I give lots of presentations at conferences, and I often receive presentation templates that the organizers would like me to use so that there’s consistent visual branding. The templates specify color schemes, the title page layout, and some of the other text slide layouts as well, including the background and the conference logo.

While I’m glad that the templates can help bullet-ridden presentations be a little more visually attractive, the suggested style almost never goes with the creative presentation styles I use. Whether I’m using full-bleed images, simple text, or hand-drawn stick figures, nothing I use quite fits into the formal confines of a typical conference template.

I finally figured out how to think about the presentation template, though. For the presentation I just finished making, I kept the title slide of the conference. Then I took the color scheme and the gradient from the top part of the title page, and I made the rest of the slides have a similar feel. Tada! Something that will probably get along well with the rest of the presentations, but that I had fun making. =)

The actual presentation will have at least five stories, and will probably end up with even more.

And I did all of that without a Mac or a beret! ;)