You can spend weeks, and months, and years reading and re-reading books and blog posts and articles on presentation design. But when it comes time to create your next presentation, how do you keep all that great information in your head all at once?

Michael Pollan simplified the incredibly complex answer to the question “What should I eat?” in his book, In Defense of Food:

1. Eat Food
2. Not Too Much
3. Mostly Plants

Dave Ramsey helps people become wealthy with his 7 Baby Steps:

1. $1,000 in Emergency Fund
2. Debt Free Except the House (Debt Snowball)
3. 3-6 Months of Expenses in Emergency Fund
4. 15% of Income to Retirement
5. College Funding for Children
6. Pay Off Home Early
7. Build Wealth and Give

So what would a list of presentation design rules look like?

Here’s are some I came up with for the design phase. (Maybe I’ll do content development and delivery in another post.)

1. One Idea Per Slide
2. Eliminate Text
3. Avoid Cliches (Templates, Clipart, Etc.)
4. Show (Not Tell)
5. Choose Harmonious Images
6. Choose Colors Well
7. At Most 2 Fonts (Maybe 3)
8. Fight For Whitespace