The reality is it is not enough to be a really great interior designer.

You also need to be a really great salesperson.

You can have the greatest designs in the entire world, groundbreaking even.

But if you don't know how to properly sell your ideas and communicate them clearly and effectively to your clients, then those designs may never see the light of day.

And it will leave you with a confused and sometimes frustrated client.

But do not stress because in this video I'm going to give you my exact formula that I use to craft amazing design presentations to communicate my ideas and designs effectively.

Hello there, my name is Kelsey and I am the founder and creative director of Kelsey, a full-service interior design firm specializing in commercial spaces for small and boutique-style businesses.

Welcome to our design video series where we educate designers and clients about everything commercial interior design.

Today, I'm going to share with you my fail-proof formula that will help sell your designs to your clients in an organized, effective, and visually aesthetic manner.

This outline can be used for designers in all spaces, both commercial and residential, but feel free to add or subtract any elements that don't apply to your specific project.

First, what exactly is my credibility to say that I craft amazing design presentations?

Well, I have worked at several different kinds of design firms over my career, big and small, in all different sectors, and over time I've taken note of different presentation and communication styles that I thought worked really well, and I combined those elements into my own presentation structure.

And because people tell me all the time that my presentations are great, and I would agree with that.

Before I get started, if you're new to our channel, be sure to hit the subscribe button for more interior design-related content.

Follow us on Instagram, and check out our website at www.klsy.design.

There you can sign up for our email newsletter and receive access to our designer cheat sheets these are free printable pdfs for you as a designer to reference there will be a cheat sheet to go along with this video which will be a complete outline of the example presentation that i will be walking through so click the link in the description box if you want to access that the first and most important thing to think about is what is the purpose of this presentation what are you trying to accomplish are you trying to sell your initial concept for the project Are you trying to get clients sign off for a final completed design in order to move on to the next phase of the project?

Every single piece of content you put into this document, I want you to think to yourself, is this helping to either sell my design or help my client understand it better?

The first thing I like to do is outline the presentation.

Get those bare bones in, create that structure.

I will always draft an outline really early on in the design phase before I'm even done designing the project because it allows me to see what it is I'm missing and what still needs to be designed.

And this then makes it easier for me to gauge how long it will take me to complete the presentation or how much time that I should allocate to finish these elements.

Here's the basic outline of every design presentation I create.

A title page, table of contents, concept, schematic plans, zoomed out design, which are your big moves and your overall finishes, diagrams, Zoomed InDesign, specialty spaces, which is optional, and a thank you page.

Now let me just discuss each of these pages further.

Your title page is pretty simple.

It is the starting page that, you know, when you're setting up your presentation, you have your title page set up.

It says the name of the project.

It says why you're here.

It says what phase you're in, and maybe it has a nice picture.

It's really important to start on a title page because it kind of preps your client or your audience for whatever is to come, and you don't want to start presentation on any part of the design that people can already start assessing it and looking at it so just start on a title page your table of contents is going to be just that it's the table of contents this is so you have a really clear outline for your client of what you're going to be discussing it's essentially giving your client the agenda for the meeting your concept this is going to contain i would say roughly one to three pages of your key themes your design themes and any inspiration and imagery, anything in your concept phase.

Schematic plans, this is going to be your floor plans and ceiling plans.

Depending on what phase of the project you're in, they're either gonna be your very simple blank plans.

If you're really early on in the project, maybe they'll be sketchy plans.

And if you're further on in the project, like in the design development phase, there'll be rendered plans.

But this is where you're going to walk your client through the overall plan this is also probably where you'll talk about the user flow or you know how people are going to be navigating the space your zoomed out design is going to be your overall design so for the entire project what kinds of finishes are you using what does your color palette look like what are some general design moves maybe you have some loose hand sketches in there that kind of illustrate what the overall design aesthetic is going to be and then we have what i call your zoomed in design which is going to be area by area so for example you're going to have one page of the kitchen design and all of the information on the kitchen and then your next page you're going to have your reception design everything to do with the reception so your zoomed in pages are going to be space specific your specialty spaces this is going to be optional i just say this because usually on a project there is a specialty space where it's either a little bit different from the rest of the spaces in the project you know maybe it's an outdoor space and it's that that's the specialty space it's not a part of the actual space or maybe it is a space that the client really is going to invest a lot of money in the client really wants to make this the wow factor so the specialty space i always leave at the end because not only is it building suspense for the client towards the end of the presentation you can end on a bang but also this should be the space that you've put the most thought in like you really really want that big finale page.

And finally, thank you page.

You need to, need to, need to have a thank you page.

I've worked on so many projects and been to companies that they don't put thank you pages at the end of their presentations.

People might not think that this is a big deal, but in my opinion, I like to thoughtfully close out the presentation.

This is where you can discuss next steps.

You can thank your client for their time, for being there.

Instead of hearing what you're saying and talking about next steps, the client is still focused on that page and they're still thinking in their mind the things that they don't like, they're analyzing it.

You want their full attention at all times.

You want to be controlling the presentation and it's just polite to say thank you.

Just say thank you.

Just a note, feel free to remove any pages or elements that don't directly apply to whatever like project or phase that you're in.

For example, if you are in the schematic phase and you're creating a schematic design presentation, you probably wouldn't have the zoomed in pages or the specialty pages because you haven't designed anything yet, so you don't have anything to zoom into.

But you would have the title page, the concept, the schematic, and then your ending page.

I use Adobe InDesign to create all of my design presentations.

This is a PSA to all designers, architects, and anyone in the design industry that is listening.

Please stop using PowerPoint.

I repeat, stop using PowerPoint.

We are not eight years old to making a school presentation about our favorite kinds of dinosaurs.

We are professionals, so we need to start using professional software.

You do not have nearly as many tools in PowerPoint or other programs as you do in InDesign.

Plus, InDesign makes it easy to change out contacts, edit text, customize everything, embed your images, and link them all.

Just use it.

This is not sponsored by the way.

And if you don't know it, learn it.

You're currently watching this video on YouTube.

After this video, go search InDesign tutorial.

If someone gives me one more PowerPoint presentation in a professional setting, I am going to scream.

Now let's move on to what I call the eight elements of a successful page.

Nine times out of 10, you're going to be using an 11 by 17 format.

This is because your presentation will take up the entire screen when you're presenting it either on a laptop or on a TV.

You should only really use eight and a half by 11 formatting when you're creating brochures or proposals any supporting documents that aren't being presented to someone section title subtitle footer page number key plan main content supporting content and content text let's go through each of these one by one first your section title your section title think of it as a chapter title your section title is going to be what's in your table of contents.

For example, your section is concept.

You would have concept in your table of contents and your section title would be concept.

Your subtitle then is going to be the specific page or the specific content that you're presenting.

So your subtitle would then be key themes because this specific page is talking about the key design themes.

Your key design themes being transparency, and sustainability, just giving an example.

Next we have your footer.

I've also seen a lot of presentations that don't have this, but I feel like this is really important because let's say someone prints out your presentation or send your presentation off to someone else and it doesn't contain all of the pages.

Let's say it's like a one-off page.

The footer will contain your information and the project information.

So it'll usually say your company's name.

Maybe it has your company's email address.

This is not required, but I like to do it because for that exact reason, if someone sends one page of your presentation to someone, they'll have your contact information on there.

It usually also has the date and the presentation name.

So let's say this is design development one.

Next, you have your page number.

You could argue that the page number is included in the footer, but I guess it all depends on where you want to put your page number.

I always put my page number in the bottom right corner.

If you're using InDesign, like I told you to, then you can really easily insert a page number block so you don't have to do it manually.

The pages will automatically update the numbers even if you switch your pages around.

It's really simple.

Just please, please learn InDesign.

Again, it's important to have this for the same reason that it's important to have the footer is because if someone has your design presentation and it's out of order for some reason, they're able to put it in the right order and kind of see the progression of the presentation.

They're not just getting, they know they're getting like slide seven and not slide one.

Your main content is going to be your main content on the page.

So for example, if your main content is a rendered floor plan, that would be your main content.

That's the thing that you're highlighting on the page.

You're then supporting content, which is our next element.

Anything that supports your main idea, that supports that main content.

Just remember what I said in the beginning is that everything that you put in this presentation, you want to directly support your design or whatever you're trying to sell to your client.

Don't put imagery or sketches that really don't apply or they're not really necessary or repetitive.

And finally, we have our content text.

Now there's two types of content text.

You're gonna have your main text and you're gonna have your subtext.

So your main text is going to be the text that tells you what that piece of content is.

So let's say we have a page that has a bunch of finishes on it.

You would have your main element page that would say what it is.

So kitchen flooring.

And then under it, you would have your subtext, which would say the manufacturer, the size, the color, the product number, all of that additional information.

Obviously, your main text is going to be larger.

It's going to be bold.

It'll be underlined.

It'll be in caps.

Whatever makes it seem like it's higher in hierarchy.

We're trying to create a hierarchy of text here.

And then your supporting text is going to be a little bit smaller.

It'll be maybe lowercase.

It won't be bolded.

And it's just giving you additional information that's not as important.

But if the client asks you, oh, what manufacturer is that?

Oh, it's right here.

I have all that extra information here.

It's just not as important as telling you that this is the floor.

I hope all of this is making sense so far.

So let's talk about the design of your presentation.

I'll talk a little bit further about text since we're on that topic.

Make sure all of your text is consistent.

You do not want to have more than a couple of text types.

You have your section title text, you have your subsection title text, and then you have your footer text, which will usually be really small.

And maybe it's, you know, it's less prominent on the page.

That's already a lot of text on the page.

You don't want to have different sizes and fonts and colors colors and different bolds and italic, whatever.

You want to keep it as simple as possible.

So don't create too many different types of text.

Less is more when it comes to your presentation.

Don't add more elements or content to the page just to make it seem like you've done more work.

It's not going to look like you've done more work.

It's going to look like you didn't thoughtfully think out your design and that you don't have a cohesive vision.

And on that note, no clip art.

It is not 2001 one anymore no extra images or graphics to make your page look designed just keep it really simple you don't want anything on your page that is going to clash with your design or that's going to take away from the client's focus being on the design itself because that's really the most important thing that we're trying to highlight not everyone may agree with this but i like to keep colors to a minimum in design presentations some companies that i've worked for like to have their branding and their brand colors in their presentations because they feel like they're putting out a document that's theirs.

They want that to be branded.

But in my opinion, it is less about branding this presentation as yours, and it's more about the fact that you're creating a product that is for that client.

And also, if you have a branding color that is anything but black and white, it's going to clash with your design.

You're going to have a green bar at the top of your presentation that is your branding color with your really beautiful logo and text font.

And you're going to have a design that is completely different from that.

And it's not going to look cohesive.

It's going to look like the two things are clashing with each other.

So I just like to keep it simple.

No extra colors.

Just let the design speak for itself.

A quick note about workflow.

The great thing about InDesign, I promise this is not sponsored by Adobe, but I just love Adobe so much.

The great thing about InDesign is that you don't have to keep replacing all of your images into the file.

Because I've already outlined everything, I will put, you know, a little box, an empty box for where that content is going to be placed.

And then once I've actually created it, I can place that content into that box.

So I've added the content to the page.

Let's say it's a rendering, but I later realized that I have to edit some things in the rendering.

I have to change some things.

Instead of replacing a new image, I can just overwrite save that same image and InDesign will tell me that it's been updated.

It'll give you a little notification.

This is really great when more than one person is working on a presentation.

One person can be in the InDesign and someone else can be working on the rendering, making those updates.

And once they've updated that same file, you can then just, you know, update it in the InDesign presentation and there's no relinking that needs to be done.

It's automatic, which is really great.

Once you've completed your design presentation and you've saved it to a PDF, you want to double check that there's no missing or incorrect information.

One big thing is making sure that all of your images are really crisp and sharp.

If you've placed an image and zoomed in too much, or the image file was just a low quality image, then it's going to be grainy and that doesn't look professional.

You want to make sure that all of your images are really, really sharp.

And another thing is you want to make sure all of your spelling and grammar are correct.

One thing that I don't like about InDesign is that it doesn't automatically spell check things for you like Microsoft Word would, but they do have a spelling and grammar option.

Please utilize it.

Because there's no automatic spell check, I like to have either a friend or a coworker look over my presentation for me when I'm done.

Because if I've been looking at a presentation for hours, days, weeks, months, however long it's been, I'm going to miss something.

I am such a stickler for spelling and grammar, especially in a professional setting.

If you give me something that has a bunch of spelling and grammar mistakes, that tells me that you didn't look this over a second time.

It tells me that you didn't put enough effort into this or you just did it really quickly and sent it out to me.

I don't wanna hire you to do anything else because if you didn't put any thought and effort in making sure that this proposal or this email or whatever this is, is really perfect, I mean, nothing's perfect, but if you didn't take the time to go through and make sure that you don't have any spelling mistakes, then how can I trust you to do anything else for me and guarantee that you're not gonna make a million other mistakes and spelling mistakes in the work that you give me?

So maybe that's just me because my mother is an educator and she's a real stickler for spelling and grammar, but I just think it's really important.

Spelling and grammar, it's super easy.

Please just double check it.

Once you've crafted the perfect design presentation, save it as a template so then you never have to redo this again.

You never have to recreate the wheel and start from scratch.

you always have this presentation outline handy that you can use for any project phase it will make your life so much easier and more efficient i promise you if this video is helpful for you or if you've seen success using this design presentation outline then please let me know down in the comments we post videos every monday but to be notified when we post another video be sure to subscribe to our youtube channel and click the bell down below and check out our website to sign up for our email newsletter so that you can get access to our designer cheat sheets and this presentation outline that i shared with you today i've actually left a quick link to that in the description box below so go check that out and thank you so much for watching i'll see you next time