A segment from a recent episode of This American Life featured a story about Kristen Finch, a speech therapist whose work with children with Asperger’s syndrome led her to wonder if her husband might have Asperger’s, too. Finch’s husband often struggled with being emotionally distant, being a slave to his routine, and not picking up on social cues. At one point in the story, after being diagnosed (he did have it) and learning about Asperger’s and how to deal with it, Kristen’s husband remarked that “it was as if someone had finally handed me a user’s manual for myself.” I have to say that reading Jonah Lehrer’s new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, made me feel that, at least in some small way, the same thing had happened to me.

Imagine is about something that has been shrouded in mythology and speculation for centuries: human creativity. Even the most creative among us are frequently unsure of where their ideas come from. They often attribute their moments of insight to some otherworldly source, like a muse or genius which takes hold of them. Lehrer’s premise is that recent studies have helped us to now understand and explain a lot more about how creativity works than most people, even the professionally creative, might think.

As a graphic designer, I have to be creative every day. And yet, despite my familiarity with the process, there have always been certain parts of “being creative” that have always made me uncomfortable. For example, early on in every project when a client would describe their needs to me, there would come a point when I felt like I had NO IDEA what to do and I would get a sinking feeling in my stomach. Of course, the client wasn’t looking for a solution yet. They fully intended to tell me the problem then let me go work on it for a bit. But the initial feeling of uncertainty made me feel awful. This feeling would sometimes last for days. It led at times to feelings of doubt in my mind. “Maybe I’m not cut out for creative work, because I’m sure “truly creative” people don’t feel like this,” I would say to myself. I hoped and hoped that as I got used to doing creative work that this frustrated, no-idea-what-to-do feeling would go away. But it didn’t.

One of the first things Lehrer reveals is that before there can be a breakthrough, there must first be a block. An obstacle. A seemingly insurmountable problem which we wrestle with and lose. Only then will our brain be forced to search for clever alternatives. It’s this shift into a completely new and different thought process that lies at the heart of creativity. And it’s impossible to get there without first being frustrated.

Eureka! In an instant that very same feeling of frustration which before had caused self-doubt and trepidation was shifted, almost magically, to being a good thing and an indicator that what I was doing was not only not bad, but meant that I was on the right track!

And this was only the first chapter. Lehrer goes on to discuss other stigmas of creativity including how to keep creative teams from stagnating, why hot showers and cups of coffee are good for creativity (but not at the same time), and that it’s possible to cultivate creative genius much like we currently train athletes.

With so many industries changing radically everyday, it’s in everyone’s best interest to harness the power of our own creativity. The good news from Mr. Lehrer is that it’s possible for all of us to do so, whether we currently think of ourselves as creative or not. I wore out my highlighter reading Imagine. It’s a book I’ll be reading again and again in the coming years, right up there with Dan Pink’s Drive and Malcolm Galdwell’s Outliers. If you are or have a vested interested in helping other be as creative as possible, Imagine is a must read.

I know it makes me weird, but I particularly enjoy it when film producers take the time and spend the money to make their title sequences interesting. It’s like an added bonus if the opening and closing credits are fun to watch. Credit sequences have the tall order of conveying a lot of tedious information in a way that keeps your attention, so in many ways, they can teach us something about presenting.

Below are some of my favorite title sequences, and a word or two about what lessons we might learn from them about presentation design.

All of the images below are taken from the terrific site, The Art of the Title Sequence. Click on any of the images to visit the site,read more about the sequences, and even watch some of them.

Stranger Than Fiction

Aside from this being one of my all-time favorite movies, I also love both the beginning and ending titles. The first shows us how Harold, a depressed IRS agent, views the world: primarily in numbers. The later is a whimsical sort of photo developer’s lightbox of images from the film. The two together subtly illustrate the transformation of Harold’s life from one of cold, lifeless counting to one filled with emotion, color, and art. You can use a similar change in the look of your slides to physically illustrate the change you want the audience to make over the course of your presentation.

Wall-E

I love Pixar for many reasons, but one of them is certainly their love and devotion to good credit sequences. From the “outtakes” they created for Toy Story 2, to the beautiful, painted vignettes from Ratatouille, they always manage to make their credits something special. But of all of them, I think Wall-E is my favorite. The visuals actually continue the story of the movie, telling what happens to the human race after they return to earth. Aside from just showing us how beautiful visual aids can be, you can see how slides could actually be like comics that advance the “story” of the presentation. You don’t want them to tell the story completely on their own and eliminate the need for a presenter, but sometimes you can make a point more profoundly by showing rather than telling.

Monty Python and The Holy Grail

The ultimate in low-budget title sequences, the beginning of this film should teach us that you don’t need big budgets to achieve an entertaining (and memorable) effect.

The Untouchables

The concept here is very simple. The camera simply pans past the shadows cast by the letters of the film’s title. We don’t realize what we’re seeing for several minutes, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. A similar effect can be found in the beginning of Tim Burton’s Batman, in which the camera moves around and through a carving of the Bat-symbol. The concept here for presenting is to make each slide part of a larger whole picture, as in this presentation by Duarte, or perhaps using a tool like Prezi.

Catch Me If You Can & The Incredibles

Both of these illustrate just how much can be done using simple shapes, vibrant colors, and typography. Try experimenting with combining shapes in PowerPoint or Keynote to achieve similar effects.

There are, of course, tons of other great title sequences. These are just a few. What are some of your favorites and what kind of ideas do they inspire in you?