Sorry about that deadline.

I spend most of my time here posting about how great presentation design is and how much I love it, but in the spirit of fairness I want to post about something that I don’t like about it for a change. This blog is really about me learning what this presentation design stuff is all about anyway, so there’s bound to be some negative mixed in with all of the awesomeness. The negative thing is a realization I’ve had recently.

Clients don’t come to you until they’re in a hurry.

Over the past few months I’ve been trying to get experience in presentation design to develop my skills and begin building a portfolio of work. In trying to get started, I’ve accepted pretty much every opportunity to do slide work for anyone who would let me. I’ve done some for work, I’ve talked with the preachers at my church and I’ve even spoken to some friends who have businesses that might need marketing materials and such. And in the projects that have ensued I’ve noticed that most people don’t start thinking about their slides early enough. In fact for most, it’s an afterthought. It’s step eleven of a ten step process for preparing for their speech. And so I find myself getting calls for help on presentations at the last minute, with only a few days, and sometimes hours, turnaround time.

Should I have seen this coming? Yeah probably. I guess I’d expected it, but I thought maybe it would be the exception, not the rule.

It makes sense, actually, considering the way many people (including me in the past) approach creating slides; basically a well decorated outline. It didn’t require any more thought than just formally typing up my main points and picking a good template. Which isn’t to say that this approach isn’t appropriate some of the time. But for more important presentations, this simply doesn’t leave you or your designer enough time to do what ought to be done.

If you’re thinking of using a designer to improve your slides, you have to understand that it’s going to take him or her some time to understand what your message is and then to design images and charts that convey that message as effectively as possible. The thinking and brainstorming alone can be very time consuming to do properly, let alone the execution of producing those graphics. Thus, the better you want them to be, the more lead time required.

The good news is that once you realize this is the case there are ways to make things better for both parties.

Clients – Try to give your designer as much time as you can to work on your deck. Factor the slide design process into the time needed to prepare your presentation. If you hand your stuff off to him or her at the last minute, you’ll be getting rushed work and that degrades the quality of the finished product in any discipline.

Designers – Get used to working with people who are under a tight deadline. As much as you’d like to have three weeks or three months to work on something, unfortunately sometimes people don’t find out they’re giving presentations until very close to when it’s due. Just accepting that this is the case has helped me mentally prepare to deal with the kind of pressure that comes from working with people who are running out of time. If you expect this to be the case, it won’t make you nearly as crazy and it will be a pleasant surprise when it doesn’t happen.

On second thought, this may not be such a bad thing after all. Designers could (should?) seize the opportunity to cash in on their client’s desperation by charging more for quicker turnarounds and rush jobs. This, in turn, would incentivize clients to get work submitted sooner to avoid having to pay more. In that case designers should still mentally prepare for the stress of a deadline, but perhaps the promise of higher compensation would make the tension a little easier to bear.

Image Credit: Barbara L. Hanson / CC BY 2.0