"Title Slide" - Start with a Bang! - Part 1

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About this lesson

We will create an eye-catching title slide using the title slide layout. Then, we'll create a title slide manually from a blank slide using text boxes and basic shapes.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Slide 1: Title Slide - Start with a Bang!
849 KB Slide 1: Title Slide - Start with a Bang! - Solution
1.9 MB Zen-background.jpg
1.3 MB COMPLETE EXERCISE FILE - The Zen Den.pptx
32.7 MB

Quick reference

Slide 1: Title Slide - Start with a Bang!

Every presentation should start with a bang! Create an engaging title slide to get others interested in the topic using modern design techniques. 

When to use

Every presentation should contain a title slide so the audience or the reader understand the subject matter, the purpose or the goal. 

Instructions

Creating the title slide background

  1. Click the File tab and select New. 
  2. Choose Blank presentation. 

By default, the title slide layout is applied. We want to create a title slide from scratch so we need to change the slide layout to Blank. 

  1. From the Home tab, in the Slides group, click Layout. 
  2. Choose Blank. 
Inserting a background image

Add a high quality image to the slide background. The image might be from an approved company image repository, from an online source or one of your own. Be mindful of copyright prior to using images in a PowerPoint presentation especially if it is for commercial use.

For high quality, free images, refer to lesson '2.02 Resources and Inspiration'. In this presentation, all images have been downloaded to a local folder from the website www.pexels.com. 

  1. From the Insert tab, in the Images group, select Pictures. 
  2. Choose From this device. 
  3. Browse to the folder where the image is stored. 
  4. Select the image and click Insert. 
Cropping and Filling

Most images we insert won't fit the slide size exactly. To avoid stretching or distorting the image by dragging the resize handles, we need to use a technique called Crop and Fill. This ensures that the image will maintain it's aspect ratio. 

  1. Click on the picture. 
  2. From the Picture Format tab, in the Size group, click the lower-half of the Crop button. 
  3. Choose Fill from the menu. 
  4. Drag the black handles that appear around the picture out to fill the white space. 
  5. Click the lower-half of the Crop button again and choose Fill from the menu. 
Using Transparant Shapes

Background images look very effective but it can sometimes be hard for the text on top to stand out. Most images contain a multitude of colors and you may find that both dark and light text get's lost in the background image.

One way to have a nice background image and striking text is to overlay a shape and take the transparancy down so the images shows through but contrast is greatly improved. 

  1. From the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click the lower-hald of the Shapes button. 
  2. Choose the rectangle shape. 
  3. Draw a rectangle over the background image so it completely covers it. 
  4. From the Shape Format tab, in the Shape Styles group, click Shape Fill. 
  5. Choose Purple, Accent 5, Darker 50% from the palette. 
  6. Right-click on the shape. 
  7. Select Format Shape from the contextual menu. 
  8. From the Shape Options tab, in the Fill group, adjust the Transparancy to 27%.  

Hints & tips

  • Think before you start to create a presentation about fonts, color and layout. The title slide will essentially dictate the style of your entire presentation.
  • Remember to check the copyright for all images used in a PowerPoint presentation. 
Login to download
  • 00:04 Now that we've learned some of those essential skills in PowerPoint,
  • 00:07 it's time to start building our own slide deck.
  • 00:10 And the way that this is going to work is that in each lesson of this section,
  • 00:15 we're going to build a different side, and
  • 00:18 we're going to learn different techniques as we go through.
  • 00:21 And we're going to start out with the title slide.
  • 00:24 And what you can see on the screen here, is the title slide in its finished state.
  • 00:29 So this is how I'm going to start each lesson, I'm going to show you, and
  • 00:33 then we're going to walk through together how I created this.
  • 00:36 And I will say because we do have a lot to cover, I am going to be moving reasonably
  • 00:40 quickly, so please pause the video whenever you need to.
  • 00:44 So this presentation that we're creating is for a learning and
  • 00:48 development company called Landco.
  • 00:50 And this is a really young cool modern company, so
  • 00:53 we want our PowerPoint presentation to reflect that style.
  • 00:56 This title slide looks clean, it looks effective, and
  • 00:59 hasn't taken too much effort to achieve.
  • 01:02 So if you want to see how I put this together,
  • 01:04 then carry on watching this video.
  • 01:06 So for all of these lessons I'm going to start from a blank presentation,
  • 01:09 I don't need slide ideas, so let's close down that pane straightaway.
  • 01:13 And you can see that I have some placeholders on here because
  • 01:18 this is a title slide.
  • 01:20 Now whilst I am creating a title slide, I don't really want these placeholders
  • 01:24 because we're going to build one from scratch.
  • 01:26 So let's first of all change our layout just to blank,
  • 01:30 to remove those placeholders.
  • 01:32 The first thing I want to do, is insert a high quality image in the background,
  • 01:38 and the image that our company likes to use is an image of mountains.
  • 01:43 And I showed you in a previous lesson where to go to find really high quality
  • 01:47 resources, so things like images, and all of the images that I'm going to
  • 01:52 be using in this section are from the website pexels.com.
  • 01:55 Now I'm not going to run through the process of downloading,
  • 01:58 because we've already been through that.
  • 02:00 But suffice to say, that I've jumped onto that website,
  • 02:03 I've downloaded the image that I want to use into the Downloads folder on my PC.
  • 02:07 So now when I'm in PowerPoint, I can say insert, and in the images group,
  • 02:12 click the pictures drop down, and I can choose where my image is stored.
  • 02:18 So for me, that is on this device, and
  • 02:20 you can see the image sitting there in my Downloads folder.
  • 02:24 So let's select and click on Insert, to put that image into the presentation.
  • 02:28 Now as usual, design ideas has popped up on the right hand side, and
  • 02:32 I'm not really going to be using that too much.
  • 02:35 So I am going to show you how you can suppress this pane because it does
  • 02:38 get a little bit annoying if you're not using it.
  • 02:42 For the time being, I'm just going to close it down.
  • 02:44 Now what you'll notice about this image that I've inserted, is that it doesn't
  • 02:48 take up the entire slide, I have two white borders running down the outside.
  • 02:53 And people tend to do all kinds of weird and wonderful things,
  • 02:56 in order to get this image to fill the slide.
  • 02:59 One thing that they tend to do is drag these resize handles out,
  • 03:03 which ends up making the image look stretched.
  • 03:06 So let me show you the preferred way of doing this.
  • 03:10 CTRL+Z a couple of times to undo,
  • 03:12 click on the picture, and jump up to the picture format contextual ribbon.
  • 03:18 Over in the size group, we have the crop button and
  • 03:21 from here, you want to select fill.
  • 03:24 That's going to give you those black fill handles around the outside,
  • 03:28 and all you need to do is drag them to fill in the white space.
  • 03:33 Now nothing happens at this moment, it's just going to drag those handles out.
  • 03:38 But once you have them positioned, if you then jump back up to crop,
  • 03:42 clicking on the lower half of the button, and select fill, PowerPoint is going to
  • 03:46 fill that entire space with your image whilst maintaining the aspect ratio.
  • 03:51 So it's not going to look stretched either horizontally or vertically.
  • 03:55 Essentially what it's doing there is a zoom in, so
  • 03:58 you might find that you lose a little bit of picture around the outside.
  • 04:02 But in general, this is a nicer way of doing things.
  • 04:06 If I want to reposition this and show a bit more of the picture, I can.
  • 04:10 Once you're happy with the placement, just click the top half of the crop button,
  • 04:15 to set that fill.
  • 04:16 Now that I have that image on my title slide,
  • 04:19 I could choose to add some text on the top.
  • 04:22 But the problem with that,
  • 04:23 is that when you're using images that are quite high contrast,
  • 04:26 the text can tent to blend into the background, it's not as easily readable.
  • 04:31 If I was using white font, it would blend in with the clouds.
  • 04:34 If I had a darker font, it wouldn't stand out so
  • 04:37 much against the mountain background.
  • 04:39 So a way to get around this is to put a transparency over the top.
  • 04:44 Now there are a few different techniques you can use, but
  • 04:47 by far the one that I prefer is using shapes.
  • 04:49 Because I find it a lot easier to control the transparency level with a shape.
  • 04:54 So let's jump up to insert, go to our shapes gallery, and
  • 04:58 from here I'm going to pick the rectangle tool.
  • 05:02 My cursor changes to a small cross, which means I can then just drag over this
  • 05:06 image And let go.
  • 05:11 Now that I'm clicked on a shape essentially,
  • 05:14 I have the shape format ribbon showing at the top.
  • 05:17 And I have my shape fill and shape outline options.
  • 05:22 Now I don't want this image to be blue, I want it to be that nice purple color.
  • 05:27 Now if I click on shape fill,
  • 05:29 I don't have that purple color in my color palette at the top.
  • 05:34 And that is because the colors that you see here underneath theme colors
  • 05:38 are defined by the theme that you're using in PowerPoint.
  • 05:41 Now I don't want to get too much into themes at the moment, but I do need to
  • 05:45 change my theme here to pull up the palette of colors that I want to use.
  • 05:48 So I'm going to go across to the Design tab, and
  • 05:51 in this gallery is where you'll find all of your inbuilt themes.
  • 05:56 Now currently, I'm just using the standard office theme, but
  • 06:00 what I want to use is this one down here.
  • 06:02 This is basically the color palette that I've designed this presentation with,
  • 06:07 click to select.
  • 06:07 And now when I go back to shape format, you'll see when I click shape fill,
  • 06:11 you can see that my theme colors have changed to this muted palette.
  • 06:16 So now let's select this purple color, and I want to make sure that I don't
  • 06:20 have an outline around the outside of my shape, so no outline.
  • 06:25 Now in order to adjust the transparency on this shape so that I can see the picture
  • 06:29 peeking through, I need to right click the mouse, and jump down into format shape.
  • 06:34 Because this is where we're going to find all of
  • 06:36 our more advanced shape formatting options.
  • 06:39 I'm going to expand the fill group, and
  • 06:42 then right at the bottom I have a transparency slider.
  • 06:46 And you'll notice as I slide it up and down, it shows more or
  • 06:50 less of that image through.
  • 06:52 And this is the reason why I like this technique,
  • 06:54 because you have a lot of control.
  • 06:57 So I'm going to set this transparency to 27% ,and then close down my
  • 07:01 format shape pane.
  • 07:04 That's the end of part one,
  • 07:08 this lesson continues in part two.

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