Beautiful new deck by Donny Epp.

via Note & Point

A few months ago my wife discovered that there is a right way and a wrong way to wear bobby pins. One way works well and the bobby pin holds the hair in place. The other way the bobby pin falls out. Turns out she had been using them the wrong way.

Bobby pins have two sides: a flat side and a wavy side. The right way to wear them is with the flat side out, wavy side facing the scalp. This way, the flat side presses the hair into the wavy side and it stays in place.

My wife doesn’t remember ever being taught how to use a bobby pin. She just used what she thought was conventional wisdom and never questioned it. All she had to do was turn the pin over, but instead of trying alternate configurations, she assumed that bobby pins just didn’t work very well and therefore avoided them. Now, knowing the right way she uses them all the time.

How does the “wrong way” of doing something become the prevailing wisdom? Especially when doing things the “right way” isn’t much more difficult than the “wrong way.”

The conventional, prevailing wisdom about how to create presentations is often wrong as well. Full-bleed images and one-idea-per-slide isn’t hard to do, but most people never give these things a try. They just assume that PowerPoint isn’t a good tool. That it doesn’t work well. And it’s to be avoided.

Fortunately, the “right way” of doing things when it comes to presenting is well documented by experts like Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds. All you have to do is wonder if there might be a better way and start looking for it.

(Image credit: Phlora)

Beautiful and inspiring presentation by Maria Giudice of Hot Studio.

Also, get an eyeful of all of Hot Studio’s great presentations here.

I really love the simplicity of these infographics by Yang Liu illustrating the differences between the cultures of China and Germany. They really drive home the point that images can help us instantly see complicated things.

See more over at Brain Pickings

For an good study in designing interesting page (or slide) layouts, look no further than the comics page. The legendary Bill Watterson, the cartoonist behind my favorite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, was a master of thinking out side the box…er…cell.

You can see lots more in the archives at Comics.com.