First impressions last, as the saying goes, whether you’re talking about making new friends, meeting a prospective client, or infl uencing an audience.

Every design project—from an advertisement to a parts list—can make a potent first impression. But the truism may be truest of all for presentations. They’re often the first things to make people aware of developments, problems, conditions, or needs.

Too often, people slave over the content of a presentation, assuming it can be poured into slides via software. Presentation graphics, however, are more than words squeezed into a rectangular format. Like a headline, slides must be read quickly and easily. Some slides act like a brochure and show product features and benefits. Others provide data or lists of information, much like a directory or parts list.

Many things can affect the success of a slide presentation— everything from its length, to the environment in which it is given, to the quality of the presentation graphics. There are four rules, however, that ensure your slides will make good typographic first impressions. (See slide A.)

1. Use a Sans

Most of what slides are about is typographic in nature. Illustrations and information graphics are clearly important, but presentation graphics are, for the most part, driven by words set in type. Even where most of the content is imagery, it’s usually the words that power the presentation.

It’s an easy bet that some fonts are better than others for the creation of slides. The best typeface for presentation graphics is a sans serif (because it is more legible than a serif design) in bold weight (to enable high levels of visibility) of condensed proportions (to obtain the maximum number of words in the smallest space).

Sounds like Helvetica Bold Condensed, doesn’t it? While Helvetica is a good—if somewhat boring— choice, other sans serifs also make good selections. Franklin Gothic, Felbridge, and Mundo Sans are all excellent candidates. These typefaces have an ample lowercase x-height and modulated stroke weights. Both of these attributes help the reading process. These are also designs distinctive enough to stand out from the crowd, but not so distinct that they will overpower the message. (See type samples, B.)

Geometric sans serifs like Avenir and Futura can be ideal for other applications, but in slides they should be considered “second team” players. Their letterforms are not as legible as those patterned after Roman character shapes, and their character strokes are monotone, which impairs the reading process. (See C.)

If you want to take a walk on the typographic wild side, serif faces provide a much wider variety of typographic choices. Pick faces that are not too decorative, have sturdy serifs, and don’t have too much contrast in stroke thickness. Look to examples like Plantin, Stone Serif, or Miller Display (type samples D). These faces—and others like them—are easily read and will serve your presentation well.

Never, ever set slides in a script typeface. Period. (Slide E shows why.)