Presenting Balance and Comparison [How to visualize a concept]

In business, obtaining and maintaining balance is an essential part of the day to day operations and diplomacy. When presenting thoughts and ideas to team members, it can be challenging to present balance or present comparisons visually. We have found that balance can most simply be represented by basic graphics.

You don’t have to rely on the same approaches over and over to represent balance in your presentations. The key to successful presentations is high engagement, which can be achieved by selecting unique visualizations.

Visual Metaphors for Presenting Balance, Equality or Comparison

An obvious choice to represent balance is a set of scales. While it is an obvious graphical choice for “balance”, we’ve found others which are comparable, while being less blatant. Our favorites rely on the cyclical nature of balance. When you think of balance in terms of a cycle, or like opposing forces working harmony such as yin and yang, the range of possibility widens considerably. You can come up with your own ideas, think of work-life balance, equilibrium in economy or ecosystems symbols, gravity balance.

Modern Style, Neutral Symbols

Above are icon examples from our style neutral flat icons collection. It features a variety of different approaches to representing balance. We choose one of a variety of modern, clean diagrams featuring arrow cycles for this reason. The two arrows revolving into one another is great for illustrating the way two different departments, actions, projects, or elements interact.

To go even further into the symbolized representation of balance, we also have a diagram of plants to represent stability and growth often associated with discussions of balance.

Creative Style, Clever Symbols

If rather than sleek and modern, your presented message or audience would benefit from a different approach, our creative hand drawn symbols have a less formal tone and can help you reach a broader audience. The diagrams are all sketch-inspired and handmade by infoDiagram designers.

Similar to our modern collection, our creative presentation diagrams rely on the symbolism of balance being interpreted as a cycle pictogram. The scales, again, are an obvious literal example. The arrows typically reserved for representing recycling can be utilized for any number of cyclical processes or interactions. Plus and minus signs offer a great way to remind your audience of any seemingly opposing things. From the pros and cons to sales figures, while maintaining the balance between the two.

Beyond the diagrams we specifically intended to represent balance, you can also combine multiple images to bring to life your specific conceptual needs. We obviously can’t break down every possible way to use our diagrams, but a popular example we’ll highlight below featuring our figure with music note and figure with gear images which, when combined or utilized back to back, can easily represent work-life balance.

Need to Demonstrate Another Concept?

If your industry provides a unique opportunity to visually conceptualize balance or another seemingly abstract idea, we would love to hear about it. If you’re struggling to identify a way to represent balance int he context of your organization and don’t think any of the above examples are appropriate, contact me! I would love to help you brainstorm or have our team create a brand new diagram for your unique circumstances.

I’d love to hear what ideas you will be illustrating in your upcoming presentations, especially if any of these slide making suggestions were helpful.

We mean it; if you’re stuck on something we’d love to help. Share your visualization challenge in comments and we’ll propose ideas of how you can illustrate your concept in your PowerPoint presentation text or charts.

Further Inspirations

Need to show another concept in a presentation? See how to illustrate other business concepts – Strategy, Growth, Investment and more.

Check our Business Concepts Visualisation List blog:

One picture to rule them – Visual Metaphors Ideas

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