Creating a Stunning Title Slide for Your Presentation

Whether it is a marketing or an educational presentation, you would always want that every bit of the presentation leads to the core message it wants to deliver to its audience. Every creator wants to create that powerful presentation that reaches out to its viewers and engage them throughout. For that, they focus on every slide of the presentation, but most of the creators make a mistake. They overlook the importance of the first, or we say the title slide, which ultimately leads the presentation to a failure.

The title slide of a presentation is the very first slide that appears in front of the audience before any other content from the presentation does. As the name suggests, the title slide displays the name of the topic upon which the content of the presentation is based.

Most of the creators have this misconception that the audience does not care about the first slide but only the content of a presentation. To an extent it is true, but when you are presenting in front of a huge crowd until you start your presentation, it is the first slide of the presentation that is visible to the audience. Also, if you are simply sharing your presentation online, it is the cover of the presentation that will encourage the users to open the presentation and go through it. If it is not attractive or looks informative, forget that anyone would be interested in even opening it. So one has to be careful while creating the title slide such that the audience becomes curious about the content of the presentation.

A title slide must include the following:

• Title of presentation (You can also add a subtitle)
• Your name
• Your contact details (may include email address, Twitter account, website, etc.)
• Company/Organisation/Institution logo

So the title slide is simply a cover, that represents and markets your presentation, you as well as your organisation.

Tips to follow to build an effective title slide:

1) Do not Stuff the Slide: Though you need to add most of your details on the title slide, try not to stuff it with unnecessary content. The presentation must only contain the above-mentioned details, i.e. the title of the presentation, the name of the creator/presenter, call to action, and the name of the organisation it is representing. Everything must be sorted in a way that each element of the slide attracts equal attention of the audience.

2) Decide Which Part of the Title Slide You Want to Focus On: There are a few methods to create a presentation title slide, such that a particular part is more focussed than the rest. The following are those different styles for creating a cover for a presentation:

• The Logo Slide: The logo slide is the one, which has all its focus on the logo of the organisation the presentation is representing. This method is purely focussed to market the brand name of the representing organisation.
• The Big Question Slide: The big question (in the title) is to make the audience curious about the answer that the presentation would be giving by the end, and lead them to explore the whole presentation. Though presentations are to give the answers, asking the question can also gain more user engagement.
• The Introductory Slide: The introductory slide can be one of the attracting element for the audience, as it will contain all your information. All you need to do is write about yourself, ask a proactive question, and include a compelling fact on the first slide. This will encourage the audience to go further to know more about you and the presentation.
• The Roadmap Slide: You can create a roadmap for the presentation content, using how, when, and why, in the title of a presentation. This again ignites the curiosity in among the audience they stay there to know all the answers.

3) Use of Visuals and Animation: Visuals and animations are the creator’s best friend, so why not use them to create the first slide of the presentation. You can animate the elements on the presentation and use different transitions to make it look attractive and engage the audience. A simple tip that you need to follow is to make use of relevant images, preferably as a background for the title slide, or for the information you are sharing on that very slide.

4) Get a Better Grip on the Space Available on the Slide: The first slide of the presentation is responsible for holding a lot of information. So you must be aware of how to use the space on the slide for writing this particular information. You must divide the slide space in a manner, such that each of the information is capable of drawing the attention of the audience.

5) The Title: It’s quite obvious that while creating the title slide, we will focus more on the title of the presentation. The title should be written in one of the following ways so that it draws the attention of the audience and convince them to go through the whole presentation:

• Promise Some Benefits: The title of your presentation must provide the audience with the reason why they should go through your presentation. The title must give them the evidence that by the end of the presentation, they will get their desired information.
• Make the Audience Curious: This is the only thing you want to do to make your audience curious about the topic your presentation is representing. So you need to create a title, which is mysterious and provokes the audience, such that it pays more attention to the presentation.
• Promise a Story: Storytelling has always been beneficial for every creator and speaker. So here, too, you need to playfully make a title that promises a story to the audience. To make the promise real, you must add some real-life example in the presentation.
• Make the Use of Numbers: For creating an impactful presentation title, you can add numbers to it. For example, ‘5 Tips’ or ‘7 Strategies’. These numbers make the audience interested in those ‘5’ tips or the ‘7’ strategies, and this way, they go through the whole presentation.

If you give a little attention to the first slide of a presentation, the audience is already half impressed, as they get to know that you have put great efforts for creating the whole presentation. Most of the times, the first impression is truly the last.