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- The MOST beautiful PowerPoint animation ideas, please download these ASAP!
- Lessons from TED: 5 Simple Tweaks
- Duarte & TED Team Up
- Tips for Remote Presenters
- Interacting with Slides
- Of S.T.A.R.s and Mosquitoes
- A 30-Second Presentation
- Cliché of the Week: Clip Art
- Tricks for Getting to the Core of Your Story (Part 1)
- Look Better Naked
Lessons from TED: 5 Simple Tweaks
Besides being a daily source of inspiration for many of us at Duarte, this year’s TED Conference also gave us a chance to flex some of our creative muscles and turn out a variety of nice presentations. Since we enjoyed working on these projects so much, we thought you might appreciate seeing how we approached a few of them. And since TED released Barry Schwartz’s talk this week, we thought it would be a good one to start with.
TED Talks brought with them their own unique set of challenges:
- Budget. With a limited budget for each presentation, we had to constrain ourselves in certain ways. Project management and content development was kept to a minimum so designers would have time to produce great visuals. Presenters were instructed to bring us a presentation they felt was “complete”, something few of our non-TED clients are expected to do.
- No standard templates. Since one of the great things about TED is the diversity of speakers, we couldn’t use a single template for all of the presentations. That meant we would have to design a new template for each one.
- 18 Minutes. TED Talks are limited to 18 minutes, so we often had to help presenters (some of whom were not used to working within time limits) trim down their presentations so they would fit in the required time.
Those constraints were common to all the TED Talks we worked on. So let’s take a look at how we dealt with those constraints with this particular talk. First, during the months (or hours!) leading up to TED, presenters would send us their complete slide deck. Here’s a sampling from this presentation:
Usually, our team can put together a good strategy within a few minutes of seeing the original slides. In this case, we saw an opportunity to implement five simple tricks:
1. Use a custom background
PowerPoint and Keynote both come with some nice backgrounds. Used appropriately, they can be the perfect backdrop for your presentation. However, they all share the disadvantage of being available to everyone who uses PowerPoint or Keynote. Find a way to be unique.
After: custom background
We wanted the background to be unique, but also subtle. We knew right away that the speaker’s words would be the highlight of this talk so we wanted a clean, simple background. Also, our designer looked at past TED Talks for an idea of what the presentation environment would be like, then chose his colors based on what would look good onstage.
So where can you get a custom background? One place to look is a stock photo site like istockphoto or shutterstock. They have thousands of textures and gradients for sale, many of which would make an excellent background for your presentation. Another option is to simply make one yourself. Our solution was a simple gradient. Creating your own background is easily accomplished with only the tools included in both PowerPoint and Keynote.
2. Choose your fonts wisely
The original deck used a standard Serif font, which we don’t tend to use for presentations that will be projected. (Page 143 in slide:ology for those of you following along.) Serif fonts (like Times New Roman) have little extra details at the end of letter strokes, like the lines at the bottom of many of the letters you’re reading right now. And they tend to work better when your words will go on for more than one line. The letters in sans-serif fonts (like Helvetica) don’t include those extra details, tend to be bigger and bolder, and generally work better in short bursts, like in headlines, captions, and short phrases.
We chose Helvetica for this presentation, for a few reasons: it’s a relatively standard font, so we wouldn’t have to worry about mix-ups backstage; it’s a clean, easily readable, sans serif font; and, well… we LOVE Helvetica here at Duarte Design (check out our logo). We wouldn’t use it for every presentation, but it was a good fit for this one.
3. Use animations and transitions appropriately
If you’ve watched the TED Talk online, then you may have noticed some subtle transitions and a small animation or two. Then again, maybe you didn’t. If we did things right, you felt them, but didn’t really notice them. We wanted the presentation to feel smooth and soft, so we used some soft dissolves and gentle scrolling to enhance the overall experience.
Can you imagine engaging with the speaker’s voice while words are zipping and flying back and forth on the screen? Sadly, you probably can. And it would have been completely inappropriate for this talk. We also could have forsaken animation altogether, but we felt that a small amount of movement added something to the whole presentation. If your animations don’t add something positive to your presentation, you’re probably better off taking them out.
4. One idea per slide
This was a key improvement we made to this presentation. Presenters often include many ideas on one slide, doing their best to be efficient with their slide real estate. An honorable gesture, but totally unnecessary in a digital world.
During a live presentation, visuals exist in time as well as space. The audience doesn’t need to stare at the same four points while the speaker weaves his story around each of them. So we turned this single bullet slide into four different slides, letting the audience absorb them one at a time and (once again) highlighting the speaker’s voice as the most important part of the experience.
5. Take care of your images
I heard a speaker at a recent conference (not TED) give instructions to the audience on inserting images into their presentations. “When you look for images on Google,” he said, “try to find the highest quality version”. I could hear a tiny cry of pain from designers and photographers all over the world.
Folks, Google Image Search is not an appropriate tool for building professional presentations. Finding the “perfect” image on Google gives you no rights whatsoever to use it in your presentation. You need to contact the owner of the image and get permission, by paying for licensing rights. Or asking really nicely.
Having said that, once you have permission to use an image, you want to make it look great for it’s on-screen debut. If you have Photoshop, you can do it yourself. If not, why not try out an online photo retouching service? Do everything you can to make sure the image enhances your story rather than detracts from it.
In this presentation, our main concern was making sure the visuals were clear and the captions were easy to read. Take a look:
Overall, this presentation “makeover” was pretty simple and didn’t take too much time. But even these small improvements made a dramatic impact on the end result. Keep these five tips in mind the next time you need to “clean up” your boss’s slides. They’ll save you time and make a big difference.
Back to TopTopic: Design, Strategy
Tags: Design, presentation, TED, Visuals
- COMMENTS (15)
Good stuff – Do you have any advice for how to approach people on helping them improve their slides? There is a great need for this – I wish sending people links to this post was enough.
Also I am curious if you saw anyone use Prezi at Ted this year? I am surprised no one at Duarte has done a post about it yet.
As you already know – with any presentation software – adding new bells and whistles often increases the odds of people abusing them. That said, I think Prezi.com despite being in beta, has the potential to shake things up in a good way.
What I like most is how closely editing in Prezi mirrors the process of what Garr Reynolds refers to as going “analog”.
The slide structure of PPT and Keynote is based on an old linear paradigm that can limit creativity and delivery.
I loved what you said about Google images – many times we forget that these are often copyrighted and permission is an essential. But, quickly after this, you talk about “retouching” the image for your presentation. Remember that if you retouch, it becomes a “derivative” and if you intend to do this, you must clear this with the copyright owner, too (or make your intents to alter clear when asking for the initial permission).
Nathan, thanks for your comment and question about Prezi. I personally did not see anyone use it at TED, but there may have been some that snuck by me. I would love to know myself!
We are aware of Prezi (we are on the beta testing team), and you are right, we have not yet blogged about it. But, that is a great suggestion!
Both Prezi and PPTPlex (PowerPoint’s version) are forerunners in the non-linear presentation category. They allow for the presenter to address information in whatever order he/she preferrs (or that the audience requests). Prezi’s ability to have video puts it ahead of PPTPlex in terms of features, but as you can imagine, once you have a framework that allows for interactive presntations, the possibilities are endless!
We will see if we can get a post together about Prezi. Thanks again for the comment.
My thought about animations is that, when you don’t use them, instead having things just suddenly appear, it can be a shocking distraction if big, or completely unnoticed if small. By unnoticed, I mean that the animation makes the viewers eye subconciously say, “Hey, there’s something going on over there.”
However, it is important to keep the animations simple and subtle. I use fade in and fade out, set to very fast. That subtlety is what makes the “Hey, there something going on…” subconcious, thus not stealing attention from the presenter.
A quick question about the background: why choose a gradient? My experience (and vague bio-mechanical understandings) has found that when a line of text is overlaid on top of a gradient, bad things happen in terms of eye fatigue. As I read across the line, the relative contrast changes which in turn requires that my eyes strain more than they would with a uniform background. I have found this to be most evident n a darkened room. Gradients seem very popular as backgrounds, so I’m curious.
This post has a lot of great advice for students. As a college student, I’m constantly giving presentations for classes. This information is great for students who wish to give high-quality presentations. I recently highlighted your advice in a recent post on my blog (brandtjen.wordpress.com). Thank you for the tips!
I love the before and after tweaks. The’re a great way to show the power of a bit of good design and the power of a bit of good art.
I came across something the other day that I think you guys will love: It’s from a startup company in Hungary. I wrote about it on Clarity Rules – here’s an excerpt. (And no, I don’t have anything to do with the company.)
Prezi: Coolest presentation tool of 2009
“Focus too much on the details and your audience might not get the big picture. But focus too much on the big picture and they might miss those devilish details.”
I’ve seen the future.
After reading this, you will have too.
The future is Prezi.
Prezi describes itself as “A Zooming Editor for Stunning Presentations.”
I watched a couple of presentations in their showcase, and they’re right.
Do you know what? Just stop reading this and click through. Hit the logo and watch the video on the opening screen. That tells you why. Then scroll down and click on the one called “About Perspective”. It tells you how.
Here it is again: Prezi
It will explain itself. If you aren’t jumping out of your skin with interest, then in a year or two when this becomes more mainstream, you’ll say to yourself
“Oh yeah. I remember reading about that on Clarity Rules. I see what he was on about now…”
Don’t be that person. You’ll feel foolish. Check it out.
We’ve come a long way in the last couple years. Vivid images and big type are supplanting bullet points. Succinct well thought out key messages are supplanting gratuitous ‘thud factor’.
But big-picture, big-text, clean design style (a la Presentation Zen) and the 10-20-30 rule style (though still among my very favourite things) are great for pitches, they’re great for keynotes, but you have to pick the medium to match the message, and as presentation techniques, they can sometimes fall short when it comes to presenting detailed information. Indeed, Nancy Duarte’s top guess in her ‘Five Predictions for Presentations in 2009″ was that tools for complex presentations would have to evolve this year.
It’s true. New techniques have to be added to the presenter’s arsenal. Zooming interfaces like Prezi just might be one of those techniques.
It is just in Beta, and to my knowledge not yet commercially available, but it appears that Prezi allows you to design an entire presentation on a page, then using movement, magnification, orientation and position, lets you zoom in, out and around your presentation to tell a story. Indeed the ‘zi’ in Prezi stands for “Zoom Interface”. They were originally going to call the product “Zui” for Zoom User Interface, but people found it too hard to pronounce. Prezi it is.
Thank you for the great post. I have an upcoming presentation for my Advanced PR Writing course, and your tips for improving slides is very useful. I especially like your before and after shot of the slides. I think gives a very good perspective on improving presentation design. This post is especially useful because you discussed all key aspects of PowerPoints (images, fonts, background, etc.) I recently discussed your article on my blog. Thank you!
I really enjoyed reading this post! I am currently a student, and I give presentations weekly, so this post gave me some great ideas on how to make my presentations better. I like the idea on having one topic or idea per slide–this will keep your audiences attention on what you say, and will keep them from trying to read a lengthy slide. I mentioned your advice on my blog (djester.wordpress.com), where I gave my own advice on how to make a better presentation. Thanks for the advice!
This post is a great resource for making better PowerPoint presentations. I recently had to put together a PowerPoint presentation for a PR writing course at the University of Oregon, and I found Slide:ology’s tips very useful. My favorite tip was the “one idea per slide.” I think this really adds clarity to a presentation. I also think pictures can make or break a presentation and text color is important. I added a few more tips of my own at my blog: http://madelinehicks.wordpress.com/. Thanks for the read! I really enjoyed it!
Great things to remember, thank you!
I am a bit shocked the way the “after” designs are using a condensed sans-serif font; in fact, it’s not much more readable than the serif font in the “before” designs. It’s also quite small relative to the screen size. Were there reasons for this?
Long live Helvetica! Using it now. PPT people: it’s way better than Arial, look for a good version.
I thought those were great looking slides as I was watching that presentation (and for exactly the reasons you listed). Not surprised in the slightest that they were created at Duarte!
Prezi is now available commercially in three formats: one for free (your presentations are shared with the community) and two for purchase. It still has some bugs, but they are looking for feedback and promptly addressing the concerns. I’ve used it quite a few times with great success and as Greg pointed out, “don’t be foolish”…this is the future and if you adopt early, then you will be ahead of the game (and your presentations will -hopefully- be stunning!).
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ade
February 20th, 2009
4:10 am
Great post Doug. You guys always put a great deal of thought into every single detail and make the end result seem so effortless and simple. That’s why you are the pros. I love it.