How to Make Google Slides Look Good & Professional! *full tutorial*

Summary

This tutorial offers a comprehensive guide to revamping Google Slides presentations for a professional look. It showcases how to enhance slides with full-screen images, cropping, and adjusting brightness and contrast for visual impact. The presenter demonstrates adding text boxes, choosing fonts like Poppins for clarity, and using lines and drop shadows for a modern touch. Tips include using slidesgo.com for templates, pexels.com for stock photos, and flaticon.com for icons to avoid a cookie-cutter appearance. The tutorial also advises on aligning text, using transparent boxes for readability, and customizing bullet points with shapes and colors for a dynamic presentation.

Takeaways

• 🎨 To enhance the visual appeal of Google Slides presentations, consider using full-screen images and adjusting their brightness and contrast.
• 📸 Utilize royalty-free stock photo websites like Pexels to find high-quality images for your slides.
• 🔍 Customize slide backgrounds by using images as backgrounds and applying effects like brightness and contrast adjustments.
• 📝 For title slides, use large, bold fonts to make the title stand out and consider adding a line or shape to complement the title.
• 💡 Implement drop shadows to titles or text to make them 'pop' more on the slide.
• 🖊️ Choose fonts like Poppins for a modern look and ensure text contrasts well with the background for readability.
• 📑 Use transparent rectangles or shapes behind text to enhance readability and give a clean, professional look.
• 📈 To make bullet points more engaging, consider using icons and highlighting key information in different colors.
• 🌐 Search for relevant icons on websites like Flaticon to add visual interest and convey information quickly.
• 📐 Maintain a balanced and aligned layout to ensure your slides look neat and professional.
• 🍽️ For food-related presentations, use images of street vendors or popular dishes to connect with the audience and make the content relatable.

Q & A

What is the main issue the speaker is trying to address with their presentation?

The speaker is trying to address the issue of making Google Slides presentations look more professional and visually appealing to leave a better impression on the audience.

What website does the speaker recommend for Google Slides templates?

The speaker mentions Slidesgo.com as a website where you can get PowerPoint or Google Slides templates.

What is the speaker's approach to creating a presentation without using templates?

The speaker prefers to create everything from scratch, starting with a full-screen background image and adjusting its brightness and contrast to make the text pop.

Where does the speaker source their stock photos and videos from?

The speaker sources their stock photos and videos from Pexels.com, a free royalty-free stock photo website.

What adjustments does the speaker make to the background image to enhance the presentation?

The speaker lowers the brightness to -25 and increases the contrast to +20 to make the background image pop and complement the text.

What font does the speaker use for the title slide and why?

The speaker uses the font Poppins for the title slide because it is bold and makes the title stand out against the background.

How does the speaker enhance the title text to make it more prominent?

The speaker enhances the title text by making it big, bold, and adding a drop shadow to make it pop against the background.

What is the speaker's strategy for presenting bullet points in a visually appealing way?

The speaker's strategy is to use colored text, insert shapes behind the text, and highlight key points to make bullet points stand out.

Where does the speaker find icons to include in the presentation?

The speaker finds icons at flaticon.com, which offers both free and paid licensing options.

How does the speaker ensure consistency in the presentation design?

The speaker ensures consistency by copying and pasting formatting styles, such as fonts and lines, across different slides.

What is the speaker's final recommendation for making a presentation more engaging?

The speaker recommends using vibrant colors, contrasting elements, and visually appealing designs to make the presentation engaging and easy to read.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Enhancing Google Slides Presentation

The speaker begins by addressing the common issue of dull presentations using Google Slides and proposes a solution. They introduce themselves as a guide to help viewers improve the visual appeal of their slides, making them more professional. The tutorial focuses on creating a presentation about Indonesia, starting with a title slide. The speaker suggests using a full-screen image from Pexels, a free stock photo website, to enhance the background. They demonstrate how to adjust the image's brightness and contrast to make the title stand out. The title is then added using the Poppins font, with adjustments for size and boldness. A line is drawn beneath the title, and a drop shadow effect is applied for a modern look. The speaker's name is added in a smaller font below the title line, and the slide is compared to a basic template to show the improvement.

05:02

🌟 Creating a Vibrant and Engaging Slide

The speaker continues by discussing the second slide, which contains fun facts about Indonesia. They aim to make the text more engaging by using a transparent rectangle to overlay text for better readability. The contrast between the dark background and light text is emphasized. The speaker then copies the background image and style to the next slide, adjusting the text size and spacing to avoid a boring list. They introduce the concept of using shapes and icons to highlight key points, adding a paw print icon from flaticon.com to emphasize the fact about endangered animals. The speaker shows how to recolor the icon to match the presentation's color scheme, creating a cohesive and visually appealing slide.

10:02

🍽️ Showcasing Indonesian Cuisine

In the third paragraph, the speaker focuses on the final slide, which is about Indonesian favorite foods, particularly street vendors. They search for a street vendor image on Pexels and incorporate it into the slide, adjusting the brightness and contrast. The speaker then adds images of specific Indonesian dishes, such as Nasi Goreng, and uses boxes and lines to organize the content. They emphasize the importance of maintaining a balanced and visually appealing layout, ensuring that the presentation's design is consistent and engaging. The speaker concludes by comparing the old, boring slides with the new, vibrant ones, highlighting the transformation and improvement in the presentation's overall appearance.

15:03

📢 Wrapping Up the Presentation Tutorial

The speaker concludes the tutorial by summarizing the changes made to the presentation and emphasizing the visual improvements. They encourage students to apply these techniques for better presentation outcomes and invite viewers to watch a previous video on presentation advice for students. The speaker reminds viewers to like and subscribe for more content and teases the next video, leaving the audience with a positive impression of the enhanced presentation skills they can acquire.

Keywords

💡Google Slides

Google Slides is a web-based presentation application that allows users to create and edit professional presentations online. In the context of the video, Google Slides is the primary tool used to create engaging and visually appealing slides. The script describes how to enhance the default templates of Google Slides to make presentations stand out.

💡Templates

Templates in the video refer to pre-designed layouts provided by Google Slides or other resources like Slidesgo.com. These templates are a starting point for creating presentations, but the video encourages users to customize and create their own designs to avoid a 'cookie cutter' look.

💡Stock Photos

Stock photos are pre-taken photographs available for use typically through subscription services or royalty-free websites. In the video, the presenter uses a stock photo website, Pexels.com, to find an image of Indonesia for the presentation's title slide, emphasizing the importance of high-quality visuals in presentations.

💡Brightness and Contrast

Brightness and contrast adjustments are editing techniques used to manipulate the lighting and sharpness of an image. The video script describes lowering the brightness and increasing the contrast of the background image to make the text pop, illustrating the importance of these adjustments in creating visually appealing slides.

💡Cropping

Cropping is the process of cutting parts of an image to fit a specific aspect ratio or to focus on a particular subject. The script mentions cropping the image to fit the slide and to emphasize certain elements, showcasing how cropping can be used to enhance the visual impact of a slide.

💡Fonts

Fonts refer to different textual appearances used in digital documents. The video mentions using the font 'Poppins' for the title to make it bold and noticeable. The choice of font is crucial in presentations as it affects readability and the overall aesthetic.

💡Drop Shadow

A drop shadow is a visual effect that gives the impression of depth by adding a shadow beneath an object. In the video, the presenter adds a drop shadow to the title text to make it 'pop' more, demonstrating a technique to enhance text visibility and attractiveness.

💡Bullet Points

Bullet points are used in presentations to list key information in a concise manner. The video script discusses making bullet points stand out by using different formatting techniques, such as changing text color and adding shapes, to avoid the dullness often associated with lists.

💡Icons

Icons are small graphical representations used to convey specific ideas or actions. The video mentions using icons from flaticon.com to highlight key points in the presentation, such as using a paw print icon to emphasize the fact about endangered animals in Indonesia, adding visual interest and clarity.

💡Contrasting Colors

Contrasting colors are used to make elements stand out against each other, typically a light color on a dark background or vice versa. The video script describes using contrasting colors to ensure the text is easily readable against the background image, a key principle in design for readability.

💡Visual Appeal

Visual appeal refers to the attractiveness of a visual presentation. Throughout the script, the presenter focuses on making the slides visually appealing by using vibrant colors, clear images, and well-structured layouts, which is essential for capturing and maintaining the audience's attention.

Highlights

Using Google Slides for presentations can be enhanced by customizing templates.

Slidesgo.com offers free Google Slides templates.

Creating presentations from scratch can lead to more personalized results.

Pexels.com is a resource for free, royalty-free stock photos and videos.

Full-screen images can make title slides bold and engaging.

Adjusting image brightness and contrast can enhance the background of slides.

Using large, bold fonts can make text stand out against dark backgrounds.

Adding a simple line or shape can give a modern look to slides.

Drop shadows can make text pop on slides.

Customizing the font and size can improve readability and aesthetics.

Using a brief synopsis can help set the context for the presentation.

Inserting a transparent box can improve text readability against complex backgrounds.

Highlighting key points in bullet points can draw attention to important information.

Using icons from flaticon.com can add visual interest to slides.

Recoloring icons can help them blend with the slide's color scheme.

Spacing and aligning elements evenly can create a balanced look.

Using street vendor images can add local flavor to food-related slides.

Cropping images to fit the slide layout can improve visual consistency.

Copying and pasting formatting can save time when creating multiple slides.

Comparing before and after slides can demonstrate the impact of customization.

For students seeking presentation advice, additional resources are available.

Encouraging viewers to like and subscribe for more content.

Transcripts

so you have a presentation coming up and

you're using Google slides and your

presentation looks really really boring

and by boring I mean it's literally

going to be the cookie cutter like

Google Slides really boring white and

black template right well look no

further because I'm here to help you

guys out on how to essentially make your

slides look better more professional and

just get a better impression from

everybody whether it's a college

presentation a work presentation now I'm

using Google slides in particular so not

to be mistaken with PowerPoint and

without further Ado let's just jump

right in so just a preview here this is

going to be my Google slides and I am

doing this presentation on my you know

home country Indonesia right I have

three slides so I have the title slide

and I'm gonna have fun facts about

Indonesia here so just four bullet

points very very easy and simple and I'm

gonna have uh Indonesian loved Foods

right so these are like foods that we

love I'm Indonesian and I love these

Foods myself so the first approach I

want to talk about is um this website

called slidesgo.com now slides go they

kind of give you like PowerPoint or

Google Slides templates but for me for

today I'm feeling a little challenged

kind of want to step away from templates

and kind of make everything from scratch

so here this photo here I grabbed it

from a website called pexels.com

pexels.com is essentially where I get

all my stock photos and videos If you

guys don't know yet um this is a free

royalty free

um stock photo website so I'm just gonna

I typed in Indonesia earlier but I'm

just gonna type it in again and

essentially this is the first one that I

grabbed um first photo here I just

thought it looks kind of cool what I

enjoy doing in terms of doing PowerPoint

presentations or you know Google Slides

presentations I like my title slide to

be bold like I like the image to be full

screen I don't know it's just me but I

really enjoy it if I do make this photo

full screen I know I could make this

into the background but I am just going

to essentially drag this photo here

um I can like this looks good and I

could definitely crop this photo as well

so I want to crop it so it it kind of

fits the uh

the boom there you go and I could always

like drag it up and down right in terms

of like how I want to slide this photo

so I could always change the format here

so I could always recolor this uh image

if I ever want to recolor it I just have

like brightness adjustments right so I

could literally lower down the

brightness and what I like to do is I

usually like to lower down the

brightness and kind of up the contrast a

little bit so it kind of pops and I'm

lowering down the brightness to you know

negative 25. I'm upping the contrast to

maybe about plus 20 and you can see

already that it's it's giving that like

pop color for this background right now

for this title I'm just going to get rid

of this

um and I am going to actually insert a

text box

and I'm going to make it the title which

is Indonesia right so whoops did not

mean to paste that okay so here is

Indonesia

I'm going to make this font to be big

big and bold right you can see now why I

darkened the you know the background

color or the background image because

when I turn this up you can see how it

looks very very vibrant and it looks it

just it just contrasts it's a nice

contrast between the dark and the and

the light color here so you get the

whole picture here of you know the

Indonesian you know the boat and the

nice background the sunset or Sunrise

whatever it is and you get this nice um

text of Indonesia right like it catches

the eye I chose this font it's called

Poppins uh it's you know right here

Poppins there's different you know types

there's extra bold bold um I'm just

gonna do

I'm actually gonna do both the Bold

looks the Bold looks nice and I'm just

gonna insert a line you know nothing

wrong with the line right like I'm just

going to draw a simple line like this

and I'm going to make it about four or

maybe three pixels uh three pixels uh

thick make it white again as you as you

see here and boom it already kind of has

a nice simple and modern uh look to it

right

um what I can do here as well is I can

also do a drop shadow which kind of

makes it pop even more so you can change

the transparency over here so going to

the left means more Shadow I'll just do

like a you know a nice uh nice 30 over

here

um distance I could make it a little bit

popping like five and a blur radius I

kind of want it to be like a soft ten so

that looks good that that to me looks

really good I could you know apply the

same thing here five ten and I believe

transparency was about like 20. I wanna

I wanna add like you know buy me right

obviously I made this presentation I'm

just gonna put my first name last

initial

drop the font all the way to probably

like 30 just right here fits perfectly

right under this line right here

boom right that works perfectly so I

could kind of scoot this line a little

bit up

over here move it like this

and then boom okay so it looks already

10 times better in my opinion than the

original

boom right this is like boring this is

black and white very very boxy you know

images just like randomly here slapped

on right this one is like wow you really

get a nice like vibrant picture too in

the back right what I probably want to

do is I'm going to add a little text box

and I just you know just just a brief

synopsis of my what my presentation is

about right I'm just gonna you know like

uh think of this from my head I'm just

gonna type in we will you know uncover

the beautiful islands and

um traditions of

my beloved country Indonesia but there

are many hidden gems and secrets located

within the heart of Indonesia boom so we

again put this here

I am going to stick with the same font

so I'm going to go with Poppins and then

I'm going to do a medium here so I I

could definitely put this like down here

you see how it's kind of like

I don't know kind of a little bit hard

to see I'm just gonna insert a you know

a shape here I'm going to insert a

rectangle and I'm going to make this

color

um black oops

did not want to do that let's go over

here and

add a custom color here you see so if I

had a custom color here I could change

the transparency I can make it a little

bit dark like kind of like this

right

um make it black cool so now we have

this transparent box here in the back

which perfectly fits if we actually move

this a little bit to the back send

backward boom so now we have this nice

box for the text that I just wrote and

it will literally just fit right in here

and if the color is ever too it's still

hard to read you could always change the

color here to uh make it more you know

more

opaque whoa so here you go so here's

what we have now

and here's what we have before same

photo same title same name but obviously

different

um

you know this is more vibrant I I really

like this one better than this one so

that's already how you make a nice title

slide in my opinion

so again uh I kind of like I like this

photo a lot so I'm gonna copy that I'm

going to bring it over here again I

grabbed that from pixels

um again if you you could grab your own

photo or

um go to Google images or whatever your

resource is again I like to make this

big

so again grabbing this grabbing the

style that I have here I'm gonna paste

it and do a fun facts about Indonesia so

I'm going to shrink this again shrink

string shrink

now here's what I like to do right like

fun facts about and Indonesia is like my

main subject here right so I don't know

like graphic designers love this a lot I

you know I do this a lot with my

thumbnails and everything I just like to

make this part like stand out a little

bit bigger so it's like this right

um in terms of line spacing I could

always like change it so if it seems

like it's too um

how do you say it's too like far apart

from each other because you see how

there's a lot of like a big gap here I

could even cut this right make another

and just paste it here or I guess copy

paste this right and then do Indonesia

here

and then I'm going to just make this

bigger like I did earlier

and now check this out I could drag this

up here and get rid of that Gap that I

have earlier so here you go now I have

four bullet points here and a general

rule for me for bull points is bullet

points or lists are they're pretty

boring right you kind of want to make it

like I don't know stand out I guess

so what I want to do here is essentially

I want to insert a little shape

like us like a rectangle right

boom like this and I'm gonna make it

like I I'm gonna try to make it equal

distance to each other so let's see up

there you go so what I like about Google

Slides like they kind of like make stuff

equidistant

and now I want to make them the dark

color that I did so now I have here I

have four boxes right oh this I just

realized this one has a really ugly

stroke I don't want that yeah there you

go so I I want to get rid of that line

two

uh in that case I'm Gonna Bump back the

transparency down a little bit just a

little bit like this okay

so again like I said bullet points

boring no no no no no I don't want no

bullet points there

um and what I'm gonna do instead is

actually

go take a look at these texts right I'm

going to insert the text box here so I'm

literally going to just essentially do

the same thing I've been doing again and

again and again

and I'm going to kind of Center it

because you know it's I don't want it to

be centered make the text color white oh

sorry that's not text color I don't know

what I'm doing text color white there

you go I like to highlight my key points

here so Indonesia is home to over a

hundred endangered animals right 100

endangered animals is probably what is

interesting to me so I'm going to change

this color to Yellow right just so it

kind of sticks out right

uh I could even bought this too like

this right so now I have Indonesia's

home to over 100 endangered animals now

what I really like to do is to add icons

I get my icons from flat icon.com

there's some free licensing paid

licensing uh I I just I go here for all

my accounts so I'm just gonna type an

animal right well it comes out as animal

well this paw print comes up right and

it seems to be pretty nice so I'm going

to copy this paw print here it's from

free pick this is a free for personal

commercial use with attribution

um you know if you're not going to

publicize this I mean you could you

could you could put attributions later

on in the very end of the slide right so

here I have this icon here

it's black

I'm going to do a recolor make it white

if you do a negative it kind of just

flips the uh black and white now you can

already see how this how I'm going to

lay this out right so I'm going to have

a box here icon here text here along

with the highlighted key point

okay so there you go I am going to

change this actually I could kind of

squeeze this out a little bit yeah there

you go okay

boom now you see how suddenly the

presentation looks a little bit more

less template and cookie Cuttery right

this looks good and I'm not using any

templates like I said I've just did this

from scratch you know that you see me

you know doing this and this from

scratch

this looks great I I believe like if you

come up to the stage and you present

like this this is like a clean and nice

modern presentation right it has

contrasting colors it has you know

things that pop off things that pop out

it's not hard to see it's not hard to

read

so let's move on to the third slide here

and then usually love Foods right you

kind of have to make a connection of

what is going on with your

um with your PowerPoint or with your

slides so Indonesian love Foods I

believe that the best foods in Indonesia

from personal experience is going to be

Street vendors right so I'm going to

type in street vendor

here

and boom you just have a street vendor

here I'm just going to copy this image

and I don't know no one's Really Gonna

know like the background and stuff right

like

I'm gonna paste in here copy it here

again do the same cropping trick I again

like I said I know you can uh definitely

for sure change the

what is it called you could change it so

it's the background I know I know don't

yell at me

I am just

here to do my stuff okay again turn

brightness down

um and

contrast up right and I want to grab

these photos so this is Nasi Goreng

which is the

loved beloved uh food item so I'm gonna

again grab the box I'm gonna Post in

here and this one I could kind of just

stretch it out like kind of like this

right and then the title for Nasi Goreng

I'm just going to steal my name here

again there's a lot of copy pasting but

you know that's what I like about it

because you could definitely

um you don't have to keep formatting

everything right so Nasi Goreng love

this put this here

and then I'm going to again I'm going to

steal this I want to actually steal this

line right here

steal this line move this back sorry for

moving you

steal this line here put this over here

underneath Nasi Goreng you can see

already where I'm gonna go with this

and then

and I am going to steal this and put

this over here

and I am going to title it Indonesian

loved Foods or I don't know Indonesian

favorite

Foods

okay boom there you go put this right

there there's nothing going I want to

make sure it's left aligned

okay perfect and now I can just again

like I said there's a lot of copy paste

but bear with me here we are going to

copy paste this and I am going to grab

this

over here and paste so Ctrl shift V it

keeps the formatting I should have done

that earlier I don't know why I didn't

but

boom there you go

looking nice looking great and the

second one I'm just going to slap this

right on right here but I don't like how

they're you know side you know top top

and bottom like this right

you can't change it up a little bit you

gotta like put it over here you know and

then I'm going to copy this paste it

here

I'm going to have this is a different

height which kind of bugs me but that's

okay we could we could deal with that

right or should we make it the same

height okay we'll make it the same

height because I'm you know I try to

make this look very very nice and

balanced and such okay I don't like how

it's getting stretched so

we're gonna go over here we're gonna

make it big here we're gonna crop this

to that size boom and then now we place

it here you see

so now this is back the same size

copy this and paste it

you're gonna drag it down over here

boom

I guess I'll do saute okay so there you

go I mean just have a look at this right

uh let me first change this

color because I wanted to pop again

okay so you can see here these are the

old Google Slides presentations right

you got you know the boring Indonesia

here boring fun facts

you know boring

you know Indonesian love Foods whatever

to the lo and behold the new one which

is again vibrant it pops contrasting

colors very easy to read

you know all this boxes with icons and

it's again very very visually appealing

right and again this is the Indonesian

favorite foods that I've you know put

together so again comparison

boom boom boom and comparison and

comparing it with boom boom boom I I

would best believe that the last three

slides are much much better and more

vibrant so with that being said I hope

you guys enjoyed this tutorial and the

outcome of the presentation slides if

you are a student and you're actually

looking for presentation advice then

feel free to click this video right here

that I've made before on presentation

advice tips and hacks to get you a good

grade if you enjoyed the video don't

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