Author: Margaret

Reader - Writer
Presentation Design

Seeing your work in action

by Margaret2 Comments on Seeing your work in action

Today I had the pleasure of watching some of my presentations being delivered to a small but interested audience. I mainly develop presentations for other people to deliver so this wasn’t unusual, but it has been ages since I had the chance to see them being delivered to a real live audience by presenters with a range of skills and experience. Some of the presenters followed the scripts (in the notes field) word for word and others just took the main points from the slide and then embellished this with their own anecdotes and examples. Both approaches seem to work equally well and depended largely on how experienced the presenter was and how nervous they were.

It’s interesting to see and hear how people interpret what you have developed, and it’s a great test of the clarity of your work. It’s all very well for something to make sense in your own mind, but sometimes things get lost in translation. I am very glad to say that this didn’t happen today. Everything made perfect sense (to me anyway). Of course it helps if you can spend some time before the event briefing the presenter about what the key ideas are and luckily we had had the chance to that. Talking someone through a presentation slide by slide is a great way to ensure that the presenter knows your intent and gives them an opportunity to ask questions and get the timing right. It also prevents that awful situation where the presenter peers blindly at the screen, hoping to discover what point they are supposed to be making.

I don’t want to sound too boastful, but the slides looked great, even from the back of the room. I also watched some presentations that had been developed by other people in my team and these were even better. This was very exciting for me because we’ve all been working hard on developing our design skills and its really paying off.

It was a very different situation when I started with this team just three years ago. I remember the slides being heavy with text, big on jargon and technical terms and featuring no visuals (barring some inappropriate and irrelevant clip art). There were dry, boring and uninspiring to say the least. Now they are clear, to the point and interesting. They contain lots of photos and diagrams, all of which you can see from the back of the room. It proved to me that even if you work in a technical field (as I do) and you have to make presentations about topics which are important (but not always that interesting), you can really improve your presentations. We have, and I’m sure you can too.

Next week I’ll talk some more about where to start, but in the meantime it would be great if you could tell me what your biggest challenge is when you are designing presentations? I’d love to hear from you so be brave and post a comment or question.

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Creativity, Using colour

Design by Nature

by MargaretLeave a Comment on Design by Nature

Hello there everyone

I’ve been thinking a lot about Bev’s comment that nature has a lot to teach us so I thought I’d write a bit more about this today. I don’t want to get into a big theological discussion here, but I do think that designs in nature are truly amazing, especially the colour combinations that just magically work together.

I have recently discovered a lovely blog called Design Seeds. It’s based on a very simple idea – an interior designer posts images from nature alongside a colour palette. This means that if you like the look of an image, you can use the same colour scheme in your blog, website, presentation or brochure and it will look beautiful.  Here are a couple of examples. Beautiful aren’t they?

You can see more here: http://www.design-seeds.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I discovered this site, I wondered if this was something I could do myself so I did some research and discovered this cool (and free) online tool called CSS Drive Image to Color Palette Generator 

You simply upload your own photo (less than 1mb and not wider than 1,000 pixels) and click on the generator and hey presto a colour palette appears like this:

Colour palette generator

It’s fun, have a go yourself.

Let me know if it works for you, it took me a few goes.

What I love most about this is that you don’t need to have any talent at choosing colours, you just need to know what you find attractive and that’s easy.

We all know what we like and don’t like, even if we can’t put it into words.

 

 

 

 

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Design Principles

Let’s try that again

by MargaretLeave a Comment on Let’s try that again

This is a great example of creativity.

<div style=”margin-bottom:5px”> <strong> <a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/CJAtherton/chris-atherton-at-bettakultcha-leeds&#8221; title=”Chris Atherton at @Bettakultcha Leeds” target=”_blank”>Chris Atherton at @Bettakultcha Leeds</a> </strong> from <strong><a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/CJAtherton&#8221; target=”_blank”>Chris Atherton</a></strong> </div>

Creativity, Design Principles

Not really that creative

by Margaret4 Comments on Not really that creative

 

HB graphite pencils Deutsch: Bleistifte der St...
HB graphite pencils Deutsch: Bleistifte der Stärke HB (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

When I am delivering my presentation design course a lot of people tell me that they would love to develop their design skills but that they are ‘not really that creative’. As I have mentioned before, I find this quite amusing as I am not really that creative myself. Some people are born with flair, but most of us have to work at developing their design skills. It certainly doesn’t come naturally to me.

 

About eighteen months ago I enrolled in a Bachelor of Graphic Design course so that I could develop my design skills. Since then I have struggled through the course, one subject at a time, and I must say it’s not talent or good results that makes me continue, just dogged perseverance and an unwillingness to give up or give in. I’m not sure if I am improving or becoming more creative, but I am learning a lot and I think that putting the principles into practice must surely pay off in the long run. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be studying for the next ten years or until I think I have a good enough grasp on the subject matter to forge ahead under my own steam.

 

What I have noticed since I started the course is that I’m a lot more tuned in to design. I notice colours and patterns. I appreciate beautiful packaging, I admire wine labels and linger over well designed websites. I see a lot more beauty around me and I think that’s a good thing.

 

I think one of the tricks to being creative is to develop an appreciation of what works and to be able to articulate why something works, rather than just liking it. My design course has helped me do that by introducing me to the rules and principles of the craft. Writing this blog has also provided me with the opportunity to share some of the things I’m learning about.

 

I would be very interested to know what you think about creativity. Do you have any thoughts on this topic or are there any topics that you think I should be writing about? I’d love to hear from you.

 

Using colour

A little bit MORE on colour theory

by Margaret2 Comments on A little bit MORE on colour theory
A little bit MORE on colour theory

HUE, SHADE, TINT and TONE

In doing the research for this post, I am again struck by how confusing colour theory is, so once again I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible for my own sake and yours.

So let’s start with the term hue. Basically this is a fancy word for what you and I would call a colour. Hues are the pure bright colours that we see on a colour wheel.

A shade is one of these pure colours with black added to it. So the words to the song ‘A whiter shade of pale’ are a bit misleading and should be ‘a darker shade of pale’.

A tint is any colour with white added and a tone is any colour with both black and white added (in other words grey!). So when people ask you to tone down your behaviour, they mean just that.

BUT WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL THIS?

I think the main reason is so that you can sound a bit wise and you can participate in conversations about colour. One of the things that makes a beginning designer feel like a beginner is not having a good grasp of the terminology, so I think its a good idea to get used to using the correct terms for things. But mostly, learning the terminology is just the first step to exploring the wonderful world of colour and understanding how to select and use colour palettes in your design work.

When you see something that ‘just works’ this will usually be because the concept is clear, the language is easy to understand and the images support the concept, rather from detracting from it or confusing the issue. They are a lot of elements in making something beautiful and clear and one of these is colour.

Check out this website for some good info about colour http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/02/color-theory-for-designers-part-2-understanding-concepts-and-terminology/

Using colour

A little bit of colour theory

by Margaret1 Comment on A little bit of colour theory

In my last post I mentioned the importance of choosing the right colours for your presentation, so I thought I would explore this topic a little bit more today.

Recently one of my friends asked me to help her with a presentation she was giving to a group of nurses. We talked a bit about what she wanted to say, and what impression she wanted to give the audience and we had quite a bit of fun fooling around with different slide backgrounds and colour combinations. The original presentation was on a grey background with pink text and bullet points (yes it did include bullet points, more about that later). We finally decided on a cool grey/green colour scheme as we both thought it said ‘this is a serious topic’.

This led me to think about whether you really need to understand how colour works or do you just need to know what impression you want to give and then choose the colours to suit the topic, the audience, and the context in which the presentation is being delivered. In other words…

DO YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT COLOUR THEORY?

You can probably get away with the approach described above as long as you are not working with someone with weird taste who insists on using a colour scheme that is wildly inappropriate. In this situation, it might be really handy to be able to talk with some authority about what colours should be used when and where. But where do you start?

FINDING OUT ABOUT COLOUR

I find colour theory very confusing and that’s a terrible thing to admit given that my first real job was as a photographic colour printer. Having never studied art, it was only fairly recently that I got to understand how a colour wheel works, so I’ll try to explain it to you and maybe that will help me too!

There are basically only three colours –  red, blue and yellow and all the other colours are made from mixing these together in various combinations. When you mix the primary colours together you get secondary colours, and when you mix a primary with a secondary you get lots of colours. Confused yet?

I understand this, but I don’t think it really matters all that much, so don’t get too hung up on it. You really just need to get a colour wheel and stick it on your wall. What is really important to understand how to choose colours from the colour wheel. You have two choices – you can either choose colours that are opposite one another on the wheel (these are called complementary) or choose colours that are next to one another (these are called analogous). Complementary colours are like a happily married couple who are really different in every way, but complement one another really well. Think Ying and Yang, think yellow and purple. Analogous colours are like members of the same family. They tend to look similar, and can blend in well with one another. Think blue and aqua.

colour-wheel
colour-wheel (Photo credit: Jasmic)

As a general rule is that you should use complementary colours for contrast and analogous colours for harmony.

I think that’s enough for now. Next week we’ll talk about tint, hue, shade and tone.

I strongly recommend that you check out this website for some more useful information and some lovely examples of websites that use different colours to create different impressions.

Design Principles

Should you use a PowerPoint template to spice up your presentation?

by MargaretLeave a Comment on Should you use a PowerPoint template to spice up your presentation?

At my workplace we are compelled to use a corporate template, but I am guessing that a lot of you might have the freedom to create your presentation on any old background that you choose? If this is the case, you might be wondering if its a good idea to use a snazzy template to improve the look of your presentation and give it a bit of zing, or whether you should stick with something more conservative?

As usual, the answer is IT DEPENDS.

It depends on where and when you will be presenting and who will be in the audience. A very conservative audience will not necessarily be impressed if you come up with slides that look too different.  If you are selling an idea or a concept, you don’t want to antagonise or distance your audience. You don’t want to be too different from them or they will not trust you or what you have to say. My advice is to find out what they are accustomed to seeing and then deliver something vaguely similar, but better. What you want to achieve is for them to feel that you understand their world, but that you can offer a beter alternative or solution to their problems.

It also depends on whether your background is going to distract your audience from your key messages. Your key aim is clarity. This doesn’t change. Every audience needs to be able to understand what you are saying and you need to be as clear as possible about this. Cluttering up your slides with pretty but irrelevant backgrounds will not help and nor will it disguise a lack of content or poorly organised content.

If you have the luxury of choosing a background theme or template, I would suggest that you choose something subtle and appropriate. This can be achieved through a careful choice of colour and I’ll talk about this next week.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to share. If you are struggling with where to start or how to improve your presentations (or documents, as the same principles apply) please contact me.

Writing

What should you be reading to improve your writing skills?

by Margaret2 Comments on What should you be reading to improve your writing skills?
Plain English Handbook
Plain English Handbook (Photo credit: arellis49)

If you want to improve your writing skills then the first thing you need to do is write. And then write some more. This is the advice that you usually get from writing books and I agree that the best way to hone your skills is to practise as much as you can. Sadly, you can’t really avoid the fact that you need to work hard to be good at something. But you also need to get feedback on your writing and it’s not usually helpful to get feedback from friends and relatives. They are either too harsh or too kind. They never tell you what is wrong with your work or how you can improve your writing, but perhaps they dont know exactly what is needed. This is where writing books come in. They probably aren’t a substitute for a really good writing teacher but they can help you a lot.

It’s hard to nominate my favourite writing book. I have quite a few and like my children, I love them equally, so I will have to give you a small list of my favourites. My number one is probably Paula Rocque’s book called ‘On writing Well‘. This is a great little book which gives plenty of practical advice. Paula covers topics such as cutting wordiness and using the right word.

My second favourite (for the great technical advice) is by an Australian called Neil James. Neil is the head of the Plain English Foundation and has written a great book called ‘Writing at work” which is a terribly useful and surprisingly readable book. By that I mean that the book not only gives good technical advice but is full of interesting information.

My third pick is Brilliant Copywriting  which will help you write persuasively. I found this book to be funny, entertaining and helpful. If you are writing to persuade (and aren’t we all doing that in some shape or form) then this book will help you craft your message. There’s lots of good advice and the book itself is very enjoyable to read.

So these are my picks for today. I hope you find this useful, but if you disagree or have other books to recommend, feel free to comment.

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Design Principles

What should you be reading?

by MargaretLeave a Comment on What should you be reading?

You can always learn something new about presentation design, even if you have been doing it for some time. I have read quite a few of the presentation design books on the market so I thought I would talk briefly about a few of my favourites and you can decide for yourself if they would be useful for you to read.

My number one pick for people starting out in presentation design would definitely be The Non-designers Presentation Book  by Robin Williams (not the comedian).

This is a fairly short book and covers clarity, relevance, animation and plot as well as the fundamental design principles: contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. So basically it covers CRAP + CRAP.

I particularly like what Robin has to say about handouts. Rather than advising presentation designers to avoid providing handouts because they distract the audience, she advises us to create handouts that augment the content. This can be a good way to provide attendees with additional useful content as well as a permanent record of your presentation. However you can’t simply convert your presentation slides to a handout and hope that this will do the trick. It won’t. You need to craft your handout in the same way that you craft your slides and use the same design rules. This can take a heap of time and is not something that you can realistically do for every presentation, however it’s a great idea for a presentation that is going to be used across an organisation or that you are planning to deliver on multiple occasions.

There are many other fantastic tips and hints in this book, so if you want a really well written book on presentation design and can only afford one, you should think about purchasing this one. It’s not as flashy as Presentation Zen and Presentation Zen Design (both of which are beautiful) but it’s good.

Look out for next week’s post on good design books and please let me know if you have any personal favourites.

Presentation skills

Should you worry about personal branding?

by MargaretLeave a Comment on Should you worry about personal branding?

I overheard a colleague being very dismissive about a personal branding course that is being offered to staff at my workplace. The aim of the course is to get people to think about their skills and the way that they present themselves to prospective employers. Whilst it’s not my intention to start giving advice about employment issues, I do think that the topic of branding is relevant to presenting.

Developing your personal brand is about being consistent and credible and these are two things that are really important when you are giving a presentation.

When you are delivering a presentation, you really do want people to take you seriously. This means that your messages must be clear, concise and coherent and you also need to look and sound confident about your topic. This is not easy for those of us who get a little bit nervous when speaking in front of a group. My advice is to rehearse your presentation in front of a friend or colleague that you trust. If you really can’t bear the idea of rehearsing in front of other people, do it at home in front of your dog or budgie. Not only will this give you more familiarity with your material, it will give you an idea of how long your talk will go for and if it flows well. You don’t need to be word perfect. In fact this can often make you sound stilted and over-rehearsed.

Your credibility will be enhanced if you can manage to look reasonably comfortable (my advice is to fake it ’til you make it). Don’t make your audience feel nervous on your behalf. You want them to relax and be interested in your message, so you need to convey the idea that you are in control. There are lots of books about presenting that you can check out, but my best advice is to:

1. Craft clear and concise messages.

2. Be very familiar with your content.

3. Rehearse (but don’t over rehearse).

4. Get to the venue as early as you can.

5. Be enthusiastic about your topic.

6. Relax, breathe and smile – once you get going you’ll be fine, so let your personality shine through.

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