Presentation Summit 2025: Conversation with Julie Terberg

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  Julie Terberg is a designer, author, speaker, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. She is the founder of Terberg Design, a creative studio focused on crafting presentations, templates, reports, and other visual communication materials. With decades of experience in the industry, Julie has trusted partnerships with other presentation professionals and valued clients around the world.

Since 2005, she has been recognized as a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP for her contributions to the presentation community. With Echo Swinford, Julie co-authored the book on templates: Building PowerPoint Templates V2. Discover helpful guides and articles on her Publications page.

In this conversation, Julie talks about her participation at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2025, being held virtually from October 19 to 22, 2025.

Indezine.com is the official media partner for the Presentation Summit.

Geetesh: Julie, your The Makeover Mentor session is always a crowd favorite. What do you hope attendees take away from seeing how you transform real-world slides—starting with both user-provided or Copilot-generated content?

Julie: I hope attendees take away ideas on how to go beyond the first draft of a presentation design, whether pulled together by a human or with AI. More people are testing the waters of AI-generated presentations, including help from Copilot in PowerPoint. Currently, the results are less than ideal with repetitive layouts, too much text, and no attention to design details—just like the decks your manager or co-workers send your way. Regardless of the source, the makeover process remains the same. I’ll share practical tips, explain changes made and why, and share ideas that you can apply to your own presentation designs.

Geetesh: Fonts can be frustrating for many presenters—especially when they behave inconsistently across platforms. What kinds of font issues or solutions do you think will surprise attendees most during this live What the Font? session?

Julie: Fonts can be frustrating! They’re also an extremely important part of the design equation for successful presentations. The font choices you make can influence the tone of the content, impact readability, and affect the quality of your designs. Choose the wrong font, or wrong type of font, and you run the risk of font substitution as the file is shared beyond your system.

I’m not sure what will be the most surprising. Perhaps learning about which fonts to avoid completely? Or, where odd fonts may be hiding in your file? Whatever surprises are in store, I want to make sure to address everyone’s unique font and typography questions. Attendees: get your questions ready as this session will be primarily Q&A.

Geetesh: You’ve written the go-to book on PowerPoint templates and are known for your expertise in presentation design. Can you tell us more about the kind of work you do with clients and how that shapes the content you share at the Presentation Summit?

Julie: I’m lucky to work with some of the best clients in the world who trust me with their presentation and template projects. Some partnerships have continued for more than a decade. These same clients share the word with others, bringing new projects and challenges my way. Often the work entails understanding and translating a brand for a unique template or presentation. Sometimes a client needs a custom graphic concept to help them convey information to their audience. Much of the time, content needs editing. Slides arrive packed with copy and text can be pared down for presenting live.

Similar to the reasons why Echo Swinford and I wrote the book on PowerPoint templates, I’m glad to share what I know with others. That’s an MVP trait, isn’t it? We all love to share knowledge. The content I deliver for the Presentation Summit is a direct reflection of my experience designing for my happy clients.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.