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Cliché of the Week: The PowerPoint Starburst
Honestly, I love Batman as much as the next guy. And I’ll even admit to wanting to be Batman at different points in my life.
But—and this is very, very important—I never wanted to be the campy, 1960’s, Adam West Batman. Never. Not once.
The difference between Adam West’s Batman and Christian Bale’s Batman is…well, it’s all the difference.
If Christian Bale’s Batman made PowerPoint slides (and how do you know he doesn’t?) they would be succinct, hard-hitting, sharply refined, and just slightly elegant.
Adam West’s Batman? Well, he does make PowerPoint slides, and they turn out like the one you see here. POW! KRAK! BOOM! These are excellent techniques if you’re making a campy television show, but outside of that particular aesthetic they just end up looking…well, cheap.
Callouts can be very helpful visual devices, adding just the right amount of information to a graphic. But make sure that the information is the focal point, not the pointy callout shape.
How do you call out information on your slides? Let us know in the comments.
Back to TopTopic: Design, Message
Tags: Clichés, Design, story, Visuals
- COMMENTS (14)
Having watched enough of Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations as a kid I employ the use of a large ‘Hand of God’ that swings in and pokes that which needs highlighting, accompanied by an embedded ‘oooh’ 
Like Douglas, I also like to de-emphasise (if that’s a word) other elements rather than explicitly highlighting something – I often use a semitransparent white box to mask un-highlighted bits.
If it’s a static highlight, good contrasting colours work well. Even the judicious use of bold can be effective if you’ve managed to avoid making all of your text bold in the first place!
I use speech bubbles within the character of people in slide, or a post-it note, or some paper with contrasting tape. Anything that adds texture and depth to the slide while fitting within the design asthetic
I wish more presentations used these ‘flashes’. At least it shows that the designer has identified some kind of key point.
Bursts beat bullets.
For text – font size and color usually works for me.
For Image – Typically appropriate background color.
I use a very small dot … usually red given the color schemes I have to abide by … and then have it either appear next to the item that needs highlighting, or if the visual is complex, fly in to position. I keep the red dot small .. just a bit larger than my laser pointer would be … That laser pointer never works well for me anyway…
Nice Post.
Here’s a question. What would Spiderman’s PowerPoints look like?;)
Joey Asher, President of Speechworks,
http://speechworks.net/wordpress/
The following is a direct (read Copied) quote from a client email on October 3rd… (Sounds like an Onstar® commerical) “Please note that we would like to include a “Starburst” at the top indicating that ”
Do you give them what they want or what they need when they fired the last firm for not giving them what they wanted-regardless of what they needed?
In response to Rikk’s comment about dealing with clients who want you to give them exactly what they ask for. I generally try to use this as an opportunity and not see it as a negative. If the client wants a starburst, and they are fairly insistent upon it, then I try to work within the realms of that. How many types of starbursts are there, do they have to look so clip-art styled? I don’t think it’s possible to invent something new for every client, every time, especially if they are that specific but maybe a new treatment, a variation on that idea, can help you keep your sense of design with the ability to please, and even coach your client. Take advantage of those moments and build baby steps to introduce your client to further thinking. Re-invention can often be more fun then we appreciate.
If it is really important for the audience to understand, why not use a black slide to focus on the presenter and thus making it more intimate, instead of dazzling everyone with bright colors or sending people into an epileptic fit with blinking animations.
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Douglas
October 14th, 2008
10:14 pm
Firstly, I’m disappointed as I was certain that cliché of the week had to be a picture of a trader with their hands on their head with out of focus stock prices on a LED screen in the background. To call out information, I like the approach of either darkening all other elements of the slide just before moving on to the next slide or bringing up some highlighting text briefly then having it grey out or disappear. This would be a single call out line and large enough text to be read with other elements on the slide. The final approach would be to use a contrasting color, though only if the highlight is the point of the slide. I think if you leave it on screen then everything that is not called out, or not highlighted, will be ignored and may as well not be there.