I quite enjoy paying attention to how I design my documents and presentations. I usually spend hours thinking over and designing my slides for a workshop or presentation, so that they are aesthetically pleasing and as intuitive as possible. Likewise I recently started revising my CV I figured and I wanted to make it stand out a bit more. (Just to make it clear I don't mean making a clown of a document but just better use of colors, contrast and design elements.)

I have long wondered whether or not this is something that can backfire, since most documents in academic context are extremely plain, at least in my experience. It's very common to see the default Powerpoint slides (white bg, black arial text) or [something as hideous as that](https://www.google.se/search?q=terrible%20powerpoint%20slides&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=HxAaUe3PBM74sgb70IC4Aw&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1282&bih=1065). 

My question is as follows: is putting time and effort into design of academic documents something that can backfire? Will I risk being prejudged with first impressions such as "well he put much effort in the presentation his documents, perhaps because the content is sub-par"? 

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I realize that the question might be somewhat subjective from person to person but I encourage everyone to consider it in terms of this SE blog entry: [Good subjective vs Bad subjective](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/).