PowerFinish Templates Volume 4

Studio F calls its latest volume of PowerPoint templates "edgy" - this volume is a departure for them from their normal subtle designs. I reviewed their subtle designs many months ago and those designs were gorgeous - in fact, they still set the standards for PowerPoint template design.

Having said that, I'm glad Studio F has introduced this new volume of different designs. The difference this time around is that the designs themselves are more bold and striking - and as Studio F mentions in its publicity material, the designs still do not distract from the actual content of the presentation. That in itself is a great achievement.

My contact at Studio F for this review was Joye Argo - thank you, Joye. There's also an interview with Joye elsewhere on this site...

As you can see, the designs are more contemporary - and they are still useable almost anywhere - from boardroom presentations to IPOs and business proposals to church presentations.

Each design has five variants, including light and dark boxes so that you can use the slides in both brightly lit or dark rooms. Here you can see five variants of a single design:

I like the different variants since there's some sort of layout for every use - you can use the plain slide for printing your slides, or any slide that needs a larger area, such as a chart slide. The dark slides work best for video playing within a presentation, and the remaining designs work great for normal title and bullet slides.

Do be aware though that the templates themselves only contain two backgrounds for the slide and title masters - the other alternative designs have to be manually inserted and the product comes with great HTML based documentation.

Depending on which OS you are using, you can opt to get an EXE or ZIP file containing the templates. Mac OS users must opt for the ZIP option, while Windows users can choose from either the EXE or ZIP options.

I chose the EXE option, and the setup program created a small program group for me that had a link to the extensive documentation. The documentation also contains thumnail previews of all the designs - this is a great way to view the design samples before applying them to a presentation.

Since we create every design in house, we have absolute control over the design and quality. And we believe that customer service is just as important as product design. We believe in delivering more than our customers expect. The standards we set for PowerFinish include:

• Superior design. Each of our template designs are unique...not just a color variation of another design. The underlying design must be balanced and artistically pleasing before we start creating the final templates. Our standards are high - so it is typical that we will create 1000 or more designs to select only 50 templates for a new volume.
  
  
• Customer support and product guarantee. When you call our office, you speak with a real person. Customers are frequently surprised that we are here full time to assist them in every way. We believe that when you license a product from our company, you deserve prompt, friendly and knowledgeable support. And our products are all guaranteed to make you happy - we offer a 30 day money-back guarantee on everything we sell.
  
  
• Quality Control. Strict quality control measures ensure that compression is correct, colors match, gradients are smooth. In short, we are certain that the images will look great - whether you present on a laptop or a big screen.
  
  
• Functional testing. Our talented artists are also all experienced presenters who know what it takes to make a great presentation. We not only strive for design excellence, but test every design ease of use and functionality. We check for the very best legibility with text, appropriate levels of contrast to make sure that the background does not compete with text, charts, etc. We want every template to be one we would be happy to use for our own presentations.

PowerFinish Volume 4 of PowerPoint templates is priced at $69.99 for a single user license.

This volume is also included in The Ultimate Presentation Kit Professional, a seven CD volume that contains 14,250 professional templates and backgrounds. The full bundle costs $249.99, including free shipping.