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
Check out this amazing new photo set by photographer, Melissa Munding. The look of the wedding was inspired by the film, Amelie.
I loved Amelie for its visual style, and this wedding captured that remarkably well. I love the simplicity and balance of the bright vivid colors and vintage-y feel. And Melissa’s capturing of the event is exquisite, too.
For more inspiration in this style you might also check out the movie itself, or the lesser known TV series, Pushing Daisies, whose producer, Bryan Fuller, said plainly that the look of the show was heavily inspired by Amelie. I would love to see some presentations that looked like this. Maybe I’ll have to make one.
Excellent work, Melissa!
How much can you eliminate from your presentation? Rather than adding more bullets or text or pictures or stories or illustrations, instead see how much you can get rid of.
Which points are most important?
What information is essential for your audience to make a decision/take action?
Rather than telling a story for each point, is there one story that says it all?
Do you have to show all the data or can you just present the conclusions drawn from that data? Perhaps put the data itself in a handout or online?
Does your slide need text or can it function with just pictures?
Do you need a background or can you just use full-bleed (take up the whole screen) images?
Do the animations add anything or could they be removed? Instead of multiple transitions, could you just set them all to “Appear”?
Could you get away with just using one font? Maybe just vary the size?
Do you need lots of color? What about black and white images, with one other color to highlight the important parts?
The answers to these questions run counter to our gut feelings about things. We want people see how knowledgeable we are so we try to tell them everything we know in one shot. In reality, no presentation could ever cover everything you know about a topic, particularly if you’re knowledgeable enough to have been asked to speak. Instead, take things out. How much? As much as you can.
In the words of Albert Einsten, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
Including too much is actually a form of laziness. It’s easy to just dump all the information in our heads on an audience. That’s why it happens so often.
Eliminating content takes longer, but like so many things in life the extra work is worth it in the end. Your audience will thank you for giving them only the information they require. And the simplicity will make your message more like to be understood and remembered.
Paul Rand, the legendary graphic designer, once said, “Without contrast, you’re dead.” Today I’m gonna share with you a very, very simple technique for making sure that your slides have enough contrast and your audience will be able to read the text.
Garr Reynolds and many other presentation experts recommend using full-bleed images (i.e. – images that completely fill your slides) and I concur. If you do use full-bleed images and want to include text as well, it’s necessary to overlay your text on top of the background image. It’s crucial in these situations to find a font color with high enough contrast to the background image that the text will be legible. Sometimes it’s possible to find an image with plenty of whitespace or areas where text will sit nicely. With other images, though, you may struggle to find a font color that will stand out over a complicated background.
To provide the contrast needed for my text to be visible in these situations, I usually place a semi-transparent shape behind the text box. This is a very simple thing to do and it may seem obvious, but if you’ve never thought of it before it can be eye-opening. It makes a huge difference.
Suppose that you want to use the image below as your full-bleed background.
[Image Credit: Bob Gutowski]
You might be able to place some small text in either of the upper two corners, but if you’re placing a quote or some longer portion of text on the image, it might be tricky.
You probably want to choose a font color that goes well with the image, like a dark brown or dark blue. If your have software with a color-picker, it’s good to select a color that already appears in the image. You can also use a tool like Adobe Kuler‘s Create > From an Image option to find colors that go together well with your image.
Even if you use black or white, the two colors with the highest amount of contrast, the text still won’t really be readable on this background (see below).
But look what happens when you place some color behind the text box.
In each of these examples the text shows up very well and is very readable.
There’s often more than one way to skin a cat and this is no exception. Another way to achieve a similar effect is to set the ‘fill’ attributes for your text box. This essentially adds a background color to your text box and will wind up looking very similar to the effect above. The major difference is that you cannot control the precise size of the text box. For example, if you have two text boxes that you want to place a single shape behind, there’s no way to do this using fills and you’ll have to use the background shape method I just discussed. But if your layout only calls for a single text box, this is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
I’d also encourage you to use transparency. You can place a solid shape behind your text, but I think transparency looks better because it doesn’t completely obscure the background image. There’s really no magic bullet for how much transparency to use, so just toy around with it until you find something that you like that still provides sufficient contrast between the shape and the text.
This little tip may seem very, very simple and that’s because it is. But I’m always surprised by how many presenters don’t use it. Remember Mr. Rand’s admonition about contrast and make sure your audience gets the message.
I LOVE THIS!!! I think its so cool you're going this route...November 17, 6:33 am by Reagan
