Graphics
December 14, 2009 by Pearl
Itâs that time of the year again when dĂ©cor shops spring to life with all the glitters and sparkles for the rapidly-approaching holiday season. I donât know how you react, but as soon as I set foot in such a shop, I canât help but to perform a full 360 degree twirl on my feet; just as I did when I was a child walking into Disneyland for the very first time. As much as I enjoy taking in all the glory of the holiday season in these stores, the experience can also be a bit overwhelmingâŻespecially
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October 7, 2009 by Jerry
A delightful Corona beer video commercial, set in their now-trademark tropical seascape, makes a humorous, but telling point about peripheral vision. A man and a dark-haired woman are seated in beach chairs, their backs to the camera, their heads facing straight ahead toward the surf. The man is on the left, the woman on the right; between them is a low table with two bottles of Corona, each topped with a wedge of lime. Corona Squirt After a moment, a tall and tanned, willowy blond girl, wearing a tiny white bikini, enters into the scene from the right and slowly
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August 7, 2009 by Jerry
Last week, in an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Speaking Truth to PowerPoint,â the writer, David Feith spent 12 paragraphs criticizing the software by citing what he calls âSour Pointers,â one of them an academic and the other a retired military officer. Although Mr. Feith acknowledged that PowerPoint is a business tool (âAmerica runs on PowerPoint,â he wrote) neither of his sources is a business person. To bolster these critics, Mr. Feith also cited graphics guru Edward Tufte, a well-known PowerPoint critic, who has called the application a âprankish conspiracy against evidence and thought.â After all that and two brief paragraphs with references to tangential counter-arguments, Mr. Feith closed his article by concluding meekly, “perhaps all we can say is ânext slide.ââ Try this conclusion, Mr. Feith: âBlame the penmanship, not the pen.â (To read more about this conclusion, please see my prior post.)
July 24, 2009 by Jerry
Meet Rowan Manahan, the Founder of Fortify Services, a Dublin-based consulting and career management firm. Rowan, the author of Where’s My Oasis?: The Essential Handbook For Everyone Wanting That Perfect Job, writes a blog called âFortify Your Oasisâ on which he chooses to use a clip art image to represent himself rather his own handsome Gaelic mug. Extending his modesty, he describes himself as a âspeaker, trainer, husband, father, storyteller and dancing bear.â Earlier this year, Rowan wrote a post we thought you would appreciate as a closer to this series on presentation graphics. We reproduce his words here for
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July 23, 2009 by Jerry
Yesterdayâs post about serif and sans serif font concluded with the Latin phrase, âde gustibus non est disputandum,â or, there is no argument about taste. The phrase is even more applicable, if not indisputable, when it comes to color choice. Well, almost indisputable, for there is a single unavoidable consideration that transcends the taste of any presenter or presenterâs designer, and that is the audience and its ability to understand the graphic. A simple one-word rule, applicable to every element of every graphic, will make it easy for every audience to understand your every slide. And, at the risk
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July 22, 2009 by Jerry
Yesterdayâs post posed a trick question: whether to use initial caps or all caps in presentation text. The trick was to get you to focus on your audienceâs ability to perceive your text. The least common denominator in that post as well as this post, as it is in all my posts, and as it must be in all presentations, is to make it easy for your audience to follow you and your graphics. If you do, your audience will make it easy for you; the alternative is inconceivable. Letâs begin our consideration of serif and sans serif font
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July 21, 2009 by Jerry
nitial caps or all caps, which should you use? An article in the New York Times reported on a trend among major corporations to update their brand logos, and that several of the companies have done so with âstriking similaritiesâ in their redesign. Below youâll find the past and present versions of the Wal-Mart, Kraft, Stop & Shop, and Sysco logos. Please note that all of them have converted from all caps to initial caps. The Times article described this shift as âToned-down type. Bold, block capital letters are out. Their replacements are mostly or entirely lower case,
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July 20, 2009 by Jerry
In the course of the past twenty years, I have posed one question to every one of the thousands of participants who have taken the Power Presentations program: âHow do you feel about presenters who read the words on their slides verbatim?â I have also posed the same question to the countless business men and women who have sat in the audiences of other peopleâs presentations. Not a single one of them has said that he or she likes the practice. Their responses, usually accompanied by expressions ranging from disdain
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May 1, 2009 by Pearl
The first time I watched one of Professor Lawrence Lessigâs presentations, it reminded me of Sesame Street; and one particular episode in which the main theme was a lesson about fruit. As pictures of various fruits, their text labels, and animated dancing characters flashed on and off the screen, the soundtrack bounced along with a lively song. The words, colors, and photos of the fruits and the lyrics of the song, were all as synchronized as an elaborate Pixar film. In Professor Lessigâs presentation, the words and photos on his slides were perfectly synchronized with his voiceover and they proceeded
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April 29, 2009 by Jerry
The Microsoft Office Online site offers users of PowerPoint 2007 a variety of graphical templates for download, one of which is to combine picture and text in one frame, as in the image above. I have taken the liberty of editing the image by reversing the position of the picture and the text as below. Feel the difference? Now letâs raise the ante by increasing the amount of text in each picture and text combination into four short bullets, as is often done in presentations. Feel the
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