By Jon, on March 10th, 2013,   While sifting through my Twitter feed I recently came upon a video about the distribution of wealth in the United States. I read and research various topics every day, but I have to admit, I’m more often reading about social media, advertising, design, storytelling and less often about finance and the economy (to my detriment—I only have so many hours in the day).
I didn’t know what to expect. The video was embedded on a site so I couldn’t see how popular it has truly become (over 4 million views). Within the first few Continue reading…
By Jon, on January 1st, 2013,  In order to create an amazing PowerPoint presentation, you have to learn the process of effective presentation design. After four years of blogging, I’ve written a number of posts designed to help you create better, visually engaging and effective PowerPoint presentations. As all blogs posts do, some resonated better than others and often provided great discussion in the comments.
Instead of forcing you to sift through my site, page after page, or trying to search my site with keywords just to find the best posts, I have aggregated 20 of my best blog posts to help Continue reading…
By Jon, on October 10th, 2012, 
There are basic principles to living a healthy life: Drink lots of water, count your calories, avoid empty calories (read: junk food), and burn calories (namely through exercise)—these principles matter to every human being on this planet. Some need/burn more calories (Olympic swimmers), some need/burn less (the rest of us), but our health, for better or worse, depends on how well we subscribe to those aforementioned principles. There are no valid excuses as to why junk food is a healthy part of your diet or why eating 10,000 calories a day is okay (if you don’t exercise).
What Continue reading…
By Jon, on August 19th, 2012,  I saw this sign as I drove back from vacation this weekend. It was in a fairly rural area of Delaware, though not very far from a major highway. Look closely at the manually placed letters. What are they advertising? That’s right. They have BO at this motel.
I understand that these are very low-cost accommodations. I’m not sure there’s a price low enough to get me to stay in one of these places. And all along this road, the every motel was in just as much disrepair as the next. But that’s not the point.
This sign could be Continue reading…
By Jon, on August 6th, 2012,  When you’ve spent time and energy designing a PowerPoint presentation, it’s not easy to see your effort disappear with a swift stroke of the delete key. But in order to build a truly effective presentation, one that offers the audience exactly what they need (and nothing more or less), you’ll have to kill a few of your darlings.
It’s not simply about shortening a presentation, or finding reasons to negate all the hard work you put into crafting your presentation content and visuals. It’s about giving the audience only Continue reading…
By Jon, on July 8th, 2012,  Cannes Lions is one of my favorite times of year. Not because I get to schmooze with agency types in Southern France, drinking expensive wine and having witty banter. No, I wasn’t invited.It’s my favorite time of year because presentation designer Jesse Desjardins does a fantastic wrapup of the beautiful slides seen during the many Festival events.
Jesse prefaces the presentation by saying that ad agencies create some of the best looking presentations. While I can attest that many agencies have great graphic designers (I work with a bunch at Continue reading…
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