Presentations
Partial · gaps shown
A presentation anchors what matters most so that the audience remembers it and can act on it, with slides that support what the speaker says.
Parts of this route are not decided yet.
Where a section is missing, the concept pages hold the rules that apply to everything.
Fixed and yours to adapt
Fixed
Arial, in two weights
Regular 400 for body text and bold 700 for headings, because Arial is the default in Office files wherever Museo Sans is not installed.
Sentence case throughout
Slide titles, headings and labels included, never all caps; abbreviations such as MRI are outside the rule.
The named palette colours and no others
No arbitrary colour, and no "nearly petrol" or slightly lighter orange.
The background is a light sand
Cards and sections can have other colours, and they all sit on top of the sand.
No text below 14px or its equivalent, and contrast that meets WCAG AA
That is 4.5:1 for normal text and 3.0:1 for large text.
Start from the Aleris template
Download the presentation template; Arial, the palette as theme colours and the 16:9 format are already set.
Every slide starts from one of its layouts
Choose New slide and pick a layout, then type into the placeholders and keep their built-in formats.
Colours come from the top row of the theme colours
The lighter and darker shades under it are calculated by PowerPoint and fall outside the palette.
The sender is Aleris
The full logo sits in a corner, with no product, unit or specialist-area name added to it.
No weapons, logos and trademarks, religious symbols, or anything aggressive or alarmist
These motifs are out in every context, however permissive.
Yours to adapt
Museo Sans, when you know it is installed
Use it if it is on the machine the file will be opened on, and otherwise keep to Arial.
The icon style
Outline, solid and duotone are all allowed in presentations, and an icon may illustrate as well as function.
The duotone pair
Duotone keeps to two petrol steps, and the default pair is petrol-500 with petrol-100.
Icons as illustration
An icon can enrich a slide visually: modified, filled with images or used as it is.
A gradient on a heading or an icon
The petrol gradient may fill the heading of the title slide or a section slide, and icons on white, sand and petrol-100 grounds.
Which corner the logo sits in, most often top left or bottom right
Voice
A slide points to what the speaker explains. A heading and one key idea leave the speaker room to explain, add nuance and respond to the room, while ten bullet points make them read out what the audience is already reading.
Open with the purpose and what the audience should take away, order the content by what the audience needs, and close with a concrete next step or a clear conclusion. The tone is the same as in writing: direct, warm and without needless formality.
Do
A slide titled "Seven checks that prevent errors"
The heading carries a message even for someone who is not listening.
Don't
A slide titled "Safe routines"
A category heading carries nothing on its own.
Do
A slide with a heading and one key idea, which the speaker then explains
The audience remembers the idea, and the speaker's knowledge stays with the speaker.
Don't
Raw notes pasted onto a slide as ten bullet points
A slide that is a complete document competes with the presentation instead of supporting it.
Colour
The colours stay the same, and their composition changes with the reader's state, the conditions of the channel and the nature of the content.
Gradients add character where solid petrol or orange would feel heavy. Keep them to petrol or orange, two steps at most, with low-contrast transitions, and use flat colour in charts.
Do
The petrol gradient filling the heading of the title slide, on a white or sand ground
Its light stop clears the 3:1 that large text needs on those grounds.
Don't
The orange gradient filling a heading
Its light stop fails the large-text floor on every Aleris ground.
Do
A chart in flat palette colours
Flat colour reads more clearly in a chart than a gradient does.
Don't
A blue taken from the presentation software's default theme
A colour that is nearly petrol is still an arbitrary colour, and the palette is the brand.
Typography
An internal PowerPoint presentation uses Arial with 400 and 700 as the weight pair. The hierarchy, the accessibility floor, sentence case and at least 8pt between text levels stay as they are everywhere else.
Use few sizes and weights in one presentation. Two or three sizes are usually enough, and a layout that needs more is a sign the structure should be simpler.
Do
A slide title and body text at least 8pt apart
The step between them reads as a deliberate choice.
Don't
A slide title in capital letters
All caps makes the letters uniform, so the eye loses the word shapes that help it read quickly.
Do
Bold for the one phrase that matters most on a slide
Bold 700 has the contrast against regular that italics lack.
Don't
Italics for emphasis
Italics barely stand out from regular, especially at small sizes.
Icons
Workshop decks, internal documents and working material are the presentation context, where the cost of a mistake is low. A patient brochure built in PowerPoint belongs to the patient-facing context, because the rules follow the context the material is used in.
Icons come from one family, Font Awesome Pro, with one style on the same surface. An icon that carries a specific meaning has a label, and a decorative icon in a presentation does not need one.
Do
A petrol gradient icon on a white slide
Its light stop reads 4.09:1 on white, above the 3:1 an icon needs.
Don't
A petrol gradient icon on a petrol slide
On a petrol ground the dark stop reads 1:1, and the icon disappears.
Do
Outline icons in one weight, each with a label, in a patient brochure made in PowerPoint
The brochure is patient-facing material, where icons are functional.
Don't
Decorative duotone icons in the same brochure
Duotone and decoration belong to the presentation context, and the patient reading the brochure is in the patient-facing one.
Asked about presentations
- ColourCan I put an orange button on a petrol background?No. On petrol, the primary action turns white, with petrol text.
- ColourHow many orange buttons can a screen have?One. Other actions are secondary buttons or text links.
- ColourCan I use gradients?Yes, sparingly: petrol or orange, two steps at most, on backgrounds and visual elements, never in charts. Only the petrol gradient may fill text, in h1 and h2, and only the petrol gradient may colour an icon, on white, sand or light petrol.
- TypographyWhat font do I use in PowerPoint or Word, when almost nobody has Museo Sans installed?Arial, with regular 400 for body text and bold 700 for headings.
- TypographyWe need an expressive headline, like "thank you for a wonderful year" — which typeface do we use?Museo Sans: for a large headline, bold 700 at a bigger size, or, as an exception, light 300 at 40px and above.
- IconsCan an icon use a gradient?Yes, the petrol gradient, on white, sand and light petrol grounds, and never on light orange or petrol; no other gradient is used on icons.
- LogoCan I put our unit's name next to the logo?Not inside the logo's clear space, and never added to the logo itself: set your unit's name as text of its own, apart from the logo.
- VoiceHow do I stop text I made with an AI tool from sounding like a chatbot?Read the draft again against the list of AI tells before you send it, and cut what carries no information: enthusiastic openers, mirror sentences, inflated words and closing lines that say nothing.
- StoryWhat may I change for my channel, and what has to stay the same?Keep the character, the palette, the typeface and the hard rules the same. Adapt the register, the order of information, the colour distribution and the level of detail to the channel and the reader.
Check before you present
Where this comes from
Partial · gaps shown Accepted
This route draws on these concept pages, and each holds the full rules and their reasons.