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...]]> 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 seconds, I was hooked. The narrator tells a great story, and as a tax-paying citizen of the U.S., I was interested because I saw myself in the story. Combine the story with beautiful and effective imagery (with little text), and it was a prime example of the power of effective visual storytelling.

Check out the video and I’ll discuss more after the jump:

Displaying Data Without The Dull

Every so often I receive emails that all ask a similar question: “I love the way you design PowerPoint presentations, but my presentations have a lot of data and don’t lend themselves well to full-bleed images. How can I effectively design my presentation without filling the screen with data?”

Effective PowerPoint presentation design isn’t just about slapping a full-bleed image on every slide. At its core, effective presentation design is about revealing the truth. It’s about utilizing visuals as a backdrop to your story in order to further engage the senses, turning your presentation into an experience.

Even if your presentation has loads of data that no photography could express, that doesn’t mean your presentation has to be boring. It just means you’ll have to commit to effective design and to think about your data not just as words and numbers, but as visual scenes.

This video went viral, and for good reason. It proves that data CAN indeed be presented beautifully and effectively when told as a story and professionally designed with the audience in mind.

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...]]> 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 you become a better PowerPoint presentation designer. Post types include specific presentation design techniques, book reviews, tips, methods, and more.

So without further ado, here are the best PowerPoint presentation design posts from Presentation Advisors to make you a better presentation designer in 2013.

1. 5 Ways to Start Your Presentation Off Strong – You’ve got seconds to grab your audience’s attention, and only a few minutes to keep it. Technology has made it even worse where you’re competing with audience members dual-tasking on their computers or smartphones. Learn how to grab their attention quickly in this post.
2. 100 Presentation Tips – Here are 100+ presentation tips for preparation, design and delivery to make your next presentation your best, as well as a few extra submitted by readers. There’s a link to download the list as a PDF as well, which you’re welcome to pass along.
3. PowerPoint Design Methods – There’s much discussion about the best PowerPoint design method.  How many slides should be used?  What font size?  How fast should I transition through them?  I’ve insisted that there is no right PowerPoint method. This post includes a few popular PowerPoint presentation design methods and theories that have worked well for some established presenters.
4. 20 Steps to Become a Presentation Design Hero - There’s no set path to become a presentation designer, but here are a few steps I’ve taken to get where I am today.
5. The Best Presentation Design Tool – Here I reveal my most useful tool to aid in finding effective presentation imagery. Best of all, it’s free.
6. Visual Storytelling Goes Viral – I often get the question: “I love the way you design PowerPoint presentations, but my presentations have a lot of data and don’t lend themselves well to full-bleed images. How can I effectively design my presentation without filling the screen with data?” Here’s a perfect example of a data-rich presentation beautifully narrated and designed.
7. Kill Your Darlings – An editor once said to famed author Stephen King, “2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.” First drafts of movies are often hours longer than their final run time. You have to kill your darlings if you want to present the most effective presentation.
8. Breaking Down Steve Jobs’ WWDC Keynote Presentation – We all mourned the passing of Steve Jobs on October 5th, 2011. We’re all lucky to have lived while he changed the technology landscape again and again. In June of 2010, Steve Jobs took the stage for another magical keynote experience (not just a presentation). I decided to break it down for you all of you, highlighting his approach to the WWDC 2010 keynote presentation and what elements create the masterpieces we are used to seeing.
9. A PowerPoint Riddle – What’s heavier, a ten-pound bag of rocks or a ten-pound bag of feathers? Same goes for number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation.
10. PowerPoint Before and After – Various Slide Types – Often it’s useful to see not only the finished product, but the original product as well. In this post I show you some of my personal slide redesigns, including before and after shots with my commentary on the process of designing each slide.
11. 5 Ways to WOW at Your Next Presentation - We’re all trying to find a way to rise above the rest – to separate ourselves from the crowd. There seems to be a common path that most presenters take, and the trail is painfully worn down. Use some of these tips to give your audience something they don’t expect at your next presentation.
12. The Effective Use of White Space in Advertising – I’m a huge fan of utilizing white space (or blank space and isn’t necessarily white).  I wrote this post to highlight some great uses of white space in popular ads, as well as how it can be applied to presentation design.
13. Book Review – Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina – One of my favorite books of 2009 was Brain Rules.  This book not only breaks down the mysteries of the brain using language that we all can understand, but many of the rules apply to presentation design (namely catching and keeping your audience’s attention).  In the post I highlighted three of those rules that you can apply to your presentation tomorrow.
14. Reducing the Amount of Text on your PowerPoint Slides – When clients come to me, they often have a presentation completed, however it’s full of bullet points and absent of any vibrant imagery. Here I walk you through the process of how I remove the text and add appropriate imagery, while still conveying the main idea of the slide.
15. 5 Bits of PowerPoint Advice that will Land You in Presentation Prison - Bad presentation design tips are a dime a dozen, and I’ve heard all the excuses.  Here are 5 bits of presentation advice that you should avoid at all costs.
16. Perception and PowerPoint Design - Your audience may perceive you in many different ways.  Some may find you interesting, while others may be fighting to keep their eyelids open. Are your PowerPoint presentations leading the audience to perceive you in the wrong way?
17. 5 Tips to Perfect Your Slideshare Presentation – SlideShare has been a godsend for sharing PowerPoint presentations, PDFs and more. But just because Slideshare is a good platform, does not mean your presentation will be seen without some extra work. Follow these tips to make sure it looks great.
18. Alternatives to PowerPoint – I write a lot about PowerPoint design (obviously) but it’s not the end-all-be-all to effective presentations. Here are a few options if you’d like to take a different route.
19. 5 Reasons Your Last Presentation Bombed – Yes, presenting isn’t all rainbows and smiles. Some of them don’t go as planned, and others flat out bomb (whether you realize it or not). It happens to the best of us, even me. Here’s a few reasons why that may have happened.
20. If No Bullets in My PowerPoint, Then What? –  If you read a lot of presentation blogs, you’ve heard numerous authors (including myself) preach about the necessary demise of bullet points in PowerPoint. However, one common complaint of readers (rightfully so) was that there were few specific alternatives. Here are over a dozen.

Image courtesy of Leo Reynolds

About the Author: Jon Thomas

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...]]>

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 am I getting at? Well, there are basic principles in presentation design, too. And no matter what, these principles transcend any genre of business.

Many people love and appreciate my style of presentation design, based heavily on what I’ve learned from Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte, and John Medina (just to name a few). It’s an effective style of design, and I don’t think there’s any disputing that. But I often get this question (presentation designers, stop me if you’ve heard this one):

“I love how you use imagery and limited text in your presentations. However, I work in finance (or science, or IT, or any technical, data rich field) and images just don’t work. I need lots of text on my slides. What can I do?”

It doesn’t matter what field you’re in or who your audience is. As long as they’re human beings, the basic principles of effective presentation design still apply.

In his book entitled “Brain Rules”(I reviewed the book here), Dr. John Medina pointed out one simple, obvious, yet powerful rule: We don’t pay attention to boring things.

Whether your audience is wearing a suit, a lab coat, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, they are human beings and they don’t want  to stare at a screen full of words or packed with data while the presenter competes for their attention (since the audience can’t read and listen at the same time). If you want to provide them with a document they can reference later, create a separate leave behind. Don’t turn your presentation into a slideument.

I’m not saying that every presentation needs images on every slide. But don’t give up on trying to effectively design your presentation simply because  bland, text-heavy slides are commonplace in your indistry. In fact, that’s the EXACT reason you should strive to create an engaging, unique, memorable presentation that your audience won’t soon forget.

(Image)

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...]]> 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 fixed in mere minutes. If they’re not willing to fix this one mistake, what does it mean for the rest of the motel’s accommodations? If I find another budget motel on that road (there were no less than 10) for the same price but with a sign that actually makes sense, I’ll choose them.

Instead, this motel is a joke.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, EVERYTHING is a presentation. Every customer interaction is a chance to impress—a chance to show that you care more than the other guy. Your phone calls, your website, how well your product does or doesn’t work—they’re all presentations.

People are judging you. They’re sizing you up. There may be a lot more on the line in one situation than there is in another, but they’re still all presentations. People are forming opinions of you, opinions that are hard to change.
- Peter Coughter, “The Art of the Pitch” (which I highly suggest)

Don’t think that presentations only happen when you’re face-to-face with your customers. They’re happening at every single customer touchpoint.

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...]]> 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 what they absolutely, positively NEED to hear and see. Anyone can dump all the information in their brain onto a bunch of slides. It takes intelligence and restraint to include only what is necessary.

Your audience wants the most important and useful content that matters to them. I can’t tell you what that is, but after years of designing presentations both for others and for myself, I know that the perfect presentation is always at least a little bit shorter than the one originally intended.

Steven King has some great perspective on the topic here. An editor once said to him, “2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”

It hurts. I know. I’ve been there and had to leave some of my most beautiful slides and useful content on the bench. But like cleaning a wound, sometimes you have to go through a little pain if you want the pleasure of wowing your audience.

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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...]]> 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 Story Worldwide), I can also admit that some agencies create some awful presentations because I’ve seen them first hand (Story excluded). Just because you’re a graphic designer, doesn’t mean you know how to create an effective presentation. If you’re looking to improve your presentations, make sure you’re hiring a presentation designer educated in effective presentation techniques and not just a graphic designer.

But the presentation below shows that some agencies DO get it (thankfully). Take a look and enjoy!

Also, as an added bonus this year, Jesse put together a presentation called “100+ Bullet Points from Cannes Lions.” Don’t worry, it’s not actually 100 bullet points. You know I would hate that. It’s a cool presentation with a number of useful tidbits on creativity, social media, advertising, marketing, arts and more. Take a look.

Who says you have to be dull and long winded when presenting data?

I received a tweet this morning pointing me towards this video from brand consulting agency Landor. In just over two minutes Continue reading...]]> I’ve been saying for years now that while facts and figures are important an often integral to your presentation, it’s your story that will have your audience uncrossing their arms, leaning forward, listening and remembering. No matter how great your data is, if it’s delivered poorly, with text-filled slides and absent of any narrative, then your audience will tune out and your message will be lost forever.

I received a tweet this morning pointing me towards this video from brand consulting agency Landor. In just over two minutes they did an amazing job of capturing the issues plaguing businesses who try to tell their story using bland, boring, forgettable PowerPoints while showing how stories aid in attentiveness and recall. Take a look and let me know what you think in the comments.

So if you’re a fan my musings, you’ve noticed that I don’t simply write about effective presentations. I discuss where presentations, marketing, storytelling and social media (all passions of mine) converge. That Continue reading...]]> You may (or may not) know that I live a double-life. While I’ve been designing effective presentations for years now, my full-time profession is within the marketing world as Director of Communications for Story Worldwide—a digital brand storytelling agency. I actually got my start designing effective presentations while in the marketing world, and it grew into this blog and a full-fledged business.

So if you’re a fan my musings, you’ve noticed that I don’t simply write about effective presentations. I discuss where presentations, marketing, storytelling and social media (all passions of mine) converge. That is why I’m excited to tell you about a one-day event Story is hosting called the Post-Advertising Summit, taking place in the heart of New York City on March 29th, 2012.

The idea of Post-Advertising is this:

Traditional advertising is dead. While saying that is a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think we’d all agree that we’ve learned how to effectively tune out intrusive messaging. We ignore billboards, we fast-forward over commercials, filter against spam, have nearly eliminated telemarketing and immediately throw out direct mail. The marketing landscape, like the presentation landscape, has changed, and the only messages audiences see or hear are those they choose to see or hear.

So the question is, how do you engage audiences? How do you get positive attention? By telling great stories.

The Summit aims to bring together the country’s best storytellers and influential practitioners of content marketing, social media, entertainment, journalism and more to collaborate on how creating brand stories will shape the future of information and entertainment.

The day is split up in two halves: The first half focuses on the Future of Information with a keynote presentation by Simon Dumenco (Advertising Age), a panel discussion hosted by Mark Schaefer (Author, Return on Influence) and concluding with a workshop moderated by Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) where the attendees will roll up their sleeves and not only learn how to unearth a brand’s story platform but put it into practice by creating a real piece of useful content, like a content site or an iPad application.

The afternoon will address the Future of Entertainment, with a panel discussion hosted by Shira Lazar (What’s Trending) followed by another workshop, this time hosted by Randy Irwin (VOTIV) and focusing on a creating a piece of entertaining content, like a viral film, a song or a game (just imagine if Dole had created Fruit Ninja or if Green Giant had created Farmville).

What’s So Different About This Event?

My role in helping plan this event was to make sure that at every turn, this event would right the wrongs of all the conferences I’ve been to. My conference attendance was drastically reduced in 2011 because I was sick of the same thing over and over again: Listen to a bunch of thinly veiled sales pitches (with bad PowerPoints), gather a few cards and go home not really having learned or accomplished anything.

In order to ensure that attendees actually come away with valuable NEW information, the Summit will expose Story’s techniques in unearthing brand stories so that attendees can learn how to do the same for their own brand(s). And to ensure that attendees aren’t just passive onlookers, the panels and workshops will fully engage the audience. Particularly in the workshop, audience members will be expected to contribute in the process of creating a piece of content.

I really hope you can join me in New York City on March 29th. If you’d like more information including a full schedule, speaker bios, session descriptions and more, check out the site here.

I’m also offering my readers $150 off the registration price by using the code PA (yes, just two letters, but case sensitive). But hurry – the Early-Bird price of $395 ($245 with the discount) expires on 2/29.