6 Color-Choosing Tips to Increase the Visual Appeal of Your Presentation

A bright accent can draw attention to a key number or action. If several colours compete for attention on the same slide, the main message becomes harder to pick out.

Consider Colour Associations

Colour associations depend on the subject, audience and cultural context. Red may signal an alert in one presentation and simply repeat a brand colour in another.

For a financial presentation, start with the organisation’s palette and the information being shown. Blue or green alone will not make the figures more trustworthy.

Highlight Actions with Colour

Bright colours can highlight an action. For a staff-training slide, green and red bullets may distinguish “Do” and “Don’t” examples, but keep those words visible too. Microsoft’s PowerPoint guidance recommends using more than colour alone to convey information.

Give the main takeaway a consistent accent treatment. Reusing that treatment makes it easier to recognise across sections.

Combine Colours with Enough Separation

Warm and cool colours can work together. What matters for text is the difference in lightness between the letters and their background, rather than whether both colours belong to the same group.

Blue and purple can sit together in a palette, but two similarly dark shades may be difficult to read when one is used as text on the other.

Stick with a Single Color Scheme

Keep the same roles for background, body text, headings and accents throughout the presentation. A colour used for a warning on one slide should not mark an ordinary category on the next.

Three or four core colours are a useful starting point, rather than a strict limit. A chart may need additional colours; give categories labels or other distinguishing marks as well.

Improve Text Readability

Place text over an uncluttered area. A photograph or pattern behind the words can change the contrast from one part of a line to another.

Black text on white and white text on a deep navy provide two light–dark starting points.

Check the actual foreground and background values. A colour name such as navy or beige covers many shades, so the names alone cannot establish readable contrast.

Think About Your Company's Branding

Use your company’s palette as the starting point. Follow its presentation template or brand guidelines where they specify logo placement; every slide does not need a logo by default.

Choose text, background and accent roles that work with the brand colours. If a logo colour is too light for small text, keep it as a decorative accent and use a darker text colour.

Example Presentation Colours