Image by Mitali Mokerjee
Creative commons Flickr search
TinEye Labs has developed a cool image search engine. Select multiple colors (unlike Google image search), and the tool will mine 10 million Flickr images with a creative commons license (unlike Google image search).
Image by Mitali Mokerjee
Image by Mitali Mokerjee
What is your advice?
Sometimes, people ask you one question that forces you to focus. Yesterday: “So, what is your most important piece of advice to design better presentations slides?”.
Without thinking, I answered that he should forget about the way PowerPoint slides are supposed to look, and view it as a canvas that he can use in whatever is best to make his story stand out.
Hmm, that is what came out. Maybe still a bit concentrated and hard to act upon for a design novice, but that is actually what it boils down to.
Without thinking, I answered that he should forget about the way PowerPoint slides are supposed to look, and view it as a canvas that he can use in whatever is best to make his story stand out.
Hmm, that is what came out. Maybe still a bit concentrated and hard to act upon for a design novice, but that is actually what it boils down to.
Shape fill with a data chart
You can use shape cut outs as masks to create unconventional data charts. Here is how I created the pyramid-shaped stacked column chart:
- Insert a standard stacked column chart
- Cut away clutter until you are left with one huge column
- Insert a rectangle and a triangle
- Align the two shapes, select the rectangle first, the triangle second, right click, grouping, and hit subtract (PowerPoint 2011 for Mac)
- Color the remaining mask in the background color and position it over the graph
The technical VC pitch
Some startup pitches to venture capitalists are all about trying to explain a completely new revolutionary idea. Big bold images, stunning visuals, clever analogies, all needed to get the investor to understand and feel what you are talking about.
The other day, I designed one that goes completely in the other direction. An eCommerce startup with a very specific niche audience that is totally neglected by online offerings. It takes 2 seconds to explain that.
But the interesting part is to explain the VC how the magic of the numbers work. Seasoned investors in Internet businesses have seen hundreds of startups and can probably benchmark in their heads how your company stacks up in terms of LTV, CAC, conversion rates, basket size, repeat purchases, cohort developments.
To the outsider, the presentation might look a bit boring (pages with numbers), but it is the substance that is required for the discussion. To spice it up a bit, use custom fonts (watch out with compatibility) and a slightly bolder color scheme than you normally would use. Also make sure that you show the link between all those numbers: simply pulling numbers from Excel in random order will not sound and look very coherent.
The other day, I designed one that goes completely in the other direction. An eCommerce startup with a very specific niche audience that is totally neglected by online offerings. It takes 2 seconds to explain that.
But the interesting part is to explain the VC how the magic of the numbers work. Seasoned investors in Internet businesses have seen hundreds of startups and can probably benchmark in their heads how your company stacks up in terms of LTV, CAC, conversion rates, basket size, repeat purchases, cohort developments.
To the outsider, the presentation might look a bit boring (pages with numbers), but it is the substance that is required for the discussion. To spice it up a bit, use custom fonts (watch out with compatibility) and a slightly bolder color scheme than you normally would use. Also make sure that you show the link between all those numbers: simply pulling numbers from Excel in random order will not sound and look very coherent.
Newspaper screen shots 2
Following up on my post of last week, here is an example of how to show a newspaper clipping that is different from a standard screen shot.
If you are interested in the NYT article, it can be found here: The virtual middle class rises.
If you are interested in the NYT article, it can be found here: The virtual middle class rises.
Cover those ads
Screen shots of news articles are useful to give your audience a sense of the sign of the times. To make them look more interesting, I reduce the zoom of the screen to get a nice long, vertical shot of the article with the headline and the newspaper logo still readable. On a page with a non-white background, I title it a bit and cover and distracting ads or facebook and Twitter buttons with a white box.
Fonts in Excel
A reader sent me a question the other day: what font to use in Excel instead of the boring and over-used Calibri/Arial?
I think there is not much to gain from using custom fonts in Excel. Readability is requirement number one, and the standard ones deliver. Moreover, Excel sheets are often emailed around to multiple people, and changing fonts creates compatibility issues.
The biggest opportunity to make Excel sheets look better is in the layout of your worksheets and typography. Subtle use of bold, carefully selecting the language you use, grouping similar items together, subtle grey box fills, etc. With a few little adjustments you can make your Excel sheet look like a nicely formated page out of an annual report.
I think there is not much to gain from using custom fonts in Excel. Readability is requirement number one, and the standard ones deliver. Moreover, Excel sheets are often emailed around to multiple people, and changing fonts creates compatibility issues.
The biggest opportunity to make Excel sheets look better is in the layout of your worksheets and typography. Subtle use of bold, carefully selecting the language you use, grouping similar items together, subtle grey box fills, etc. With a few little adjustments you can make your Excel sheet look like a nicely formated page out of an annual report.
High-res images from YouTube
Increasingly, YouTube is proven to be an excellent source of images. More and more videos are uploaded in 1080p HD (you can change the resolution in the settings menu at the bottom right of the video) which creates very good stills when you pause the video and make a screen shot.
To get the best results, try to size the YouTube window in such a way that it is around 1080 pixels wide.
If you want more control over what images to take, you can download the YouTube video to your machine (instructions here) and load the video into a video editing program such iMovie. Here you can move the playhead frame by frame to get the perfect shot.
Because of video encoding, you will see that images get blurrier when there is a lot of movement in the scene. If you want to show action, go ahead and grab the screen shot. If you want a crisper picture wait a few 1/24th of seconds until everything is calmed down again.
An obvious point: make sure that you have the rights to use the content.
To get the best results, try to size the YouTube window in such a way that it is around 1080 pixels wide.
If you want more control over what images to take, you can download the YouTube video to your machine (instructions here) and load the video into a video editing program such iMovie. Here you can move the playhead frame by frame to get the perfect shot.
Because of video encoding, you will see that images get blurrier when there is a lot of movement in the scene. If you want to show action, go ahead and grab the screen shot. If you want a crisper picture wait a few 1/24th of seconds until everything is calmed down again.
An obvious point: make sure that you have the rights to use the content.
Crop to fill
It is never too late to learn something. After my post about fixing aspect ratios of image fills in PowerPoint, Geetesh Bajaj pointed out that there is a much smarter way to do this. Here are his posts for Mac and for Windows.
Showing off your clients
Three different ways to show off your client list, depending on what you want to emphasize:
- Page of logos to show that they include the biggest names in the industry (here is how to design one)
- Map with dots to show that they are scattered around the globe
- Bar chart with sales number ranking to show how much you sold them (if you can share this information)
Mixing them up might not give the best picture: logos of completely unknown companies, a world map with lots of dots in New York City.
Anticipation
Most of the time, it is more powerful to show events that are about to happen rather than the event itself. It is very well done in the ad below for an automatic braking system that anticipates the movement of objects on the road. It brings great tension to the visual, almost making the still image move.
Commenters on Ads of the World were less enthusiastic though. Maybe the plusses and minuses should have been made a bit bigger. And well, if there is something wrong with the chart, it is in its 3D composition. The dog is too close and actually not running towards the cat. But I am probably the only one who bothers about that...
Commenters on Ads of the World were less enthusiastic though. Maybe the plusses and minuses should have been made a bit bigger. And well, if there is something wrong with the chart, it is in its 3D composition. The dog is too close and actually not running towards the cat. But I am probably the only one who bothers about that...
Excel to recover from a PPT crash
PowerPoint 2011 for Mac does not work well with Apple’s Time Machine backup system. You cannot change the backup timing, so my machine always tries to backup during Israeli office hours (night time US), and guess what, one of the few files that needs a backup is the presentation file I have open right now in PowerPoint. While I am sure there is some sort of file conflict mechanism in place, it is not very effective and I had PowerPoint crashing on me numerous times.
What to do about it? This is a relatively friendly crash, your program is not stuck, it just refuses to save your work (with a frequent autosave setting, that should be about 10 minutes of work). Now here is a nice trick to rescue that chart: select all objects on the page, hit copy, and paste them in an empty Excel sheet. Force quit PowerPoint, re-open, copy the objects in Excel and paste them back in. You just saved yourself from having to redo that 15 layer animation.
What to do about it? This is a relatively friendly crash, your program is not stuck, it just refuses to save your work (with a frequent autosave setting, that should be about 10 minutes of work). Now here is a nice trick to rescue that chart: select all objects on the page, hit copy, and paste them in an empty Excel sheet. Force quit PowerPoint, re-open, copy the objects in Excel and paste them back in. You just saved yourself from having to redo that 15 layer animation.
Political communications
Yesterday was election day in Israel, and I was shocked how hard it is for a voter to find out what a party actually stands for. In the end, decisions are not based on information provided by the parties themselves, but election guides provided by the news media.
The cause of this is probably rooted in the way political parties work. Policy documents are hammered out after long internal debates, where people fight over nuances and single sentences. Translating that watered down policy document in a clear message to voters is very hard. As a result, fresh new parties do a better job at communicating what they stand for with a small group of people enjoying the benefits of a white sheet of paper.
Put everything away, take a pause, and sketch out what you really want to say.
The cause of this is probably rooted in the way political parties work. Policy documents are hammered out after long internal debates, where people fight over nuances and single sentences. Translating that watered down policy document in a clear message to voters is very hard. As a result, fresh new parties do a better job at communicating what they stand for with a small group of people enjoying the benefits of a white sheet of paper.
Put everything away, take a pause, and sketch out what you really want to say.
Centring objects
Images with objects isolated on an empty background are not always cropped perfectly. Centring the image will not center the object. Draw a some quick guide lines and you can align things properly.
Investment banking presentations
A question that came in yesterday:
Now, in finance presentations you need a few pages that are dense (financial statements for example). But there is no reason why the general lessons for presentation design do not apply in finance. In the end, investors are people, and it is harder to convince people to do something (invest) with a boring presentation.
And I have seen it work myself. After the initial resistance, people were actually very impressed with a different style fund raising presentation (and proved it by wiring money).
So what to do? My advice would be to take both approaches. A fund raising roadshow is a big deal and usually people have enough time/resources allocated to it to prepare both a visual, and a dense deck. Present the visual presentation, and selectively jump to appendix charts if you have to. Let the audience read the appendix in their own time.
Armed with a presentation like this, there is often no reason to write an extensive PPM (private placement memorandum) at all (the lawyers might have to add some legal stuff to the back of your appendix though in that case).
Be careful to maintain a serious look and feel to the presentation: big pink fonts and funny pictures do not work in the wood panelled board room. But there is no reason why a highly visual presentation cannot look serious.
Hopefully, in a few years we can avoid the dense appendix all together, but until then make 2 presentations.
Jan, I have a question about presentations to investment bankers/analysts. One of my clients getting ready to go on a road show says their investment banking consultants have told them to present what I would call (ala Garth Reynolds) a "slideument" that will also serve as a leave-behind. The consultants claim this is the way it's always done and if they don't do it this way, their audience will disregard them. Your thoughts?Yes, in financial services people are used to very text-heavy slideuments for fund raising and IPO roadshows. And in most cases, people will print out the full 200 page deck for each participant in the meeting room.
Now, in finance presentations you need a few pages that are dense (financial statements for example). But there is no reason why the general lessons for presentation design do not apply in finance. In the end, investors are people, and it is harder to convince people to do something (invest) with a boring presentation.
And I have seen it work myself. After the initial resistance, people were actually very impressed with a different style fund raising presentation (and proved it by wiring money).
So what to do? My advice would be to take both approaches. A fund raising roadshow is a big deal and usually people have enough time/resources allocated to it to prepare both a visual, and a dense deck. Present the visual presentation, and selectively jump to appendix charts if you have to. Let the audience read the appendix in their own time.
Armed with a presentation like this, there is often no reason to write an extensive PPM (private placement memorandum) at all (the lawyers might have to add some legal stuff to the back of your appendix though in that case).
Be careful to maintain a serious look and feel to the presentation: big pink fonts and funny pictures do not work in the wood panelled board room. But there is no reason why a highly visual presentation cannot look serious.
Hopefully, in a few years we can avoid the dense appendix all together, but until then make 2 presentations.
10 points that say it all
One of my clients is one of the finalists in a long RFP process full of long presentations, documents, meetings. After all this information, the client thought it was appropriate to send one last piece of PowerPoint: a simple recap of why they are the best choice in 10 slides.
It was probably one of the most convincing presentations of the entire process. It took very little time to write. It contained much more emotional arguments (we are fun to work with etc.) than all the previous material that was used.
The visual concept I used was designed for on screen reading. I doubled the width of the page to an aspect ratio much wider than 16:9. Reserved the entire left side of the chart for a sentence in huge fonts, and supported that sentence with a very simple picture on the right side. Just 10 pages.
PDF it, email it, and hope for the best.
It was probably one of the most convincing presentations of the entire process. It took very little time to write. It contained much more emotional arguments (we are fun to work with etc.) than all the previous material that was used.
The visual concept I used was designed for on screen reading. I doubled the width of the page to an aspect ratio much wider than 16:9. Reserved the entire left side of the chart for a sentence in huge fonts, and supported that sentence with a very simple picture on the right side. Just 10 pages.
PDF it, email it, and hope for the best.
Mailchimp online annual report
A few days ago there was Kickstarter, and now Mailchimp has put its annual overview online. I like these blends of web design and presentation design.
From a form perspective, the presentation is clever. Widen and narrow the screen and see what happens, as you make the window narrower, first the infographics move closer to each other, then the design switches from a 2 column to a 1 column layout.
From a content perspective, there is some work to be done. Data is not rounded up and makes it hard to read, and some of the information presentation is not terribly relevant to the viewer (pizzas served). Then, the objective of the site is to show that a lot of stuff is going on at Mailchimp, and with that in mind, they succeeded conveying the message.
P.S.: another cool annual report: Warby Parker (h/t Duarte)
From a form perspective, the presentation is clever. Widen and narrow the screen and see what happens, as you make the window narrower, first the infographics move closer to each other, then the design switches from a 2 column to a 1 column layout.
From a content perspective, there is some work to be done. Data is not rounded up and makes it hard to read, and some of the information presentation is not terribly relevant to the viewer (pizzas served). Then, the objective of the site is to show that a lot of stuff is going on at Mailchimp, and with that in mind, they succeeded conveying the message.
P.S.: another cool annual report: Warby Parker (h/t Duarte)
Aspect ratios and image fills
PowerPoint distorts the aspect ratio of images when you use them to fill a shape. To work around the issue, you need to crop the picture in the aspect ratio of your target shape. In the example of the circle below, that is a square.
I use PhotoShop to crop my pictures. You can also use the PowerPoint crop function itself and right-click, save as image.
I use PhotoShop to crop my pictures. You can also use the PowerPoint crop function itself and right-click, save as image.
Crappy VGA projectors
Screens on computers and mobile devices are getting better in 12 month cycles. I design presentations on 2 giant 27" displays that show a lot of detail and reveal the most subtle color shade differences.
Then you put your presentation on a conference room overhead projector that has been sitting there since 2002... The screen resolution is so small that it takes you 5 minutes to find your application windows, and when you finally get to show the slides in presentation mode you will notice that white and light grey is the same color, and that almost black grey is actually bright grey, and that orange means pink.
Test run your designs for the crappy conference room projector.
Then you put your presentation on a conference room overhead projector that has been sitting there since 2002... The screen resolution is so small that it takes you 5 minutes to find your application windows, and when you finally get to show the slides in presentation mode you will notice that white and light grey is the same color, and that almost black grey is actually bright grey, and that orange means pink.
Test run your designs for the crappy conference room projector.
Flat design
I never liked gradient fills, reflections, and bevels. But recently I am increasingly letting go of drop shadows as well, only using them for objects that really need to pop out. I guess I am influenced by the current trend of flat design in web/UI design.
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