The most-committed error in presentation graphics is including too much information. No amount of typographic wizardry can undo the damage caused by this. Presentation graphics should be an accompaniment to the presenter— not the other way around. Graphics highlight the speaker’s important points and help the audience remember them.

If an audience has to take voluminous amounts of information away from a presentation, resist the urge to include it in graphics. The speaker can cover all the facts in talking points, of course. Prepare a separate hard copy document (not copies of the slides) with the important details, and the audience can help themselves to one after the talk.

In these situations, a skillful presenter will let the audience know early in the speech that all the data will be available afterwards. That way audience members won’t be madly taking notes and missing what the presenter has to say.

Our Top 10 Color Picks:
Try these combos in your next presentation.

The basic rule of matching a dark background with bright type is generally sound advice. But presentation graphics are contextsensitive, especially in business settings. Organizations have “color personalities” to which designers must be sensitive. To complicate matters, most presentations involve more than just type on a background. Charts and graphs are often present, and themselves may have to incorporate several colors to make their points. Some of our choices at right are on the serious side—more suitable for corporate settings—while others are intended to pump up the energy.