suitable depends on your application. It’s nice to have 4:3, I feel, in case you present somewhere that has old projectors or you just like the more compact and less cinematic aspect ratio.
I’ve mentioned before that the templates are clean and minimalistic. This doesn’t mean to imply they are boring. On the contrary, they are easy-on-the-eye, perfectly-pitched business documents, which can be customised to fit your corporate look and color scheme. They are a “starting point” for your own presentation adventures. But if you just want to replace the text and go, they will totally suffice.
The mood they convey is one of competence, precision and clarity, style without being over-designed, and when your business is communication, this is exactly what you want. A sleek, modern medium to convey your words directly and without friction into the brains of your audience.
Details, details
SlideUpLift is, I think, almost unique in that its platform is one of the very few asset or tool vendors that hasn’t thrown everything into a subscription model. You have the flexibility to purchase either one template or many ongoing via a membership. Also, it’s surprisingly affordable with the basic plan starting at $9.99, which represents good value in the template providers market.
All in all, I’d say SlideUpLift is a solid contender for your new favorite PowerPoint template broker. Take it from me, they will make you or your business look good.
Phil South has been writing about tech subjects for over 30 years. Starting out with Your Sinclair magazine in the 80s, and then MacUser and Computer Shopper. He’s designed user interfaces for groundbreaking music software, been the technical editor on film making and visual effects books for Elsevier, and helped create the MTE YouTube Channel. He lives and works in South Wales, UK.
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