I don’t believe this phrase applies to presentations. Apparently, the phrase originates in the American advertising industry in the early 1900’s. Sorry it’s not from a Chinese or Japanese philosopher. In modern presentations images can serve three functions: amplification, clarification and decoration. You want your pictures to perform one or more of those functions, especially amplification and clarification. What every presenter is shooting for is to have a picture communicate one, or a few important words. Words like success, urgency, hope, concern, safety and enthusiasm to name a very few. One picture can convey an emotion that the average speaker may never convey – never mind how many words they… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s a bit of an eye chart
I guess when we say, “It’s a bit of an eye chart” we believe that saying that somehow helps. We might as well say “I’ll do the next part of my presentation in Swahili because I know that no one in the audience speaks the language.” “Ni kidogo ya chati ya jicho.” We know complex visuals are a challenge for our audience to understand. The other problem with complex visuals is they can also communicate an unintended message. Things like, this is too complicated to understand (zone out here). And you (or the topic) isn’t important enough for me to make much of an effort to clean this slide… Read More
Continue ReadingHow you can kick the CRAP out of (or is that into?) your presentation visuals.
Robin Williams (the designer and Shakespeare aficionado – not the comedian) has written two books on graphic design. The books are full of tips and insights that will take your presentation visuals to the next level. She created The Non-Designer’s Presentation Book for people who create their own presentation visuals (slides). It walks you through creating slides using professional design concepts. I highly recommend it. Her other book is the Non Designer Design Book. This book is for people who need to design professional looking documents. It’s targeted at people who have no background or formal training in graphic design. People who from time to time need to put together things… Read More
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