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OK, we made some significant achievements, but we still have a loooong way to go. How to visualize this? Here is one solution inspired by a solar system constellation. Working with actual numbers can add a nice twist: take a bite of 0.5 million out of 1.5 billion can be visualized differently.
A follow-up on yesterday’s post about avoiding bold fonts whenever you can. Sometimes, reducing font sizes can actually help you increase the readability of a point. See the example below.
Why is it easier to read the box on the right? (At least I find it easier to read)
Less is more.
Typography designers design a bold variety of a font as if it were a completely new type face. There is no magic computer algorithm that turns a regular font into a bold one. From scratch, designers need to make the call about balance and readability all over again.
I think bold fonts do not look as good as regular ones. They are often bulky and lacking elegance. Italics/bold fonts are usually even worse.
What to do as a presentation designer? Design your slide without bold fonts initially, and only add bold as a last resort. Your first tool of emphasis should be to increase the size of the font/
(Not) surprisingly, I find that regular slide titles look better than bold ones. Adjust your template if you can.
Somewhat related, a post on color as a last resort.
The pictograms for the 2012 Olympic games were launched yesterday, designed by Yasmine. Glancing back over the pictograms of the past decades (a new set is designed for every tournament), I actually still like those of the 1972 Munich games best (designed by Otl Aicher). Simple, recognizable, and full of movement and energy.
Somewhat related, designs for Olympic posters that were not adopted in an earlier post. Again simple and full of motion.
The audience might feel a little bit like they just stepped out of a roller coaster after you showed them your 30 images in 10 minutes presentation. Some suggestions to calm things down:
Film directors can use powerful tools to throw us in the middle of a story right in the first seconds of a movie. Steven Spielberg’s opening of Saving Private Ryan is a gruesome but good example. Everyone in the audience thinks “Wow, I should be grateful to these guys that drew the short straw and had to come out of the boat first…”
Presenters can use similar techniques. Try to find big images with a perspective as if they were taken from someone in the middle of the issue you are talking about. These images trigger an emotional response from the audience, especially (and maybe only) if they are “real”. Think of photographs that make it on the front page of a newspaper.
The following 2 images could lead into a presentation about the issue of maternal deaths due to poor living and health conditions in the slums of India:
Less powerful examples of images with a patient or victim perspective here and here. Many of my investor pitch presentations use different styles of charts throughout the presentation:
P.S. Read more about the great work that the Acumen Fund is doing to combat the issue of maternal deaths here.
Sometimes you can’t see the forest through the trees. How to visualize this? The ad below uses a technique that can be copied easily in PowerPoint: a huge word/sentence in a bold font covered by a set of fat, spaced out stripes in the same color as the text. Via Ads of the World.
Garr Reynolds wrote a beautiful post on what Zen arts can teach us about minimal use of color. Let’s take things down to the very practical level: how to use these concepts when sitting behind your slideware edit screen.
The key lesson: the color goes in last (if at all).
Some places are easy to get in, and hard to get out. (That one-off discount which becomes permanent for example). How to visualize this?
Things that come to mind (the one-way revolving door, permanent temporary structures such as the Eiffel Tower or the London Eye) are not obvious when you use them in a slide. “You see, your discount scheme is a bit like the Eiffel tower”. Blank stare.
Images of someone stuck in a well and looking up into the light do work. The idea was triggered when I found myself inside the double helix staircase in the Château de Chambord in France, and looking up. Stock image sites also have lots of “inside a well” images.
There is a bigger point in this: presentation designers should look at cinema direction to move audiences inside a scene or a situation and make them “feel” what your message means. A future blog post on this is in the pipeline
Most people have now caught on to the idea of using large images in presentations. But with a few graphics design tricks you can make things look even better:
Here is how to do it:
