The shape of a great presentation

In this TED-talk presentation expert Nancy Duarte shares what makes a great presentation. She shares the results of her research and provides a great amount of examples what you really need to make your presentation a success.

Max Joseph's Youtube channel

There are only a few creators who produce constantly great stories. Max Joseph is definitely one of them. Use his Youtube channel to discover creative narrative arcs and how to set up storylines.

In addition take a look at his use of moving content and static images and how he uses narration in clever ways.

Pitch.com Template Library

Pitch.com is a Berlin-based startup founded by the creators of Wunderlist with the ambition to rethink presentation software. While their software is very interesting for sure, their template library deserves a honorable mention.

They have created very modern and sleek presentation templates to use in their tool. The advantage is that you can already take a look at all of them without signing up, so you can also get inspired for your own presentations in any other software (nevertheless I suggest playing around with their tool as it is a very refreshing take on presentation software).

Creative Market

Creative Market is a marketplace where all kinds of design resources can be bought and sold. They also have a great collection of presentation templates and a very active community of designers who create new templates on the latest trends on a regular basis.

You can chose to buy a template that you like (they are usually below $50) or you can simply take inspiration from all the various designs that are offered there on the platform.

Slidedocs

Slidedocs are a design framework created by presentation expert Nancy Duarte. This is an attempt to create visually appealing presentations that work not only when they're presented but also when they're read.

The slidedocs framework is presented in a slidedoc itself that you can download for free. 

Google Fonts

Whenever you feel like the standard fonts are not enough, take a look at Google Fonts. Google offers a great variety of fonts that will fit almost any need. 

Google fonts are also quite flexible in terms of their licensing and the fonts come for free. Nevertheless check their licensing agreements in detail when using them commercially. Also be aware that everyone who should use them needs to have them installed. In case you work together with others on your presentation or you need to present your slides from a PC that's not yours this might become an issue.

Adobe Fonts

Similar to Google, Adobe offers a huge selection of fonts. Nevertheless you need to have a Creative Cloud subscription with Adobe to use these fonts in your designs, therefore Google Fonts can be recommended more in general.

One feature though that's very helpful is their "Search by image" tool. Whenever you need to  find a similar font to an existing one, this can be a great resource.

Adobe Color

If you want to generate matching color schemes based on foundational graphic design rules, this tool is for you.

The Adobe color wheel will also help you to get a better understanding on the topic of color harmony and how matching color schemes are created.

Coolors

This is one of the best color palette generators out there at the moment. They also offer a great UX, so by simply pressing Spacebar you can fly through an almost unlimited amount of matching color schemes.

It is especially great that you can add your existing colors into the mix, so it is easy to find also additional colors for an existing color scheme.

Colour Contrast Checker

Whenever you're wondering if your color combinations might still readable in the end it is good to get a neutral third opinion.

Colour Contrast Checker will provide exactly this and will tell you if your colors have enough contrast based on webdesign standards.

Pexels

One of the greatest resources for free images on the internet. On Pexels "amateur photographers" publish their work in the pursuit to share it with the world.

If you look at the pictures though, you will soon realize that these are definitely not taken by amateurs but by people who really know their craft.

You can download all pictures in high resolution and they come with a Creative Commons license, which means that you can use them anywhere as long as you give credit to the author.

Unsplash

Unsplash works similar to Pexels and contains tons of free high-quality images. These pictures also come with a Creative Commons license, so you can use them however you like as you credit the author. 

Unfortunately they have lately introduced Unsplash+, so for some of the pictures they ask you to pay now. There is still a great selection of free images, but this makes the overall experience a little bit less comfortable, which is why Unsplash comes in second after Pexels.com

Craftwork

Craftwork offers a great library of all kinds of design resources and their illustration library is quite uniqe. On top they are quite generous and over a lot of their illustrations for free, so you don't necessarily have to pay.

They provide their illustrations also in several different formats so that you can adapt the colors of their illustrations if you have some basic knowledge in a design tool like Figma or Adobe Illustrator.

If you like their stuff I recommend signing up for their newsletter as they have quite good discounts on their subscriptions every couple of weeks.

humaaans

This is a great illustration library of human characters using a very distinct style. These illustrations can also be customized after downloading so that they will fit your needs for sure. 

Illustrator Pablo Stanley has launched this collection under a creative commons license, so you're also quite flexible on how to use them.

Open Peeps

Besides humaaans there is another library of great human illustrations developed by Pablo Stanley. These illustrations are also free to use and come with a creative commons license.

On top they can be further customized so that you can make them work for any upcoming presentation you might have.

Blob Generator

Sometimes a blob is all you need. This neat little tool will enable you to create great looking blobs in a matter of seconds.

You can customize all the different parameters and use your own color scheme so that they will fit your presentation style perfectly.

Feather Icons

Feathericons is a minimalist and modern icon collection with an amazing UX. Simply select the icon you want and it will download instantly. Additionally, you will receive all the icons as svg-files, which means that you can afterwards change the stroke width and the color in any presentation software.

These icons are also open source, so you can use them without any copyright constraints.

The only shortcomming of Feathericons is the fact that the library is quite limited. So you will find yourself using the same icons over and over.

flaticon

flaticon is probably one of the biggest libraries for digital icons. There is no topic they don't have icons for. Just be careful about styles when selecting icons as they have all sorts of different designs and therefore it is your job to make sure they fit together.

You can download a lot of icons for free (but only as png) and you get additional options when you create a free account, what can be recommended. On top they have a paid version that you would need as soons as you want to use these icons commercially as they don't come with a creative commons license.

Streamline

One of the best icon sources on the internet with a great variety and carefully crafted designs. On top Streamline offers a desktop app and plugins so that you have their icons at hand whenever you need them.

As they are very well aware that they have created something amazing, you can only access 10 icons for free and need to pay afterwards (and while they offer one of the most beautiful icon collections they also offer one of the most expensive collections).

Pexels Video

Similar to their service for photography, Pexels also offers video content contributed by individuals unter a creative commons license to be used for free.

Be careful when using these videos in virtual presentations as usually there is a certain latency and your video might not be streamed as smooth as it appears on your PC.

Giphy

This is the go-to-resource if you want to add imaginative gifs to your presentation. They have a great selection of different assets to use for almost any topic.

Make sure to check licensing agreements when using their Gifs commercially. In addition be careful as soon as you start browsing as you can easily lose an afternoon looking at all their stuf

Moyo Studio

If you need high quality mockups to put digital tools into spotlight, Moyo Studio is the place to go. They offer a great variety of mockups in unique sceneries.

The particular advantage of this resource is that it is not too commonly known and therefore will guarantee a unique touch for your presentations.

MockRocket

If you want to take it one step further and present digital screens not only as static images but also in form of animations or product videos, take a look at MockRocket.

Their tool is very easy to use and comes at $59 for unlimited exports also with a very fair price.

Slide:ology

Nancy Duarte

This is one of must-reads in presentation design. Slide:ology explains step by step how to create great presentations and is full of background knowledge, so you don't only understand what to do but also how to do it.

If you have only time to read one book on presentation design, this is probably the one.

Resonate

Nancy Duarte

After the success of slide:ology, presentation expert Nancy Duarte released resonate as her second book.

While slide:ology is more focused on presentation design in general, resonate dives deeper into Storytelling and explains how to use it in daily life & business.

Storytelling with data

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Even though this book is focused on data design and not specifically on presentation design, it is another must-read if you want to dive more into the world of information design.

This book is very practically oriented and comes with tons of great tipps and tricks on how to create better charts and graphs aswell as general information on how to guide an audience through the information you want to share.

Storytelling with you

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

This is basically Cole's take on the topic of presentation design she released after the great success of Storytelling with data.

Again she delivered with this book which is another great guide summarizing the topics of presentation design & storytelling.

Tell me! (German)

Thomas Pyczak

Tell me! is a great take on Storytelling and how to use it inside of a business context. It comes packed with theoretical knowledge as well as practical tipps on how to hook your audience and tell better stories.

Tell me! is unfortunately only available in German so far.

$100M Offers

Alex Hormozi

This book shouldn't be on this list as it is not a book on presentation design. Nevertheless it is. Why? Because it is one of the best books ever written on offer design and this is what we basically want to achieve with every presentation: an offer to act upon.

With a 4.9 star rating from more than 16.000 reviews on Amazon you can be certain that this book is worth your time.

TimeTimer

Whenever you have an important presentation make sure to know the time. Nobody can guestimate a 30-talk to the second.

If you don't want to use a regular wrist watch or your smartphone, consider using a time timer. This neat little device displays time in the most visual way possible and is therefore a great addition for any presentation

Logitech Presenter

Not using a presenter always comes with the risk of unconsciously hiding behind your laptop. Therefore it is highly recommended to use a presenter whenever possible.

Logitech offers a great range of presenters that all work very reliable and don't require battery changes every other week.

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