Movement without animation

I am not a big fan of animation. It distracts the audience, can sometimes look funny instead of serious, and is not visible when you send people a PDF file, the new standard with the proliferation of platforms (PowerPoint, Keynote, mobile devices).

Here is an option to give a sense of movement in your slide without using animations. When filling a box, select the gradient option and let one side fade out to 100% transparent or 0% opaque. The chart below is a sanitized version for a client that is right in the center of some pretty major transformations that are going on now, so if you are an investor, that is where you want to be as well.



It has been a while since I blogged about chart concepts (here are some earlier ones), let me know if these ideas are useful for you.