Presentation Tips: Killer Background Colors for PowerPoint
I remember hearing my classmate asking my Professor (famous Venture Capitalist in UK) this question in the past: “Should I not use white as the background color for my slides? I have come across this website that told me not to…”
What do you think? In fact there is no right or wrong answer. Some PowerPoint experts state that white color slides are too bright and would hurt people’s eyes. On the other hand, BCG Consulting has been telling their consultants to use white color slides for many years in the past. One rationale behind is that it saves your ink by not printing color slides. And, it is easy to incorporate models and graphics in the slide package without worrying about the color matching problem.
I personally do not have a stand on either side. However, what I actually think is that we should choose to use some background colors that reflect our company’s brands. For instance, if the color of your company’s logo is corporate blue, you shouldn’t be choosing the red color as your background.
One more thing to remember for choosing background color is that you should try to stay away from colors that are too bright or too strong. You don’t want to hurt your audience’s eyes. Instead of choosing a darker blue color, choose a lighter blue color as background. It will make it easier to mix and match the light color background with different font color and graphics.
Some people like to choose a strong color as background with white color fonts. This is also an option but I don’t suggest people using a background color that is too strong (e.g. black). Furthermore, keep in mind that you will run the risk of readability problem if the room is not dark enough. Check out the room first if you are going to choose this option.
Finally, for printing, don’t worry about your background color nowadays because you can choose to print “black and white” in the printing option and your background color would not appear at all.
