What do plants, interior style, and presentation design have in common? Hilton Carter.
Hilton Carter— the OG plant influencer— was working as an interior stylist when clients began to catch on to his “organic” approach to design. And by organic, we mean he had hundreds of living plants styled throughout his tiny apartment in Baltimore, Maryland. The plantfluencer grew (pun intended) to fame after a 2017 feature in a Washington Post article that showcased how Millennials were filling their homes with houseplants. His Instagram— which now boasts half a million followers— and his career took off.
Hilton Carter turned his passion for plants and “plant styling” into a successful career. Soon after his debut in the Washington Post, he released two best selling books Wild at Home (2018) and Wild Interiors (2020) which include beautiful photography, styling and plant care tips, and inspiration to help readers create their own plant-oasis at home.
With his strong interest in interiors, Hilton Carter brings a new aesthetic and style approach to design. But does Hilton Carter’s green interior style translate to presentations? We’ll let you decide.
We took top design tips from Hilton Carter and applied them to presentations.
Make a statement
One of Hilton’s favorite styling tips for an at-home “jungalow” is to choose a piece of statement furniture to style with the plants. He doesn’t shy away from bold, wild furniture just because the room is filled with beautiful greenery. Instead, he uses it as a focal point in the room to compliment all of his favorite plants. "I like putting different textures and forms next to each other," Carter says. "I'm not interested in everything being the same."
In presentations, each slide should have one key takeaway. Your main point should be obvious to the audience, and it should make a statement. Presentation design plays a big part in this because how you decide to highlight your key takeaway will determine how it lands with your audience. If we were to ask Hilton Carter, we’d be willing to bet that he’d recommend highlighting a key piece of information by using bold, big text, using an unexpected color, or calling it out with a complimentary icon or image.
Get creative with your design
Hilton Carter has so many plants in his home that he often runs out of shelves to display them. In fact, he resorted to stuffing them into decor— for example he put plants inside the base of his table lamps— to incorporate them in new ways. Getting creative with your design, and how you structure it, is something that we can borrow from Hilton Carter.
Now, let’s talk about presentations. Your content might not always fit into one slide template. More specifically, Beautiful.ai’s intentional guardrails may limit how much text or how many statistics you can fit on one slide. Spoiler alert: we do this on purpose to keep your presentation clean and beautiful. With Hilton Carter’s approach, you can get creative with your slide design and rethink where you place your content and how you structure your ideas. Beautiful.ai makes this simple with our inspiration gallery and pre-built slide templates so you can easily toggle between different layouts. Sometimes taking a step back and trying new designs in unconventional ways can result in something really brilliant.
Tell a story
At the end of the day, every plant tells a story. That’s why they’re referred to as “living art.” How you choose, arrange, and display them transforms your space to fit your personal aesthetic and lifestyle. "You don’t know if you’re inside or outside, but you’re home,” Hilton said of creating an indoor jungle. Plants help connect people with nature, even if they might not be able to get out in nature throughout the day— just like presentations connect people with your story.
Your presentation should be an extension of you, but it should be relevant and resonate with your audience, too. Similar to how you might choose to present your plants in your home, how you present your story (slides) matters. Each deck is a work of art, and should be treated as a vehicle to connect with likeminded people— whether that be prospective clients, colleagues, or peers. With Beautiful.ai, we help handle the heavy lifting of deck design so that you can focus on nailing your story and connecting with your audience.