A virus PowerPoint template designed to go viral (lol)

It’s been a while since I’ve made any presentation templates, but don’t worry. I’m still here, and I have no plans of ever quitting. It’s just that things get busy sometimes, and I get distracted with other things and that always results in gaps in my content. However, with this whole COVID-19 thing going on, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to roll up my sleeves and develop a highly detailed virus PowerPoint template.

Although, since viruses are living things that can spread uncontrollably, instead of saying “develop”, maybe I should’ve said “nurtured” instead? To me, it seems as if the COVID-19 coronavirus had a bad upbringing and like most neglected children do, they often go off on their own and raise hell.

Therefore, I think of this virus illustration in this PowerPoint template as a happy virus. One that was lovingly created with the best intentions in mind, giving it all the best opportunities available to succeed in presentation form – for anyone out there who needs a killer virus themed PowerPoint template.

OK, now this is just getting stupid. Let’s just get on to the explanation of what I’ve developed (I mean “nurtured”) here:

My 5-page virus PowerPoint template

First of all, my reasoning for creating this template was because that I know that there are a lot of medical professionals out there who are help spreading the word about COVID-19.

However, instead of creating a PowerPoint template that looked lethal and deadly, I chose to focus on making it as bright and vivid as possible. As a matter of fact, I looked to my recent Instagram PowerPoint template for inspiration. I’d even go as far as to say that it has the same rich color palette as my brain PowerPoint template.

Virus PowerPoint Template preview

No, I’m definitely not trying to downplay the seriousness of the current pandemic, but still – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying to find the good in things.

The cover slide

By far the most time-consuming slide of this entire template, the cover slide features overlapping 3-D renderings of a generic virus arranged in the lower right corner. I used one of my smokey background images as the base texture.

This leaves the upper left corner wide open in simple enough to place text onto.

That title text can be arranged in a multitude of different ways, and the way I’m showing it on the slide is it necessarily the end-all-be- all. Play around with it a bit, and use your font of choice. I simply used Ariel as an example since It’s one of the most common fonts in the world that most everybody has, but a stylized medical-looking font would be perfect.

In regards to colors, my goal was to create a virus PowerPoint template that looked inviting and engaging. Using bright colors such as fuchsia and purple (instead of a harsh color like red) will grab the attention of your audience, and will instinctively draw them in with bated breath waiting for whatever it is that you’re going to say (like you are about to announce a cure to the virus, for example).

And of course, me being me, I had to make the 3d illustration of the virus as metallic as possible (just as how I made metallic clouds for my Cloud Computing PowerPoint template).

That was my plan anyway. Whether or not they actually find your content interesting (viral?) is totally up to you and the way you present. Sorry. I can’t help you with that part.

The content slide

Just as I did with my recent baseball PowerPoint template (among many others), I kept the main content slide relatively simple with a two-column layout. 75% of the page with is dedicated for bulleted text items. The other 25% (on the left) is reserved for secondary elements such as a viral quote (pun intended) and / or a supporting graphic.

I also created a metallic silver version of the virus on the cover slide for this secondary graphic. If you hate what I did, or you would prefer to use something else, don’t worry. This graphic is easily removable and you can swap it out with anything that you want.

The transition / title slide

Because it’s the content that matters most in any presentation template, I figured it was best to keep this slide as simple as possible. Instead of feeling the entire slide with color, I made the decision to keep it mostly white in order to make the title and text stand out as much as possible.

Yeah, I know. I might’ve went just a little bit too heavy with the brightly-colored virus traffic on the left, but I think it works for what it is. Again, this is intended to be a virus PowerPoint template, and if there aren’t any images of viruses in it, then you simply can’t call it a “virus” theme. That’s just my opinion anyway.

The table slides

I’ll admit it. Table slides in PowerPoint templates are the bane of my existence. As a visual designer, my natural tendency is to go wild and crazy and create rich graphics for a stunning look.

However, what usually happens is that I get too carried away and the result is that the graphics overpower the content. Which is a huge no-no in any presentation theme.

Therefore, I decided to make two separate kind of table slides. One the way that I wanted to make it, and the other in a format which is likely going to be more suitable for the masses.

The dark version (my way)

My way is dark and heavy with a slightly altered version of the cover slide graphic for the background. I think it fits perfectly for any sort of virus PowerPoint template, but I do realize that it’s very bold and quite overpowering to the content over top of it.

The light version (the other way)

The other way is a slight variation of how did it in my Evernote PowerPoint template. The primary objective was to use light colors for the background, while leaving a portion of the slide open at the bottom for supporting elements such as quotes and images.

Which way do you prefer? Please let me know, because if it’s completely pointless for me to do the heavy version, I’ll stop doing that. But for now, since I like the way it looks, I’m just gonna keep being me and doing what I like.

Which, speaking of viruses and pandemics, is how most people seem to be feeling in this world at the moment. We’re two months into the lockdown, and it seems everyone is getting a bit restless…

Some of the other ways you can use this template

Even though my primary objective of creating a virus PowerPoint template was to assist anyone needing to present information about the current pandemic, it can be used for far more than that. Here are just a few ideas right off the top of my head:

• The images of the viruses themselves are generic enough that this would be suitable for any medical or health related presentation.
• Speaking of generic-looking viruses, I’d go as far as to say that they’re generic enough to almost be completely abstract. Therefore, you could use most of this template for nearly anything. Just strip out the tighter images of the viruses on the interior pages, replace them with something else (with the same color scheme), and voila! You’ve got a PowerPoint template that could be used for nearly anything.
• Finally, it’s actually a pretty good template for game developers as well. Now, I’m not exactly comfortable recommending it for something like that, but I’m only saying it because one of my designer friends said he immediately thought of that the first time that he saw the cover slide. Go figure.