How to present in English

I love the typeface “Helvetica” I love its simplicity, its clarity and the way it always looks modern. Anyone who has been a member of any of my audiences will know that most of my presentations are filled with slides using Helvetica.

One of the problems you may experience when you present in English is that you are probably not aware of of the many different fonts out there. I wrote recently on the different fonts I use and why and in what circumstances I use them, but when it comes to a straight forward presentation, where the goal is to present information in a simple, memorable way, then Helvetica wins all the time.

Helvetica, in my opinion, looks best black on white (as in the image above), but it also looks great white on black.

Helvetica is such an iconic font, that they even made a movie about it. Here’s the trailer for the movie

Here are some tips when using Helvetica:

• Keep words to a minimum (Helvetica looks great with only a few words)

• Combine big letters with small ones (see above illustration)

• Use simple colours with simple backgrounds

• Spread letters out in your big sized words

• Use the whole Helvetica family

So next time you are thinking about your presentation. I say … go with Helvetica