Crafting Stunning Visual Stories: Insights from Presentation Designer Emily Schneider

Meet Emily Schneider. Emily is a visual storyteller passionate about presentation design, specializing in transforming complex content into captivating presentations that seamlessly blend storytelling and eye catching design. Emily brings two decades of marketing and branding experience. Her strategic collaboration with clients ensures that their messages come to life through beautiful, impactful visuals.

Emily's journey began with a Sweet 16 invitation, igniting a love for design that has flourished into a thriving creative career dedicated to empowering clients to deliver their messages confidently. She invites you to join her in exploring the exciting world of design presentation and discovering her unique approach to crafting stunning visual stories in PowerPoint. Let's delve into what she does best. We welcome Emily to the podcast. Well, Emily, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today?

I'm great. Thanks for having me. So good to have you on. Looking forward to talking to you. Same. So let me ask you my favorite question for all my guests. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? That's. Wow, that's like a shocker. What's the best piece of advice I've ever received? If you're perfect. If you're. If you're perfect at one thing, be perfect at never giving up. Oh, cool. I like that. Who told you that? Yeah, one of my health coaches, actually. Cool. Very neat.

Yeah. Always love those little, those little life lessons we kind of live by. It's always. Yes. That like, applies to everything and, and more. It does. I'm curious, as you think about your life, who are some people who serve to be an inspiration for you? Oh, that's. I love that question too. My kids, for sure. Even though they're like, so innocent and young, they keep me inspired and motivated and just so curious by their curiosity.

My parents, I've been lucky enough to work with a lot of amazing mentors along the way and some coaches and just people who really are curious and open to conversations and questions and kind of like when you find a good gem, you know it. And so stay staying true with them. I just had an amazing conversation with a client who is transitioning away from the company she's currently at and just, you know, kind of saying it was like, goodbye for now until she figures out her next thing.

But like, you know, once you're connected with good people, it's hard to leave them. So, so, so very true. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

So tell us about your journey from the Sweet 16 invitation that sparked you into this creative journey that you're on right now. Yes. So I've always been a person who was creatively Curious about how the world works. I didn't obviously have a term for that, but my mom used to say I was the. I broke things because I like to see how things worked. I like to touch them.

I'm actually like fidgeting with something right now too, because the idea of how parts come together and keeping my mind and my body connected were so important to me. And so my sweet sixteen invitation, I mean, what. I don't know, it was like 30 something years ago and computers were just coming out. I just, you know, we had just gotten some update or some new machine that had some kind of draw esque program and I was really excited to build something.

But what I remember most about it and what, what was that pivotal moment was when I printed that first draft and sharing it with my parents and how their smiles and their. The joy that kind of radiated from them of not only what it was. And like, obviously this, this moment in my life was, you know, kind of a. A big moment to turn 16, but also just that I made something and that I was so proud of it and that yet it was still quirky and questionable fonts and colors these days.

But looking back, it was the idea that I built something that I took the time to craft something with love and with intention that brought people together, that made them happy, that invited everybody into this inclusive space. And that was a special event. And it was that moment and, and just hearing, you know, the feedback or the excitement around not just my birthday, but the fact that I made this thing and wow, you know, and I loved that. And so it started my journey. I always loved art.

There was something about it. Again, I was somebody who saw the world as simple shapes and broke it down. I didn't know that, but that's just what I did. And so when I got into art and then when I learned about graphic design or graphics on the computer, it was a perfect, perfect fit for me because it allowed me to take shapes and forms and make things.

You know, I mean, Drawing 101 is about breaking down shapes and forms and bodies or still lives into simple, you know, basic shapes and then adding and layering and building these beautiful stories. So that started my career, got me really interested. I studied visual communications at the University of Kansas, graduated with a BFA and a minor in art history.

Again, understanding the why and the purpose and intention behind how things are made and trends and just how people saw the world was so interesting to me. I worked in the agency world for almost 15 years. Loved the fast pace, the culture, the Environment, the creativity, just the collaboration was just so huge.

I'm actually still super tight with some of my first co workers just because of the hours that went into building campaigns and brainstorming together and getting silly to get, you know, to release all these juices. And then I found myself outside of the agency world and at eight and a half months pregnant, actually I was laid off from a startup and it. And I've never looked back. I decided that I was never going back to where I was, but I didn't know what that meant moving forward.

I had a mentor who was kind of willing to bet on me. He hired me for whatever I needed or he was willing to give me 40 hours of work a week. So he kind of took, took that fear out or that I had like that safety net of like, okay, I know I can work. And that was five years ago. And ever since then I've explored what it's like to be a general creative designer. And then in January, I niched myself to just do presentation work when I realized that that is my zone of genius.

And here I am a year later and couldn't be happier at how my journey has and I'm excited for what 2025 brings and what each day and each step of this hustle and each new failure teaches me so I can keep moving forward and. Yep. And going back to your first question, I just have been perfect at never giving up. And it's been the best, the best journey ever. I love that. I'm curious.

I do a lot of presentations myself and my goal is always to try to make something unique and different and creative. So as you think about a presentation, what are some of the key elements that go into making a presentation captivating and effective? Yes, it's going to be. Be intentional with your design choices or what your story is. It's going to be being simple and being consistent.

And so when you can start by knowing your audience and what you want them to think, feel and do, when you think about that, before you even think about what you're saying, it's so critical. It sets you up to tell the right story. And then when you craft your narrative again, it's keeping that in mind, but it's walking them through that story. It's giving them the right information. Not all the information, just the right information that they need.

Because if we over communicate, we think we're creating credibility, but actually we're creating confusion. And then it's designing with again, simplicity and intentionality and consistency. And when you can bring those Three parts together. Your delivery is kind of a no brainer. You've captivated your audience, you've engaged them, you've made it easy for them to understand. You're making information digestible and understandable and memorable. And people feel that.

And you create that credibility, that authenticity. You create this brand for yourself, this Persona, and people will stay engaged and they want to listen. There's so much neuroscience and, and interesting facts, but it's really about that simplicity, that consistency and that intentionality once you know who you're talking to and why you're there.

So I just had to do a dissertation presentation defending that and had to do it, condense all of my three years of work down into 20 minutes. And it was hard. It is hard. So how do you help people transform complex content into visually appealing, appealing and easily understandable presentation? It's part of, it's part of my process with my clients. So I actually make them walk me through their slides step, you know, go through what their presentation is going to be.

I ask them questions of who are they talking to, where are they talking to, what is this meeting about, what are their end goals? Right. I don't write the content, but I'll, I want to make sure that it's set up for success. And if they're not ready, then they go back and they write it and then we come and work together.

But having them walk me through their presentation and each slide in individually allows me to really kind of, we create this brainstorming or this dialogue of like, okay, this is what the slide is about. Should, should this be the only thing on the slide? Should it be an illustration? Are we doing data or what should we highlight? And we start to have that, you know, open dialog as they're explaining it to me.

I'm sort of brainstorming and sketching and bringing ideas back so I can understand what those key points are and so that we can really focus in on those. And so that is how I first set it up. And then I, you know, it's a process. Then we digest those. You know, we start with a few slides, we digest them and make sure it's understanding. A lot of times clients know what they want to say.

They, they're saying too much or they just need a space to kind of work through it with somebody else as an outsider.

And once they can start to do that and then bring those visualizations, whether it's leveraging, you know, cleaning up the headline, treatment placement, having consistent brand and colors and fonts and treatments, you know, Stylizing things, designing your charts, creating an icon story, creating graphics, those kind of things, they really help to take words away and empower the slides to be that beautiful, harmonious background music to this amazing conversation that they're leading.

I love that. Sounds like what you're talking about too is how do you tell the story most effectively? So can you give me an example of how you have worked with a particular project or client to successfully blend storytelling and your presentation style into. Into a cohesive, powerful presentation? Yeah. So again, I think it's about understanding their content and what they're trying to say. So I worked with a cryptocurrency startup, finance startup. They had this.

They have a lot of numbers, they had a lot of data, they had some trends that they needed to show, right. But it was about understanding what was important on that slide. What are those key numbers or things that need to be repeated or need and then what needs to stand out. And instead of just taking their Word doc, it was digesting their Word doc into again, simple concepts or simple buckets so that we could really articulate the key things. And so we took some.

I took a Word document and we made this beautiful 15 slide presentation which had flow charts and data and infographics and you know, just listing their, what their like key their portfolio examples. Right. Instead of just having a bulleted list, it was designing them and stylizing the text so that you had a short headline or you had a subhead and then you had a little descriptor and then you had an icon that was easily, you know, connected to it.

And it's, it's bringing to life, to your point, that story with the balance of visuals and design that really helps to elevate that experience for both the presenter and the audience. This is a general question. I know this is, this is different. Everybody, is there a. Would you would say a perfect length for a presentation? Because, you know, sometimes we, we live in a television age now where our attention spans are kind of shorter.

Is there like, what do you think is an ideal length for a presentation? So I actually don't like go like, I don't have the answer to that. My approach is less information on a slide and more slides is actually more engaging because the more you flip through and you change that, the more people know that there's something new that they're going to listen to or they like re look at it, right?

If you have a slide that has all this information and you're sitting on it for a long time, people tune out we're used, we are in an attention seeking economy. So you need to figure out how to stay engaged and that can be through animation. But animation is kind of like a 2.0 version of a lot. You know, for a lot of presenters, they're not comfortable. So I just build multiple slides. Keeping one to two concepts per slide are key things really helps. So don't cram everything into a slide.

And that's why I say there's no right formula, because I'd rather see. Personally, I think more slides is more impactful when they're designed right than fewer slides with too much information. Because our brains shut down when we give the audience the right information sequence properly. Our brains naturally put the puzzle pieces together. So it allows that engagement and that curiosity to stay alive for both the presenter and the audience when you lay it out properly.

So because we're not all creative like you are, what are some of the most common challenges you face in working with clients when you're helping design these presentations? I mean, for most of my clients, it's that they like have too much to say and they have a hard time either cutting it, but a lot. But they're open to dividing it up. I will say, but like they don't want to cut it.

But it's, it's simple things of like, what I see is like too many bullets that are like run on sentences, headlines that are not punchy, that don't, that don't tell me what I'm going to hear, what I'm going to take away. Right. I need our brains want to know what's going to happen so that we can stay engaged. Because if you, if you share too much, you lose us. We, we tune out. It's not being consistent with fonts and colors or choices. It's having different styles.

Not, not just like a bar chart and a pie chart, but it's like all these different colors and every time I'm talking about a product, it's like represented differently and it's all over the place. Like that's really hard to notice. And, but, and we see that. But when you can be consistent, I mean even just keeping your page number and your logos in the same spot, it creates a really simple brand standard and it lets people know that you've taken the time and you care about what you're sharing.

When you put too much in, when things look messy, it seems messy. And again, we, it's harder to stay engaged when it doesn't feel like the person presenting has taken the time to really articulate for that audience. I'm sure you've done hundreds of thousands of presentations. Is there one that stands out because it really impacted you in a meaningful way? You know, they're all so different and so fun. So I do a lot of corporate stuff.

I definitely have worked with non profits or just, you know, more do good, more do good brands. But for, for me, it's not necessarily about the content, it's more about the people I work with. I love helping somebody who is like, I don't get it, but I'm so appreciative that you do or that wants to. You know, I, I don't work via email.

Like, I mean, I'll schedule meetings but like, I don't ask clients to write emails to give me feedback because what they're saying and my interpretation might be different. So I like to get on calls. So it's so helpful to like work through that creative process and working with a lot of finance and tech and, you know, pharma clients, they love getting on a creative brainstorm because it's totally different and it's outside their box.

But when I can bring something to life and the smile on the other end of my client saying, you get it, I get it, they're going to get it. Like that is so powerful for me. I love that my zone of genius of being a presentation designer in PowerPoint specifically allows me to help shine somebody else's light brighter and bring them more confidence. It just touches back on my core values and it's such a win win.

So I've used PowerPoint, I've even used Prizy at one point that seemed like that was gonna be the new tool, but it seems like it's kind of faded as you look at the landscape of technology and what's coming down the pike. Is there some tool that you see that's going to transform how we do presentations down the road? I mean, yes, and they're all influencing how we do presentations. I think it's also just our society or what we're used to seeing.

I think social media has changed the way we engage with people, but in the end we really just want to connect with people. That's all a presentation is. It's having an authentic conversation, creating a story, creating that connection that brings you together so it makes sense or you want to, so you trust that person, so you want to do business with them, so you want to move forward so you want to keep right that process going.

So I think that all these AI things and I use them too are great tools. They're great supports to make it easier to synthesize. I use AI all the time to help me edit my client's headlines. I'm not a writer, but if they give it to me and I'm like, oh, it's just like I need like seven characters shorter. AI does a great job of synthesizing and getting rid of those extra thus and, and you know, re rewording things just to be a little bit more eloquent. So I think it's great.

I think I know my son over the summer saw a commercial for Copilot, who is the Microsoft AI tool. And they, I mean the whole tagline was like, take a. Take a 100 page deck or takes. Take a 100 page word doc and like make it into a deck. And he was like, oh my God, mom, are you going to lose your job? And I was like, no. Because one, it was cool that they actually kind of understood what I did because they don't really see me do my work. But two, I don't think it, I don't think so.

Because again, presentations, conversations, business is all about personal connections. And AI will never understand how to power humans to connect authentically.

They will make it easier for us to do some parts of it. But you can't put content into an AI tool and say, build a deck. And to know this is the thing I need to articulate and this is the power. Right? It can give you some ideas. It can be a great launching start. It can be a starting point. You know, PowerPoint itself has amazing templates. There's a great, there's a lot of resources online. There's. You can buy PowerPoint templates. Are they built for easy use?

I can't answer that because I don't know, let's use them. But they don't. You know, they say here goes your headline and here goes the thing, but your content is not cookie cutter. And they become cookie cutter, if that makes sense. And so it's never going to be a one size fits all. And so again, that's why I, that's where I think my light shines, is I am a strategic visual storyteller. So I make customers presentations. I will do templates. But templates, again, are the same idea.

They're a cookie cutter. Like, if you have a template, it's a great starting point, but it doesn't always get those really big strategic thoughts and ideas into concise and impactful stories. If you were coaching someone on being a better storyteller, what advice would you have for them. The first, the first two things are plan, get ahead of it so you can craft your story and get offline and start to outline what you want to say. I like post it notes in a Sharpie because you can't erase it.

You can't, you know you can but like, and you can move the parts around like it's part of creating that dialogue. There's a beautiful analogy I use where I have a five year old and she loves to read. She don't know how to read. But why does she love reading? Because the power of a strong story with visuals that create empathy, that tell us, you know, tell that connection, that give hints at how and what is happening really do drive the understanding of who we are and what's happening.

And so I think it's really powerful to plan ahead and start offline so that you can craft your story with the right visual intent to support your voiceover. Listening you talk about this seems to give you such joy. What is the most enjoyable part of what you do? Oh, it's being able to connect directly with the person who was impacted by the presentation.

So one of the things that I really struggled with in the agency world was I love designing these amazing campaigns for big companies, but I never saw how that consumer engaged or felt when they saw that piece, that campaign or that what it didn't make them buy a product. But with a presentation, that decision maker, that person who is going to present, who is owns the company, who is the cfo, who needs to tell their story.

When they see that, they're more confident and it's their smiles and their appreciation for you get it? You got it. And now I can go do my job. It's the best. That's awesome. If you were coaching someone who was like you 16 years old, creative type, want to do something like you're doing, what advice would you have for that 16 year old who wants to get into your, your role, your business? Yeah. Keep asking a lot of questions, stay super curious and just keep exploring.

Like I never, I didn't know that this thing that I do even existed when I was 16. Right. But I knew that there was something very interesting about designing or working and making art on a computer because I didn't have to clean up after and I could, you know, kind of shut it down. But it takes a lot of. It just takes time and it takes practice and it takes, you know, raising your hand and saying, I don't get it. Can you help me or can I learn from you or what do you got for me?

So I think it's, it's about staying curious and just keep, keep keeping the hustle alive. If you were looking at what to study in school, if I was going to do this more, what course would be more hopeful, helpful for people going into this? Would it be marketing? Would it be creative design? Is there a particular. Yeah, I think it's more.

I think for me my differentiation I can say, right, because I only know my path is that I did study fine arts so I have that understanding of what of, of how visuals tell stories and then it's marketing and communications are something that I actually also studied but it wasn't my focus because I think marketing and communications are a little bit different.

It could be more analytical, it could be more relationship based but from a presentation design standpoint it's that strategy and understanding how art moves or works or how to stand up and take feedback and make edits and be collaborative at least. Again from my experience in my marketing and communications classes, it wasn't the same. It was go do this and then come back in the fine art world.

In my school it was a lot of do the work and then let's talk about it and let's learn from it and let's build together. So I think that that really has helped my. When you, when you talked about creativity, I'm curious how do you balance creativity with the need to clearly communicate and be concise your message. You can be really creative but only you get the creativity.

So how do you make sure that you're being creative is also being clear in communication and also in concise in your messaging? You know that's such a good, that's such a good question and I don't know if I have like the right answer. I can say for me, me it's just the balance of I've always been this creative, quirky, very kind of outgoing, having the world like I said, like in these simple and complex, taking these complex concepts and simplifying them.

But I also love the strategy and the, the like left side brain of like how things work and the function and the form. And so for me that collaboration is that strategic design. I think it's working and understanding and it's asking a lot of questions and getting curious. Like I didn't really realize the neuroscience behind how presentations work from an audience standpoint and what that means.

And I've been reading and I've been asking questions and I've been part of communities, I'm part like I mentioned my health coach Like, I'm part of a health community and I realized like, oh my God, that's helped me stay healthy and mentally and physically. Right.

But then I'm also now part of a presentation community because there's like minded people who will share information and it's gold when they're, when you find people who are doing things that are similar to you and you can bounce ideas off of and not like be, you know, it's not that we're competing, we're growing together and nobody's gonna take work away. I actually share work with people because I'm not right always for every project. I have a marketing group now too.

I have an entrepreneurs group, a couple of them. Because again, when you find people that are doing like minded things, it makes it so, so much easier to figure out or to ask for help or to say, oh, I never even thought about it like that. Tell me how you do that. I'm going to give it a try. So I think, I think there's that combination for sure.

So I kind of hear you saying it's good to always stay curious, keep asking questions because the more you do that, the more you really can get down, make sure your creativity is clearly communicating the message you want to kind of get to in the end. Sounds like, yeah. I mean it kind of brings back to this passport.

When I first started designing or going on my own, I always thought I needed to show up to every meeting, like totally buttoned up perfectly, like blowing them out of the water and like, kind of like I knew it all and like they should be wowed and what I've learned and like when you ask like, who is my inspiration? It's my kids who are curious, who don't, who like ask questions because they don't know. And their innocence doesn't mean that they're being rude or mean.

It's just they don't get it and they want to know. And so when I shifted from protecting myself and being like, I know it all and I'm going to show up and I'm going to be the most amazing designer you ever work with to, to, I know my stuff, but if we work together, it's going to be even better. Let me show you my screen. Let's do it together. I've done the best I can, but I need help because this wasn't clear. It's, it's opened the door to make my work so much better.

I think that shift has been so powerful. So yeah, that curiosity, yeah, that curiosity is really, I mean, for Me, it's just like now it's like I don't know how to not be curious to a point of fault. Like sometimes right where you're like, can't I just like, be settled? Like, why do I always have to be like, what if, what if? But the what ifs are like to me, what drive me? I mean, they overwhelm me and then they drive me and then they overwhelm me. But isn't that life? It's all about dualities.

So it is. So, being curious, I have to ask. The story of the chicken behind you. That is a good one. It's just actually it was part of my husband's Halloween costume from like before we got married. And it currently houses our checkbooks. And it's got a Ruth Bader Ginsburg esque or collar. I don't know. I think it's got some old refrigerator pictures. It's just something that like keeps ending up and I don't know why it's still there, but it's there and it's.

It's going to be here for a couple more months and then I'm actually in the process of changing up my whole office scheme. So I think that's going to go. But I feel like it's too conversational. Maybe I need to keep it. But yeah, it has nothing to do with me. It's just a really, A really great container and it shows my quirkiness. Right? I'm not this like structured, perfect, stylized person. I've got, I've got. I'm unique, I'm special. I. I'm not perfect, but.

But I've got my own style and I think that that might reflect it. Well, that's awesome. So I gotta ask you my other favorite question.

What do you want your legacy to be? Oh, I want my legacy to be that I am. I actually have this mission to be a magical badass. So I want to. It's like a unicorn butler. I want to like, can I like, just read it? I feel like that, like makes sure. Yeah, go ahead. So I want to be a magical badass. It's like a unicorn, but even cooler and better. Rooted in love and kindness, I aim to sprinkle joy wherever I go while making a tangible impact. My mission?

Empowering people to competently share their uniquely beautiful superpowers. Through my work, I design visually stunning presentations that not only tell stories, but but also build trust, credibility, and authentic connection. Spotlighting our strengths. I'm a firm believer that empowering others to shine bright enables them to make meaningful contributions to the world, both personally and professionally. Wow, that's really nice. I like that.

So, yeah, so that, that is my, my, my, my legacy is to be a magical badass, but really it's about spreading joy and sprinkling that for others to pick up and do it, do it as well. Great. As you wrap up our conversation, it's been a phenomenal conversation. What key takeaways you want to leave with my audience? I think it's the idea we've talked a lot about being curious, right? Staying true to who you are. And then it's about simplicity and consistency and intentionality.

And I apply those to everything, not just my design work. Again, in my like minded communities and my curiosity stay being simple, asking a lot of questions and being consistent, consistent with that really has paid dividends in my life and my work. Is there anything I haven't asked you that I should have asked you? Oh, I don't know. I mean, you asked about the chicken. I think that that like covers it up. Kind of had to ask about the chicken because the chickens is there saying ask about me?

Yeah, I know, right? It's just, I gotta fix it. What? Can people find you and connect with you on social media? Social media? The best place to find me is on LinkedIn, Emily, under my name, Emily Schneider. I'm also on Instagram, currently under MZ719. But my website is also a great spot to learn more about me, my work and how I help others, which is iamelyschnider.com so if you're looking for. A creative personal help with your presentations, contact Emily.

She's got the ideas to help you bring out your story and be a great storyteller. Yeah. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Emily, for being a part of the podcast and providing such great content. Blessings on what you do and continue to shine bright and sparkle as you go and help people bring out their ideas and live their best self. Well, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to chat with you today too.