Okay, so we know that how you present information is important. Just having great content isn’t quite going to cut it, you need to be able to present it so that people can get hold of it, mentally.
On slides, this boils down to using images or words. Long term readers (or even most short term readers, to be honest) will know that images have my heart in most situations, but even I have to admit that there are times when you need to have words on your slides. At that point, your choice of font becomes important. Anyone who’s been on one of our in-house or public presentation skills courses will know that we advise you to use sans-serif fonts on screens, because of their higher readability. (My personal favourite is Helvetica because it’s clean, efficient and neutral. I like to think of it as stylish but other people tell me it’s boring.)
What the vast majority of designers agree on, however, is that Comic Sans is a big no-no. Technically it’s horrible, and aesthetically it ranks alongside a car-crash from my point of view but there’s a strong argument that I’m being a bit of a snob!
Enjoy…. this vid first.
Now it’s pretty obvious that I’m not saying anything here that’s not been said before – everything about your presentation matters. The way you dress, the tone of voice, your choice of fonts – everything has an impact upon the message your audience hears. The message you think you’re giving, the message you mean to give… that only part of it. What the audience hears are also your subtle clues about how seriously they should take what you’ve been telling them.
Just as a document which hasn’t been spell-checked undermines the content of the written word, so the way you deliver your presentation (including your choice of fonts) gives your audience subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) hints about the provenance and reliability of your message – in other words, your credibility can hang on your choice of font as much as your choice of tie! (Ladies, you know what I mean! 
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