18. Visual artists -- photographers and painters and graphic designers, will tell you that a focus point should fall where the lines cross. Try it, and you'll be
pleasantly surprised.
21. An obvious way to use the picture is like this -- blow it up a bit and try to
centre it.
But the person's face is looking out of the picture. And the rule of thirds
isn't being applied
22. Instead I took the slide background and made it black.
I blew up the pic as much as I could without it pixellating.
I then placed the man on the left hand side, looking into the slide.
The message: sometimes you don't need powerpoint or any visual aids.
This man obviously didn't see the need for them.
30. This is a landscape I have.
The sun is not in the centre.
Why did the photographer choose this composition?
He wanted the horizon to bisect the photo, giving equal prominence to water and sky.
And s/he liked the sun's reflection on the water coming towards him/her.
38. Here, the sun is in the middle of the slide.
The horizon bisects the slide.
But the photo was badly composed to begin with. We will have to crop the photo
40. Here's the final photo. We've cropped a bit off the bottom and the side, and the photo is now centred. A much more dramatci photo than the original.
51. Optima
Candara
Lucida Grande
And avoid Lucida Grand as well.
I like Optima -- its the default font used by Scrivener for the Mac, an unbelievably good application for writers. www.literatureandlatte.com . No, I don't get
any royalties from them.
55. Gill Sans Regular,
Gill Sans Light,
Gill Sans Bold,
Gill Sans Italic,
Gill Sans Light Italic,
Gill Sans Bold Italic
56. Gill Sans MT Condensed,
Gill Sans Ultra
Bold
Gill Sans Ultra Bold
Condensed
57. Please avoid
Arial,
Calibri
and
Segoe
These are the standard fonts that everybody sees.
They give your presentation the impression of Sameness.
Mac users should avoid Gill Sans for the same reason.
I often watch a TED talk and there's a slide with one word on it.
I know immediately it's a Mac and the speaker is using Keynote because the word is instantly recognisable as being in the Gill Sans font.
58. Says it all, doesn't it.
Except the 0% Arial looks a bit like 0% anal, doesn't it?
65. Sans for Headlines
And use serif for text. And
use serif for text. And use serif
for text. And use serif for text.
And use serif for text. And
use serif for text. And use serif
for text.
69. Leave space to breathe
Slides that don't have space to breathe start to look crowded
Acme Widgets
There's practically no information on this slide, and it's still really crowded
70. Leave space to breathe
Slides that don't have space to breathe start to look
crowded
Acme Widgets
I've moved the logo off the bottom and given everything else space to breathe.
The words should be a LOT bigger for a presentation, but you get the idea.
77. Use colour well
Know the colour wheel.
Blue and Yellow go well together.
The best is Black on a kind of Post-It Note Yellow or on white.
Avoid red for backgrounds or for type.
Avoid orange and blue, or red and green -- they are opposites on the colour wheel.
Use purple (move the blue reddinh towards purple) and yellow, or green and pink (move the red over towards pink and you can keep the green).
You can't beat black and white for my money, though.
78. Use dark grey
instead of black
This is because TVs in particular struggle with very very high contrasting colours like white white and black black. I've used the lightest of greys here for
the background and the darkest of greys for the text and there's no discernible difference.
The word "black" is actually in black here.
Another advantage of using very dark grey for a background is that the pictures stand out more, especially if they have white in them.
See slide Three (3) where the person's shirt stands out from the background because the shirt is white and the background isn't.
81. Be unexpected!
This is the key to the content of a presentation.
But it goes for the look / feel of a presentation as well.
Everything should communicate the same message.
101. 1. Don't pixellate
2. Don't distort
3. Rule of thirds
4. Contrast
5. Repeat
6. Line things up
102. Culture Change
Presentation skills training
Spokesperson training
TV training (with cameras)
Radio Readiness
Crisis management
Crisis communication plans
+27 74-1-VIEDGE
+27 74-1-843343
erich@pepper.co.za
On twitter
@erichv
Slideshare.net erich viedge or Pepper Press
Linked In: Erich Viedge
Notice how the photo "pops out" of the frame.
Experiment with breaking the rules, now that you know some of them.
And read Robin Williams' Book -- it's excellent!