PowerPoint™ design.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What do your professional PowerPoint presentations cost?

  As with all of our services, "it depends." We price on a project-by-project basis, taking into consideration several key factors, such as project scope, complexity, and delivery timeline. However we can help in 4 distinct ways:

  1. Presentation Makeover: Send us your ugly slides and we'll make them beautiful, designing a custom template that reflects your brand and your colors, and is compatible with your presentation environment. No text or content changes. Priced per slide with minimum quantity.
  2. Presentation Distillation: Send us verbose slides and we'll distill the text to keywords, graphics, animations and illustrations in a custom template that reflects your brand and colors, and is compatible with your presentation environment. Priced per slide with minimum quantity.
  3. Presentation Building: Send us notes, an outline, or a manuscript of your presentation and we'll provide Distilled slides to enhance what you have to say, and then adjust it as you refine your presentation. Priced as a time and materials project.
  4. Presentation Partner: We'll work hand-in-hand in your "war room" (rehearsal environment) to build your presentation on site or virtually, help you rehearse and become familiar with the flow and pacing, and adjust it as we go. If you give recurring presentations, we can build a slide library, stock slides for basic concepts you need to convey frequently. If you wish, we can travel with you to the presentation venue and handle all the technical details so you only have to worry about giving your message to your audience. Priced as a time and materials project.
• What are presentations? Why PowerPoint?

  A presentation is a mode of communication when a live speaker (you, the presenter) is talking to an audience. The audience can be a single person or a group. It can be at a cafe table, in a board room, a conference room, an auditorium, or a webinar, with unlimited attendees. 

  PowerPoint is just one of many presentation graphic software applications that is designed to provide visuals to support the speaker’s words. A well-crafted PowerPoint slide deck + a well-rehearsed presenter provides two of the three learning modes, auditory (the speaker) and visual (the images). Because PowerPoint is everywhere, part of Microsoft Office, we specialize in building custom PowerPoint slide decks for presenters in any venue.

  In our book, PowerPoint is a "Swiss Army Knife®" of visual design software. We've used it for everything from preparing stills for video to running an entire film festival. And it's great for speaker support too.

• Can you make PowerPoint do all the fancy stuff I've seen in other presentations?

  PowerPoint is amazingly versitle, and yes we can do animations, builds, moving elements and all sorts of tricks (see the demo video, above). And if we can't do it in PowerPoint, we can create a video clip, which is sometimes more reliable, especially if going cross-platform. 

  But about heavy effects, we need to ask "why?" Many times, "less is more," and too much "winky-blink" (as we used to call it in the old slide show days) can get tiring for the audience. We'll help you balance the effects in your presentation.

• Why would I need a professional to do the PowerPoint?

  PowerPoint can be easy to use, but that ease can be deceptive. What looks good on the computer screen with the out-of-the-box templates may not look good in what we call an "adverse environment," in fact they can become a primary distraction. If you've ever had to say, "I'm sorry if you can't read that," you've lost the game. At Advent Media, we take the variables of the venue into consideration to create slides that are easy on the eyes regardless of environment.

  See SlideShare "Why Pay for Professional PowerPoint Services."

• What's the difference between Marketing, Analytical, Strategic and Training presentations?
  • Marketing presentations are for when you’re selling or promoting a product or service. This can be one-on-one, to a selection committee, or to a seminar or conference audience.
  • Analytical presentations convey data in a compelling way, and are used primarily internally in a corporate setting.
  • Strategic presentations either leverage the data found in analytical presentations or present goals or ideas to help an organization plan and grow. These are often interactive, and may include live screen updates or surveys.
  • Training presentations help presenters show people how to do things, how things work, or the concepts behind the process they’re learning.
• I'm afraid the technology won't work when I start my presentation. Can you help?

  Putting on a presentation, especially in a venue where you’ve never worked before, can be stressful. We can help you learn how to connect and run your presentation, or we can come with you on-site to manage the details. For smaller events, we can provide projector, screen and sound, including microphones. For larger events we can work with the in-house AV provider. And, regardless of event size, we can even bring the cameras and record a video that can be distributed online.

  For very large events, we frequently work with local in-house or contracted AV companies to provide staging, sound, lighting and projection and even iMag, We then function as your liaison, directing the show so you can concentrate on your audience..

• Can you insert video and audio clips in my presentation?

  Absolutely. We can insert existing video that you may provide, converting it to compatible formats. We can also produce video and audio to facilitate the& video assets you may need.

  (Note that copyright restrictions may limit what you can insert into a presentation.)

• Aside from PowerPoint, do you work with other software platforms?

  No. We're solely focused on designing PowerPoint presentations due to its robust features and user-base. We have tried other software platforms, but they generally do not have the same level of design customization.

  Also, all the online presentation platoforms have an inherent risk: Wifi at presentation venues can be iffy - what happens if you lose internet connection mid presentation? A PowerPoint file running on an offline local computer has the least risk of failure.

• Does it matter which version of PowerPoint we use? What about Mac vs PC?

  Yes. The latest versions of PowerPoint have new functions and features that won't work in older versions. There are also some differences in functionality between PowerPoint for Mac and PowerPoint for Windows. We'll take note of your tech setup to help ensure the presentation content functions properly.

• What about SlideShare or other online sharing platforms?

  It depends on the platform's features and the file types they accept. For instance, we have put together PowerPoint slides for use on SlideShare. They require slides in the PDF format which by nature precludes animations or any of the other fancy stuff PowerPoint can do. We learned some PowerPoint effects can be mimicked in a SlideShare-compatible PDF, but not all. The same will be true for other online sharing platforms. See SlideShare "Why Pay for Professional PowerPoint Services."

  Of course, if you subscribe to Microsoft 365, PowerPoint itself is an online slide sharing program, and can be a truly collaborative tool for presentations.

• What is your approach to presentation design?

  We've been in this business long enough to know what works and what doesn't. We take a holistic approach to presentations, and that includes the environment - where your audience is located, how big is the screen, what is the lighting, and how good a projector you have. More often that not, those conditions are sub-par and become primary distractions as your audience squints to see things, or it's so bright they need sunglasses. We will be asking about the where and how to design PowerPoint graphics that are easy on the eyes and yet convey the message you need.