Beyond Ugly: 5 Ways DIY Presentation Design Kills Your Credibility

August 20, 2025 By Armen Iskandaryan

In the world of high-stakes business, your presentation is not just a document; it's an economic asset. It's the final vehicle for your brilliant strategy, your game-changing product, or your multi-million dollar "ask." And yet, too often, that powerful message is put into a DIY package that actively undermines its credibility.

Amateur design isn't just about looking unprofessional. It's a strategic liability that can erode trust, create confusion, and cost you the deal before you've even reached your final slide.

At Presentation Studio, our core principle is Strategy Before Style. But once the strategy is set, the style must be its perfect, powerful expression. Here are five common DIY disasters we see - and how to fix them.

1. The Brand Identity Crisis

• The Disaster: The presentation uses a mix of old logos, inconsistent colors, and a random assortment of fonts pulled from different templates. It doesn't look like it comes from the same company as your website or your marketing materials.
• Why It's a Problem: This isn't just a design flaw; it's a trust issue. Inconsistent branding signals a lack of attention to detail and professionalism. For an investor or a major client, it raises a subconscious question: if they can't manage their own brand, can they manage my investment or my project?
• The Professional Fix: Establish a simple brand guide for all communications. Define your primary logo, 2-3 core brand colors, and two complementary fonts (one for headers, one for body text). Consistency is the foundation of a trustworthy brand.

2. The Wall of Text

• The Disaster: The slide is a dense paragraph of text, often copied and pasted directly from a report. The presenter ends up reading the slide directly to the audience.
• Why It's a Problem: When an audience is reading, they are not listening. A wall of text forces your audience to choose between you and the screen, and the screen usually wins. Your message is lost, and your role as a presenter is reduced to that of a narrator.
• The Professional Fix: One idea per slide. Your slides are the billboard, not the full story. Use a powerful headline and a single, concise sentence to convey the core idea. The details and the nuance should come from you, the speaker.

3. Death by Bullet Point

• The Disaster: Every slide is a list of 5-7 bullet points, each one a full sentence. It's a laundry list of features and facts with no clear hierarchy or narrative flow.
• Why It's a Problem: Bullet points are not a story. They are a list. They encourage a flat, monotonous delivery and make it impossible for the audience to identify the most important information. It's a recipe for a presentation that is instantly forgettable.
• The Professional Fix: Find the story. Instead of listing facts, group them into a logical, persuasive argument. Use visuals, icons, and single, powerful data points to support your narrative. If you must use a list, keep it to a maximum of three short points.

4. The Font Frenzy

• The Disaster: The presentation uses multiple, clashing fonts - often a mix of overly decorative or hard-to-read styles like Comic Sans or Papyrus. Text size is inconsistent from slide to slide.
• Why It's a Problem: Poor typography is the visual equivalent of mumbling. It makes your message difficult to consume and signals a lack of professional polish. It creates unnecessary friction for your audience, forcing them to work harder just to understand your points.
• The Professional Fix: Choose two professional, highly readable fonts and stick to them. A common and effective pairing is a strong, sans-serif font for headlines (like Helvetica, Arial, or Lato) and a clean, serif font for body text (like Garamond or Georgia).

5. The Clip Art Catastrophe

• The Disaster: The presentation is littered with low-resolution, outdated, or cheesy clip art and stock photos (e.g., the generic handshake, the team in a circle giving a thumbs-up).
• Why It's a Problem: Poor quality visuals don't just look bad; they actively damage your credibility. They make your entire operation look amateur and out of touch. In a high-stakes environment, this can be a fatal flaw.
• The Professional Fix: Invest in high-quality, professional visuals. This can mean using premium stock photo sites that feature more authentic and modern imagery, or investing in custom illustrations and icons that are unique to your brand. Every image should amplify your message, not distract from it.

Conclusion: Design is the Final Act of Strategy

A powerful presentation is the result of a rigorous strategic process. But the final design is what allows that strategy to be seen, understood, and felt. Avoiding these common DIY disasters is the first step in ensuring that your message is received with the clarity and impact it deserves.

If you are preparing for a high-stakes presentation and want to ensure your design is a powerful and professional expression of your strategy, we can help. Contact us to discuss how we can build your next economic asset.