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And now, a little SportsCenter humor.

In Uncategorized on February 5, 2010 by Nick Smith

How much of a nerd am I?

I’m such a nerd I watch SportsCenter for the infographics.

[ cue laugh track ]

But have you ever noticed how effective SportsCenter’s Rundown and Bottomline are? Take another look.

SportsCenter Infographic

SportsCenter's Rundown (left) and Bottomline (bottom) are expertly designed.

Together, these two graphical add-ons convey a large amount of information in a minimal amount of space.

The Bottomline cycles through at-a-glance information about all the games that are currently being played. For a baseball game, for instance, this information includes the teams playing, their respective scores, the inning, the count, and the men on base. The far left portion of the Bottomline tells you which sport you’re seeing scores for (MLB, NCAA, etc.) as well as how many more games there are in this category. In the span of a few minutes you can get a tremendous amount of detailed information about numerous games and all it costs ESPN is a few inches at the bottom of the screen. This is much more effective than the running news ticker most news programs insist on using.

The Rundown on the other hand is equally functional for those flipping over to ESPN for a few minutes while other shows are on commercial. In a few seconds, you can scan the headlines and see not only what is being discussed currently but also the next few topics on the docket, making it easy to decide whether you need to check back again in a few minutes. I wish the regular news had that.

Of course, all of this is in addition to SportsCenter’s usual programming.

These two remarkable examples of information design are inspiring. I wouldn’t recommend you add a live feed of sports scores to your next set of PowerPoint slides but I would encourage you to get the most out of every element you add to your slide. Every part of the Rundown and the Bottomline serves a purpose. Everything extra has been eliminated. The same should be true of great presentation visuals.

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Dim Your Slides

In Examples, Slide Tips, powerpoint on January 26, 2010 by Nick Smith

Video can add a lot to your presentation if used well, and with so many devices out there that can capture video these days it’s easier than ever to shoot your own footage to include in your next presentation.

Ideally, your video would take up the entire slide, but it’s not always possible to obtain video at a high enough resolution to do that. A second-best choice is to use a black background to eliminate distracting borders or clutter around the video, but sometimes this strategy doesn’t fit with the template you’ve chosen (or has been mandated by your company, conference organizer, etc.). To de-emphasize any text and background graphics while the movie is playing, I came up with this neat way to make it seem like someone’s dimming the lights on your slide. (Someone, somewhere has probably come up with the same thing before, but I really did figure it out on my own. Honest.)

Here’s how it works.

Your slide will ultimately end up with three layers. The first layer is the slide itself and all of the background graphics, text, and anything else you have on the slide. On the example slide below, I have chosen a simple, white background (which would be quite distracting while the video is playing) and some simple text.

For the second layer, simply use the shape tool to draw a rectangle the full size of the slide.

Change the fill color of the rectangle you just added to black, and set the transparency to something suitable. The transparency should leave the slide pretty dark, but you should still be able to just make out what the text says. Play around with it until you like what you see. In the example, I’ve set the transparency to 25%.

Once you have the rectangle looking the way you want, the final layer is the video itself. Make sure that this sits on top of the rectangle you just created. If not, the rectangle will dim your video as well as the background, which is not so good.

The last step is to set the animation for the semi-transparent rectangle. Set the Entrance Effect animation to Fade, and set it to occur at a moderate pace so it’s not too fast, not too slow.

That’s all there is to it. You can also set your video to begin playing right after this animation so it’s one seamless effect. When you run the slide, it will start out looking like a normal slide with embedded video. Then when you’re ready for the video to start, click your mouse and the slide’s lights will dim making it easy for the audience to focus on the contents of your video alone.

Click here to download a copy of this slide and see exactly how it works.

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Bad Slides: So What’s Your Excuse?

In Design, Slide Tips, powerpoint on January 22, 2010 by Nick Smith

How many time have you heard this at the beginning of a presentation? “Sorry about my slides. I know they’re not great but…”

Aside from the fact that this is a weak opening line, statements like this really get my goat. It’s one thing if the person doesn’t speak publicly very often, but I frequently hear this from preachers, teachers, and others for whom speaking in front of people is a regular part of their professional lives. Here are some of the most common excuses.

I just haven’t found the time to learn PowerPoint yet.

In the years shortly following the transition from old-school overhead transparencies to new-fangled digital slideware thingummies, statements of this kind would be understandable. But it’s 2010 now and every business person in the world has had PowerPoint or its equivalent installed on their computer for well over a decade. If you haven’t learned it by now…

The truth is, you know how to use PowerPoint. You use it every time you give a speech. What you don’t know is how to use it properly. Which leads to the next excuse…

No one ever showed me how to make good slides.

I would understand if there was a lack of resources that would properly instruct eager students in the ways of presentation design excellence, but in the past few years several books, blogs, and websites have emerged to help people cultivate an understanding of not only how to use PowerPoint, but how to think about slide design in general. It’s not up to them to come to you and force you to take their advice. It’s up to you as a presenter to care enough about your slides to seek them out.

I’m not artistic.

This excuse could work for some people…if presentation design required that you have some natural artistic ability. The reality, however, is that most of the concepts of good slide design can be learned by anyone, and learned very easily. Not to mention that there are numerous online tools that will help you make excellent choices when it comes to pictures, typography, or color schemes.

So, what’s your excuse? Especially if you’re a regular public speaker (but even if you’re not), it seems to me that when you offer excuses like the ones above, what you’re really saying to your audience is, “I don’t care enough about my craft to become excellent at all aspects of it.” It doesn’t matter if your message is well-reasoned, your delivery pristine, and your hair is perfect. Poor slides these days simply detract heavily from your credibility and you’d be better off not using them.

There’s just no longer a good excuse for bad PowerPoint.

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Top Ten Visual Aids From the Movies

In Examples, Reviews, Top Ten Lists on January 8, 2010 by Nick Smith

Filmmaking fascinates me. The ability to pair amazing words and sounds with remarkable visuals to produce something so moving requires a blend of technical know how and artistry. The other day I got to thinking about the intersection of film and presentation design, two of my favorite things, and that led me to compile the following list of my top ten favorite visual aids from movie history. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed researching it.

#10 – 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
So you’re a cheeky, high school senior trying to sneak your girlfriend out of school right under the nose of the smarmy principal who wants your hide. How can you possibly pull it off? Guilt your best friend into giving you the keys to his dad’s restored Ferrari (it’s really his dad’s fault: he didn’t lock the garage). Bueller knows that glamorous visuals can distract from a poor or even patently false message, particularly with a dim-witted audience, and takes advantage of the credibility we infer from a beautiful package. Despite his lack of ethics, Bueller’s visual aid makes the list at number 10.

#9 – Flours from Stranger Than Fiction
This is one of my favorite movie puns ever even though I’m sad to say it took a few seconds to fully register the first time I saw it. When socially-inept taxman, Harold Crick, decides to profess his love for the free-spirit baker he’s been auditing, he must make up for many of the awkward things he’s said to her. His gift to her accompanied with the simple explanation of “I brought you flours” leaves her speechless and demonstrates that he is not as cold and unfeeling as he may have initially appeared. The moral for presenters is to let your audience see your human side and never be afraid to open up and be who you really are.

#8 – Duracell D-Cell from The Matrix
I can still remember the ‘Whoa’ moment in my mind as Laurence Fishburne finally delivers the long-awaited answer to the question “What is the Matrix?” It is “a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this,” he says, holding up a copper-top battery. The visual drives home the point of the montage of imagery of humans being harvested for their energy. Excellent analogy, perfect illustration.

#7 – Charlotte’s Web from Charlotte’s Web
In the cinematic adaptation of a book named for a visual aid, Charlotte, the world’s most beloved public relations arachnid, convinces Farmer Zuckerman, as well as much of the community, of the merits of a little runt pig, Wilbur, through the messages she weaves into her web. Employing the fundamentals of presentation zen, Charlotte’s encapsulates her message into simple, one- or two-word messages. She also recognizes that Wilbur’s main problem lies in his image, effectively helping him reshape his brand in the minds of his audience, a move that eventually leads him to renown at the county fair.

#6 – Iocaine Powder from The Princess Bride
“What you do not smell” is one of the most effective and entertaining mis-directions in cinematic history. Having already bested a swordsman and a giant, the masked Westley shows himself to be a formidable opponent in intellect as well by setting up a “battle of wits” with Vizzini. In the way he presents the choices to the clever Sicilian, Westley effectively distracts him from the fact that there may be a third possibility he has not considered (that both goblets are poisoned). Although I don’t recommend you devote years of your life to developing an immunity to any form of poison, it’s good to note the rhetorical trickery going on here.

#5 – CS-Mark 12 Holoprojector from Return of the Jedi
Proof that Moore’s Law must be accelerated in a galaxy far, far away, the holoprojector used for the briefing before the Death Star battle at the end of Return of the Jedi puts the view screen used before the Battle of Yavin (A New Hope) to some serious shame. Representing the ultimate in big screen, 3-D imaging, the CS-Mark 12 demonstrates that good presenters give thought to the technology behind their visuals. Can you imagine this briefing being nearly as effective with a whiteboard?

#4 – Map Room in Tanis from Raiders of the Lost Ark
I love the set up of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Recovering the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, Belloq’s mistaken interpretation of the burns on Arnold Toht’s hand (the creepy German dude), etc. But my favorite is watching it all come together in the Map Room. What a cool idea. It always seemed a little convenient (to say the least) that Indy just happened to get there on the right day of the year for the effect to work, but still, it’s cool that he even knew what to do in the first place. It’s important to remember that even the best visuals in the world won’t win it for you if you haven’t done your homework ahead of time.

#3 – The Switchblade Knife from 12 Angry Men
Twelve Angry Men features many examples of excellent argumentation, from the examination of the time it would have taken the victim to answer the door, to the marks on the female witness’ nose, to the tirade of Juror #10 exposing the ethnic prejudices in the room. There were many ways Juror Number 8 could have explained the fact that he had seen a knife identical to the one used to kill the defendant’s father in a pawn shop in the defendant’s neighborhood, but no words could have been as effective as pulling the twin knife from his pocket, flicking it open and stabbing it into the table next to the actual murder weapon. Classic movie moment.

#2 – Khartoum’s Head from The Godfather
Even though over 40 or so people are brutally murdered on-screen in Scorcese’s mob classic, the visual that got the most press (and objections) was the one Corleone chose to teach Jack Woltz what happens when you refuse one of his offers. Mr. Corleone, we read you loud and clear.

And the number one movie visual aid:

#1 – Hill Valley Courthouse Square Demonstration Model from Back to the Future
Even though it’s not to scale OR painted, Doc Brown’s remarkably elaborate diorama of downtown Hill Valley remains my all-time favorite movie visual aid. Maybe it’s because Back to the Future is one of the first movies I can remember seeing in my life, or maybe its because the movie’s plot is so complicated that the director thought we needed to see the ending of the film in miniature before hand so we wouldn’t get lost. Either way, this is Christopher Lloyd’s Doctor Brown at his over-the-top best, and his performance up until this point makes the outlandish model town square work. Just another reminder that no matter what form your visual aids take it’s most important that they reflect you and your personality. The audience can always tell when you’re not being genuine.

So what do you think? Agree or disagree? What have I missed? What’s your favorite?

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Creating a Custom Background Image with PowerPoint

In Design, Examples, Slide Tips, Templates, powerpoint on January 6, 2010 by Nick Smith

Today, I received a PPT question from a friend I met back in college. Her question was a good one and since I don’t have an email address for her and since some of you might be wondering the same thing I decided to share my answer with you here. Her note is below.

“I am working on powerpoint slides for work using MS Office 2007. It is rather difficult to design templates with boxes of color, etc. Do you have any tips for creating your own templates solely using powerpoint? I know there’s a way to design a template and then imprint it into the back of the slide, but I can never seem to figure it out.

“Hope that makes sense, and hope you can help.”

The answer involves simply taking advantage of two capabilities of PowerPoint: 1) Saving slides as an image, and then 2) Adding a custom background image. My reply is below.

“It sounds to me like what you are trying to do is to customize your background by uploading an image, but you want to create that image in PPT. I hope that defines your problem accurately.

“If so, I think you’re in luck. What you’ll need to do is start by creating the slide normally by adding whatever lines, boxes, etc. you want. Once you have the background looking just the way you want, click “Save As…” and choose JPEG for your file format. This will save every slide in your presentation (hopefully only one in your case)as a JPEG (picture) file. Save the picture wherever you like, but don’t forget where you saved it.

“Next, you just need to upload that image you just created as the background of the slides in your presentation. You can do this just as you would with any image. Open a new presentation and follow the steps at the following link to help you make that image the background of all of your slides.”

Add a background to your presentation

“Also, if you’d like some pointers on how best to design your background or template, you might pick up Nancy Duarte’s book, Slide:logy. If you don’t want to buy it you can probably find it at the library or almost certainly just sit with it in Barnes and Noble for a few minutes. Chapter ten is all about templates and should give you lots of pointers.”

Hopefully that helped her, and if you’re in a similar situation, will help you, too.

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Typodarium Widget

In Design, Free Stuff, Typography on January 3, 2010 by Nick Smith

Having a little Christmas money to spend, I went looking for a calendar I had remembered seeing late last year. It was a page-a-day calendar with a new font on the front of each day and lots of information about the font on the back. After some quick Googling, I found it again. It’s called Typodarium. Unfortunately, it’s sold out. Bummer.

I did, however, find that the publishers have made last year’s calendar available as a Dashboard Widget and iPhone App (sorry PC users). It may be displaying the wrong day of the week, but each day of 2010 it displays 2009’s corresponding font-of-the-day and its supporting information. Not bad, and really cool for us type-loving late-comers. Enjoy.

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Does Pixar hire presentation designers?

In Inspiration, Storytelling on December 16, 2009 by Nick Smith

Who does his slides?

Hello, my name is Nick Smith and I’m a fanatic. (“Hi, Nick!”)

When something piques my interest, I take on a nigh-obsessive curiosity for it and the very mention of said topic gets me very excited. Such topics for me include, but are not limited to:

  • Chipotle Restaurants
  • Mini Coopers
  • Apple products
  • The Beatles
  • Animated movies (particularly Pixar)
  • Coffee
  • Presentation Design

You read this list and you probably don’t care a bit that all of those things are very important to me. But there’s a story behind every one of them, a reason for why they first caught my attention and for why they persist in interesting me to this day. Unless you share in one of those interests, though, you’d probably think me strange if my eyes lit up at the sight of a passing Mini or if I got excited about Target commercial with a cheesey Beatles cover for a soundtrack.

Let me share one of those stories with you.

I’ve always loved movies because from as early as I can remember movie-watching was one of the things that brought my family together. We’d have movie nights and special trips to the theater that were always so special. We got to eat Strawberry Twizzlers as we were transported to different worlds we’d never actually be able to visit. Those nights were magical.

My love of movies, and my interest in math and science, led to an interest in movie magic, the special effects behind those movies I loved, and could not get enough of behind-the-scenes shows and books about how they made such spectacles seem real. I had (and still have) a huge book about the early years of Industrial Light and Magic that I loved to look through as a kid. I would dream about being able to be on the team that created such amazing visuals like that.

Over the years, I became more and more excited as in computer generated imagery and animation (a blend between my love of technology and cinema) became popular. You can imagine my delight when Toy Story, the first full-length, computer animated movie came along. My love of computer animation developed into a love  traditional, hand-drawn animation as well. My Bachelors degree thesis was on the changing gender roles of characters in Disney films. After I graduated from college, I actually came very close to enrolling in a computer animation program, but balked when I saw the kind of debt I’d have to take on to complete the degree.

You can imagine my disappointment when Disney Animation Studios announced that Home on the Range would be its last hand-drawn movie, and my excitement when The Princess and the Frog signaled a return of the hand-drawn musical genre that I loved as a child. Even at twenty-seven my excitement is part childhood memories of movie nights with my family and part adult fascination with a craft that is at the same time so artistic and yet so technically demanding.

Having heard that story, it may be easier for you to understand why I get so caught up in any mention of a new animated film. Had you not heard that story, though, you might think I’m quite strange, perhaps even childish. But I might look right back and wonder how you could NOT love animation the way I do.

My point is this. The goal of any presentation is to convey information to your audience. You have a story to tell. Maybe it’s the story of how the company did last quarter. Or the story of the heroic strategy that will lead us out of this recession.

You already know the story so it’s easy for you to get excited about it. Unless you can convey that story to your audience, however, no amount of statistics and charts and images and quotes and whatever is going to drive it home with them. You have to give them a glimpse of why your story means so much to you. And by telling them the story, you invite them to make it their story. You invite them to join you in knowing what you know and feeling what you feel so that they can ultimately understand why and how you want them to act.

Presenters are storytellers as much as any animator or film-maker or novelist or playwright. At least they can be. And you should be, too, if you want your audience to remember what you said.

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Caffeine by Lighthead

In Presentation Tools, Reviews on December 10, 2009 by Nick Smith

One of the things I love most about being a Mac is that there never seems to be an end to cool little apps and widgets that Mac developers come up with to make your Mac even more awesome. As a slide designer who often uses my Mac to host presentations during important meetings and things, Caffeine is now one application that I can’t imagine having to live without.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re giving a presentation in front of a huge room of important people, you spend a few minutes on a particular slide and all of a sudden, the screensaver comes on, distracting your audience and forcing you to authenticate to unlock the computer and get back to your presentation. Maybe it’s happened to you while you were teaching a class or preaching a sermon, but no matter what, it’s always a pain. The only solution is to spend several minutes remembering to turn off your screensavers and sleep settings before the presentation starts. If you give lots of presentations, this can be really frustrating. Thankfully the folks at Lighthead decided to put a stop to this.

Caffeine is a simple, freeware application that lets you turn your screensavers and sleep settings off and on in just one click. It adds a little coffee cup icon (clever) to your menu bar that you can toggle on and off. When the cup is full, caffeine is on and your screensavers and such are turned off until further notice. Whenever your presentation is finished, just click the cup again and caffeine lets your screensavers go back to their original settings. You can even set it to run for a certain amount of time so there’s no chance of you forgetting to turn it back off again.

When the cup is full, caffeine is on and your screensavers and such are turned off until further notice.

Caffeine isn’t just great for running presentations.  It’s also good to use while watching long videos on YouTube or Hulu, or for reading long blog posts…anything you do regularly during which screensavers are a hassle. I’ve been using it for several months now and love it. It was one of the first things I installed when I got my new Mac recently.

P.S. – I don’t know of anything like this for PC, but if some you do, do share. If not, PC developers, here’s a great idea…

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Good Slides Take Time

In Uncategorized on December 9, 2009 by Nick Smith

Sorry about that deadline.

I spend most of my time here posting about how great presentation design is and how much I love it, but in the spirit of fairness I want to post about something that I don’t like about it for a change. This blog is really about me learning what this presentation design stuff is all about anyway, so there’s bound to be some negative mixed in with all of the awesomeness. The negative thing is a realization I’ve had recently.

Clients don’t come to you until they’re in a hurry.

Over the past few months I’ve been trying to get experience in presentation design to develop my skills and begin building a portfolio of work. In trying to get started, I’ve accepted pretty much every opportunity to do slide work for anyone who would let me. I’ve done some for work, I’ve talked with the preachers at my church and I’ve even spoken to some friends who have businesses that might need marketing materials and such. And in the projects that have ensued I’ve noticed that most people don’t start thinking about their slides early enough. In fact for most, it’s an afterthought. It’s step eleven of a ten step process for preparing for their speech. And so I find myself getting calls for help on presentations at the last minute, with only a few days, and sometimes hours, turnaround time.

Should I have seen this coming? Yeah probably. I guess I’d expected it, but I thought maybe it would be the exception, not the rule.

It makes sense, actually, considering the way many people (including me in the past) approach creating slides; basically a well decorated outline. It didn’t require any more thought than just formally typing up my main points and picking a good template. Which isn’t to say that this approach isn’t appropriate some of the time. But for more important presentations, this simply doesn’t leave you or your designer enough time to do what ought to be done.

If you’re thinking of using a designer to improve your slides, you have to understand that it’s going to take him or her some time to understand what your message is and then to design images and charts that convey that message as effectively as possible. The thinking and brainstorming alone can be very time consuming to do properly, let alone the execution of producing those graphics. Thus, the better you want them to be, the more lead time required.

The good news is that once you realize this is the case there are ways to make things better for both parties.

Clients – Try to give your designer as much time as you can to work on your deck. Factor the slide design process into the time needed to prepare your presentation. If you hand your stuff off to him or her at the last minute, you’ll be getting rushed work and that degrades the quality of the finished product in any discipline.

Designers – Get used to working with people who are under a tight deadline. As much as you’d like to have three weeks or three months to work on something, unfortunately sometimes people don’t find out they’re giving presentations until very close to when it’s due. Just accepting that this is the case has helped me mentally prepare to deal with the kind of pressure that comes from working with people who are running out of time. If you expect this to be the case, it won’t make you nearly as crazy and it will be a pleasant surprise when it doesn’t happen.

On second thought, this may not be such a bad thing after all. Designers could (should?) seize the opportunity to cash in on their client’s desperation by charging more for quicker turnarounds and rush jobs. This, in turn, would incentivize clients to get work submitted sooner to avoid having to pay more. In that case designers should still mentally prepare for the stress of a deadline, but perhaps the promise of higher compensation would make the tension a little easier to bear.

Image Credit: Barbara L. Hanson / CC BY 2.0

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Happy Thanksgiving!

In Great Speeches and Writings, Inspiration on November 26, 2009 by Nick Smith

As usual, no one ever said it better than Lincoln (with help from William Seward).

Proclamation of Thanksgiving

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

More at Abraham Lincoln Online and Wikipedia.

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