IntroductionWelcome| 00:01 |
(MUSIC).
Hi there, my name is Justin Seeley and I'm
| | 00:06 |
a staff author here at lynda.com.
I'd like to welcome you to this course on
| | 00:10 |
designing presentations.
You know, whether you're pitching your big
| | 00:14 |
idea to a group of VCs or delivering a
keynote speech at a conference or just
| | 00:17 |
showcasing annual sales numbers at your
company retreat, having a good
| | 00:20 |
presentation is essential.
In this course, I'm going to walk you
| | 00:24 |
through my process for creating effective
and engaging presentations using a variety
| | 00:28 |
of different techniques, tools and
methodologies.
| | 00:32 |
First off, we'll talk about what makes up
a great presentation and I'll show you
| | 00:35 |
some examples to that effect.
From there, we'll work on developing
| | 00:39 |
themes for your presentations.
Where you'll learn how to select the right
| | 00:42 |
colors, images, and fonts for your
presentations.
| | 00:45 |
Once we've got our theme nailed down,
we'll start putting it all together,
| | 00:48 |
focusing on presentation typography.
How to showcase data properly and how to
| | 00:53 |
effectively control what I call focal
points.
| | 00:56 |
Hopefully by the end of this course you'll
be well versed in the art of presentation
| | 01:00 |
building and ready to deliver your next
project with confidence and style.
| | 01:05 |
All right, enough talking.
If you're ready, let's begin our look at
| | 01:08 |
designing presentations.
| | 01:09 |
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| Using the exercise files| 00:01 |
If you have access to the exercise files
for this course, you may want to copy them
| | 00:03 |
to your desktop as I've done here so that
they're easily accessible to you at all
| | 00:06 |
times throughout the course.
Inside of this folder, you'll find an
| | 00:10 |
Assets folder.
Inside of the Assets folder are various
| | 00:13 |
things like images, color samples, and
things like that, that I'm going to be
| | 00:15 |
using throughout the course.
While you don't have to use these for your
| | 00:19 |
personal presentations, and I would
actually recommend you not using those for
| | 00:22 |
yours, you can if you need to just to get
yourself started.
| | 00:26 |
My recommendation though is that you use
your own files so that you can create your
| | 00:29 |
own unique presentation throughout this
course.
| | 00:33 |
If you don't have access to the exercise
files, that's no big deal.
| | 00:36 |
As I've just said, you can still follow
along using your own files, or simply sit
| | 00:39 |
back and watch as I walk you through each
individual exercise.
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|
|
1. Getting StartedExamples of good presentation design| 00:01 |
So exactly what makes a good presentation?
Well, if you ask 100 people you're
| | 00:05 |
probably going to get 100 different
answers on that one.
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But depending on which school of thought
you subscribe to there are always some key
| | 00:11 |
things to be on the lookout for.
In this movie we'll be exploring examples
| | 00:14 |
of what I consider to be good presentation
design.
| | 00:17 |
And also giving you some places to visit
online to help inspire you for your next
| | 00:20 |
presentation project.
Let's start off at the places that I go
| | 00:24 |
when I need a jump start for my
creativity, when I'm designing a presentation.
| | 00:28 |
There are five basic places that I go.
The first site is something called Note
| | 00:32 |
and Point, and this is a great place to go
to find inspiration for your slide decks.
| | 00:37 |
It's noteandpoint.com, and they have a
gallery of Keynote, and PowerPoint presentations.
| | 00:41 |
And they do have an approval process for
this, so not everyone gets through.
| | 00:46 |
So you can see here there are some great
examples of presentations just listed here.
| | 00:50 |
You will notice that on most of these
presentations you see sort of a consistent theme.
| | 00:56 |
Large typography, big images, simple,
easy-to-read text, that kind of thing.
| | 01:00 |
Those are the things that we look for in
presentations.
| | 01:03 |
We want big stunning visuals to draw our
eyes in.
| | 01:06 |
We want simple readable text so that we
know exactly what the presenter is talking
| | 01:09 |
about as they're going through the
presentation.
| | 01:13 |
The second site that I go to is something
called slideshare.
| | 01:17 |
And I go to slideshare.net's popular
section, so just go to slideshare.net/popular.
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And you will see all of the different
popular presentations that are currently
| | 01:26 |
on slideshare.net.
Most of these are going to be
| | 01:29 |
well-designed presentations.
Now there are some what I consider to be a
| | 01:33 |
little too "businessy", but for the most
part you'll see the same basic principle here.
| | 01:39 |
Big visuals, nice easy to read text.
Big typography, large pictures, that kind
| | 01:45 |
of thing.
That's the kind of thing, again, that
| | 01:48 |
we're looking for here.
We're trying to cut down on the bullet
| | 01:51 |
points and get straight to the point.
Making sure that you get a nice, visual
| | 01:55 |
representation of what you're talking
about, and in at least one to two talking
| | 01:58 |
points on screen at any time.
So again, Slideshare.net is where I go to
| | 02:03 |
find even more of those.
Now third on my list Has got to be
| | 02:07 |
sliderocket.com's gallery section.
So just go to sliderocket.com/gallery.
| | 02:14 |
And you will be able to see all of these
different types of presentations that
| | 02:17 |
people have put on sliderocket, and that
people have created.
| | 02:21 |
And you can go through them by clicking on
them.
| | 02:24 |
And all different types of presentations
are here.
| | 02:26 |
Not just business presentations, but all
kinds of things.
| | 02:29 |
And again, you're going to notice some
common themes here.
| | 02:31 |
Easily readable text, big graphics, all
that kind of stuff are all present in
| | 02:35 |
these presentations.
And that is what really helps get your
| | 02:39 |
message across and also creates a
consistent look and feel across your presentation.
| | 02:46 |
The next one up is slidesnack.com and what
I usually do here is I go to the example section.
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So go to slidesnack.com slash template
dash examples and you can find some really
| | 02:55 |
interesting stuff in here.
I like the color schemes on a lot of these
| | 03:00 |
this is where I go for some examples of
color scheming.
| | 03:03 |
And also some ideas on typography and lot
of these presentations have really good
| | 03:06 |
typography in them.
Like this one down here, the Mobile
| | 03:09 |
Arcade, or Why To Become A Teacher, that
kind of thing.
| | 03:12 |
I like the look and feel a lot of these
presentations.
| | 03:15 |
And I really think that this is a great
place to go to find easily reproducible
| | 03:18 |
presentations that you can then mimic that
style in your own.
| | 03:23 |
The final place that I go is to prezi.com,
and I go to Prezi's explore section.
| | 03:30 |
And so just go to prezi.com,
prezi.com/explore.
| | 03:35 |
And Prezi is a little different because
these aren't traditional presentations.
| | 03:39 |
These are actually, sort of, animated
presentations.
| | 03:41 |
And if you're not familiar with Prezi, you
can actually check out our Up and Running
| | 03:44 |
with Prezi course which was presented by
Lisa Larson-Kelley here at lynda.com.
| | 03:48 |
It gives you a full break down of how to
use Prezi.
| | 03:51 |
It's a really cool platform.
For creating presentations I highly
| | 03:54 |
recommend it if you have not already done
so.
| | 03:56 |
But inside of the Prezi explore section,
what I like to do here is I like to get an idea.
| | 04:01 |
For just sort of how I can change my
regular two-dimensional presentation to be
| | 04:04 |
a little more interactive with my
audience.
| | 04:07 |
So things like this help me decide on
slide translations, help me pick on builds
| | 04:11 |
for different aspects.
You know how words come into play, how
| | 04:15 |
images come in, that kind of thing.
And so exploring all of these different
| | 04:19 |
presentations in the Prezi system allows
me to get a better idea of how I can take
| | 04:22 |
my traditional presentation and sort of
spice it up a bit.
| | 04:27 |
Now, once I'm all creatively juiced up and
ready to create.
| | 04:30 |
I start to build my own slidex.
So I've got a couple of examples here that
| | 04:34 |
I want to show you of some work that I've
done on presentations.
| | 04:37 |
And I want to discuss a little bit about
what works and what doesn't work about
| | 04:40 |
these presentations.
So I am going to minimize this for a second.
| | 04:44 |
I am just going to jump into this
presentation that I did here on design disasters.
| | 04:48 |
And I am going to jump into full screen
mode and just go through some of these
| | 04:51 |
slides so actually think the title slide
is well done here.
| | 04:55 |
Because we are talking about design
disasters things that happen to you
| | 04:58 |
throughout the design process that could
be considered a disaster.
| | 05:02 |
And the typography on the front is
actually pretty well done I think.
| | 05:06 |
Design disasters displayed really big, and
then a large graphic indicating that you
| | 05:10 |
would be upset or shocked if this happened
to you.
| | 05:14 |
The second slide again, my name
prominently displayed, a nice little
| | 05:16 |
picture of myself with my Twitter handle
right there as well.
| | 05:20 |
Some information about me at the bottom.
It's not too busy.
| | 05:22 |
It's just enough.
There's only three things to look at here,
| | 05:25 |
my Twitter handle, my name, and my titles
at the bottom.
| | 05:29 |
Then the agenda, nice, big, easily
readable typography.
| | 05:33 |
Again, I'm limiting my bullet points here,
only four bullet points on this slide and
| | 05:36 |
the title of the slide very, very big.
Next up, we have another title slide.
| | 05:42 |
And again, this is how I do my
presentations.
| | 05:43 |
It's just like one single word or one
phrase all on a slide.
| | 05:48 |
And then I use that to work from in my
presentation.
| | 05:51 |
You should be able to go through your
presentation using only one or two of what
| | 05:54 |
I call keywords and be able to talk from
those at any given time.
| | 05:58 |
Same thing here, just one or two visuals
on each slide making it really easy for
| | 06:02 |
you to see exactly what's going on.
And then the presenter is responsible for
| | 06:08 |
actually conveying the full breath of the
message.
| | 06:12 |
Now let's exit out of this one, and let's
go into this one called disaster sites.
| | 06:17 |
This is another one that I did.
And so we'll enter into full screen mode here.
| | 06:21 |
And again I think this works well with the
big visual.
| | 06:25 |
I think the typography could have been a
little bit better done on the front here.
| | 06:28 |
I like the disaster sites part of it, but
this little sub heading not all that great
| | 06:32 |
and then my name not prominently displayed
at all.
| | 06:36 |
Here this one, so, I like the typography
here.
| | 06:38 |
Again, it's a little busy for me on the
bottom half of this so I might try to
| | 06:42 |
simplify that.
And I also would make the text a little
| | 06:45 |
bit more readable at the bottom as well.
The agenda slide, again, I try to keep it minimalistic.
| | 06:51 |
When I talk about agendas just to let
people know what we're going to be talking about.
| | 06:54 |
It's a high level overview.
This should not be 50 bullet points of
| | 06:57 |
everything that you're going to say.
And then, of course, we've got started off
| | 07:01 |
just big graphics, large, readable
headings that make it easy for you to see
| | 07:05 |
exactly what's going on.
And then, of course, I, the presenter, am
| | 07:10 |
responsible for sort of talking on these
points.
| | 07:13 |
And then making sure that I sort of hammer
home the ideas that are contained in these slides.
| | 07:17 |
Alright, so those are two presentations
that I think I did pretty well on.
| | 07:21 |
Let's take a look at one that I didn't do
so hot on.
| | 07:23 |
This one is called Designing for the
Social Web.
| | 07:26 |
I don't like the typography for Designing
for right here.
| | 07:29 |
The Social Web is prominently displayed
but that's all that you see.
| | 07:32 |
You just get your eyes drawn to that and
the designing for is lost at the top there.
| | 07:36 |
Let's go to the view > enter full screen.
Let's take a look at this.
| | 07:39 |
And, this is probably one of the worst
slides that I've ever done, right here
| | 07:43 |
because my logo at the top was not
readable at the time.
| | 07:47 |
And then look at all this information.
That is way too much stuff to look at here.
| | 07:51 |
Nobody's going to be able to read that, so
just don't even worry about it.
| | 07:55 |
At the time what I was going for is I was
trying to make this look more like a
| | 07:57 |
social media profile over here on the
left.
| | 08:00 |
But it wound up just getting lost.
So again, I could have gotten away with
| | 08:03 |
just two or three bullet points over here.
And I could have done the exact same thing
| | 08:07 |
as what I did here, with even more impact.
This slide, actually not too bad.
| | 08:13 |
The agenda all of these sub points right
there, not too bad.
| | 08:17 |
I really like this slide much better.
Just a large visual talking about social
| | 08:21 |
strategy, all the different social
networks are in the background, and then a
| | 08:23 |
big readable heading there.
Again, same principle here, and all
| | 08:28 |
throughout the presentation.
But there are a few of these slides, like
| | 08:31 |
this one for instance, that get a little
busy, things that I don't like about it.
| | 08:35 |
So, as I said, just keeping your
presentations simple, with big visuals,
| | 08:40 |
easily readable text.
Those are the big things that I go for.
| | 08:45 |
We're going to talk about that and hammer
that home all throughout this course.
| | 08:47 |
But in this movie I just wanted to show
you some places that I go for inspiration
| | 08:50 |
and also give you an idea of what I'm all
about when I create my own.
| | 08:54 |
Presentation as well and show you some
examples of what I consider to be good
| | 08:57 |
presentation design.
At the end of the day, it's up to you what
| | 09:01 |
your presentations look like and how you
convey your message.
| | 09:04 |
And hopefully by the end of this course,
I'll give you a better idea of how to do
| | 09:06 |
just that.
| | 09:08 |
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| Exploring the tools of the trade| 00:01 |
Choosing the right tools for your
presentation workflow is an essential
| | 00:03 |
piece of this big puzzle.
You shouldn't worry about what your
| | 00:06 |
going to use each time you're tasked with
creating a presentation, it should just
| | 00:09 |
come natural like second nature.
I've developed a workflow that works for
| | 00:13 |
me but it's really up to you to determine
what works for you.
| | 00:16 |
In this movie we'll explore some basic
tools of the trade when it comes to
| | 00:18 |
presentation design.
Now, I always start off my presentations
| | 00:23 |
with an idea or a sketch.
Whether that's on a piece of paper or
| | 00:27 |
using my iPad in a drawing application.
This just allows you to get your ideas out
| | 00:31 |
in the open, and helps you determine the
overall look, feel, and flow of your presentation.
| | 00:36 |
While it might be considered old school, I
don't believe you can go wrong with either
| | 00:39 |
one of these approaches.
Either by using a pencil and paper to
| | 00:42 |
sketch out your ideas, in the long form
method, or by using a tablet and a drawing
| | 00:45 |
application to sort of sketch out exactly
what you're thinking about and get it all
| | 00:49 |
out in the open.
Once you've got your ideas in place,
| | 00:54 |
you'll have to start thinking about
software.
| | 00:56 |
After all, these presentations are
delivered via computers.
| | 00:59 |
So you have to use something on a computer
to actually create 'em.
| | 01:03 |
Here are a few design applications that
you might want to think about adding to
| | 01:06 |
your arsenal before your next big
presentation project.
| | 01:10 |
First up, we have Adobe Photoshop.
This is something that I use all the time
| | 01:14 |
and something that a lot of people use for
presentation design, whether it's
| | 01:16 |
processing photos, doing special effects
or whatever.
| | 01:20 |
Adobe Photoshop is an essential piece of
my workflow.
| | 01:23 |
I also use something called Adobe
Illustrator, which is a vector drawing
| | 01:26 |
program, which allows me to create
illustrations, charts and graphs and
| | 01:29 |
things like that, quickly and easily.
You may also want to use something like
| | 01:34 |
Adobe InDesign, which can create rich
interactive PDFs, which you could also
| | 01:36 |
distribute to the people that are viewing
your presentation.
| | 01:41 |
On the budget side of things, we might
want to look at something like GIMP which
| | 01:43 |
is a free image editing application much
the same as Adobe Photoshop is.
| | 01:48 |
If you're on a Mac, you can also use
something called Pixelmator which is
| | 01:51 |
fastly becoming one of the most popular
design applications on the Macintosh platform.
| | 01:57 |
Once we've got our presentation elements
designed, we need a place to aggregate
| | 02:00 |
that material into usable presentation
formats.
| | 02:03 |
For this we look at applications like
Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote and
| | 02:08 |
Google Docs.
Again, it's going to come down to your
| | 02:11 |
comfort level with the operating system
and the software itself to determine
| | 02:14 |
exactly which one of these that you use.
However, you may also want to look at
| | 02:18 |
something like this new online platform
called Prezi.
| | 02:22 |
And again we have courses on Prezi in the
lynda.com online training library, as well
| | 02:25 |
as Google Docs, Apple Keynote, and
Microsoft PowerPoint.
| | 02:29 |
So if you're not familiar with these
applications, this would be a great time
| | 02:32 |
to go find some of those courses, add them
to your lynda.com queue, and then come
| | 02:35 |
back and watch the rest of the movie.
Now with all of these choices, you might
| | 02:41 |
be asking yourself, all right.
Which one do I choose?
| | 02:46 |
Well here are some things to consider when
choosing your tools.
| | 02:49 |
Number one, the budget.
If you don't have the money to spend on
| | 02:52 |
higher end products like the Adobe
applications, for instance, you might want
| | 02:55 |
to look at something like Pixelmator or
GIMP to make it a little easier on the wallet.
| | 03:00 |
Number two is going to be your comfort
level.
| | 03:02 |
If you've been using a PC all of your
life, and you're fluent in Microsoft
| | 03:05 |
Office, there's no reason for you to go
out and buy yourself a Mac just because
| | 03:07 |
Keynote might have fancier transitions or
better typography.
| | 03:11 |
It just doesn't make sense.
Number three, the time you have to invest
| | 03:15 |
in learning a new tool.
Now I'm a huge proponent of continuing
| | 03:19 |
education and learning new things,
obviously, but I understand how busy you are.
| | 03:23 |
If you don't have time to undertake
learning something like Adobe Illustrator
| | 03:26 |
for instance, then maybe try something
with a smaller learning curve, like Pixelmator.
| | 03:31 |
For me, personally, here's what I do for
my presentations.
| | 03:35 |
I process my photos or anything like that
inside of Adobe Photoshop.
| | 03:40 |
I use Illustrator and Photoshop together
to create design elements, whether that's
| | 03:43 |
icons, logos, all different types of
things that might be going into my presentation.
| | 03:49 |
For text and aggregating all of the assets
that I've created, I personally use
| | 03:53 |
Apple's Keynote.
That's because I'm on the Mac platform,
| | 03:56 |
almost 99% of the time.
If I were a PC person, I would probably
| | 04:00 |
use PowerPoint for this.
And then finally, I publish all of my
| | 04:04 |
presentations into a PDF format, and make
that available to anyone that I'm giving
| | 04:08 |
the presentation to.
That way, they could also have the
| | 04:12 |
presentation loaded up on their computer,
or view it later on to see exactly what it
| | 04:15 |
was that I covered.
At the end of the day, it comes down to
| | 04:19 |
your own level of comfort, and what works
for you in your daily routine.
| | 04:23 |
You should experiment.
See what works and what doesn't.
| | 04:26 |
Only then will you be able to truly know
how to create these presentations
| | 04:29 |
effectively and with the right tools that
work for you.
| | 04:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up your slide deck| 00:01 |
There are lot of different things you need
to consider when you are setting up the
| | 00:03 |
slide deck for your presentation.
Now this is an exactly mapping out the
| | 00:06 |
presentation itself, or even talking about
the colors or fonts or anything like that.
| | 00:11 |
This is just the mechanics of that all,
and so here's something that you need to consider.
| | 00:16 |
Number one is the projector; what type of
machine is actually going to be projecting
| | 00:20 |
your message to the audience it's
watching.
| | 00:23 |
There are several different factors
involved here, and we'll talk about those
| | 00:25 |
in just a minute.
Second, and probably most importantly, is
| | 00:29 |
the screen real estate or resolution that
you're going to have to work with.
| | 00:32 |
There are a wide range of screen sizes and
projector sizes out there today, and you
| | 00:35 |
need to know exactly which type of
resolution is going to be present in the
| | 00:38 |
room that you're giving your presentation.
Otherwise you might design a slide deck
| | 00:44 |
that is completely the wrong size or
aspect ratio does look unprofessional
| | 00:47 |
while you are giving the presentation.
You also need to know where your audiences
| | 00:52 |
going to be loacted while they are
wtaching the presentaion.
| | 00:55 |
This is going to be a big consideration on
how you structure the presentation.
| | 01:00 |
How big the fonts are.
How big the images are.
| | 01:02 |
How many bullets are on each slide.
How you move and interact with the slides
| | 01:05 |
while you're giving the presentation based
on the orientation of the audience
| | 01:08 |
relative to the screen.
All of these things are very important.
| | 01:13 |
Finally, the subject matter.
This includes how much information you
| | 01:16 |
have in the slide and all different types
of different variables that you need to consider.
| | 01:20 |
But we'll get to that in just a minute.
First off, let's talk about the Projector.
| | 01:24 |
Is it HD or SD?
Meaning high definition or standard definition.
| | 01:29 |
HD projectors are still sort of in their
infancy right now, but you do see them
| | 01:32 |
from time to time.
So you need to know if you need to be
| | 01:35 |
designing for high definition experience.
Does the projector provide a 16.9 or 4 by
| | 01:41 |
3 aspect ratio?
This is basically like saying, do you have
| | 01:45 |
an old CRT monitor, or do you have a new
flat screen, wide screen monitor?
| | 01:50 |
So you need to figure this out because how
you structure the presentation in terms of
| | 01:54 |
template size really depends on aspect
ratio.
| | 01:58 |
When in doubt, you need to ask the IT guy.
Every place you go to to give a
| | 02:01 |
presentation, whether it's at your own
office or at a hotel conference center,
| | 02:04 |
has an IT guy.
This is going to be your point of contact
| | 02:08 |
in finding out all the information that
you need to know about the projector and
| | 02:11 |
system that you're going to be working
with.
| | 02:15 |
Screen resolution is probably the most
important thing to understand about
| | 02:19 |
designing a presentation.
Because we want to design for the exact
| | 02:22 |
size and shape of the screens that we're
going t obe howcasing our presentation on.
| | 02:28 |
So these are some common screen sizes that
we have available to us.
| | 02:31 |
800 by 600 is probably one of the more
common ones that I see from time to time
| | 02:35 |
when I'm out in the field giving
presentations.
| | 02:39 |
Unfortunately this is the smallest
resolution and some older hotels and
| | 02:42 |
conference centers still use this
resolution for their projectors.
| | 02:46 |
This is going to be the most cramped and
small presentation you've ever created if
| | 02:50 |
you run across this, but you just have to
make due with what you have 1024 by 768 is
| | 02:53 |
becoming more and more the standard of
today.
| | 02:58 |
1024 by 768 is just like a standard
wallpaper size for older computer monitors.
| | 03:02 |
And this is actually what you see probably
9 times out of 10 when you go to modern
| | 03:06 |
conference centers.
1280x720 should be considered a luxury, in
| | 03:11 |
my opinion.
Now, I just spoke at several conferences
| | 03:14 |
this year where most of the big time
conferences are moving to a 1280x720 setup.
| | 03:20 |
The projectors are getting better and
better at doing this, so 1280x720 I think
| | 03:24 |
will slowly become the new standard going
forward but we can't really rely on that
| | 03:27 |
just yet.
1980 by 1020 that's a pipe dream for me
| | 03:31 |
personally because I really want that to
be standard and I'm sure at some point it
| | 03:35 |
will whenever everybody in the world has
these 30 inch high definition displays.
| | 03:42 |
But as of right now I've only seen this a
handful of times in really, really modern
| | 03:46 |
conference situations.
So I wouldn't bank on ever seeing that If
| | 03:49 |
you're just doing some general conference
sessions or presentations to groups and
| | 03:53 |
people like that in your business.
So, these are the screen sizes that you
| | 03:57 |
need to remember.
These are the screen sizes you need to
| | 04:00 |
make sure you know about, and these are
the presentations you need to make sure
| | 04:03 |
you create themes for.
So, 800 by 600, 1024 by 768.
| | 04:08 |
1280 by 720 and 1980 by 1020.
The next consideration is where is your
| | 04:16 |
audience going to be.
Now, this could be different depending on
| | 04:19 |
where you are.
If you're at work, if you're at a
| | 04:21 |
conference, if you're at a hotel, it
doesn't matter where you are, the audience
| | 04:24 |
set-up is always going to be different.
Here's some examples that I've come across
| | 04:29 |
in my line of work.
So the first one is just a standard
| | 04:31 |
classroom set-up.
You're there in the front, that's the
| | 04:34 |
little square.
And then the rest of these are just tables
| | 04:36 |
with people seated behind them.
The screen is most likely behind you or
| | 04:40 |
you have one on either side of you, that
way both sides of the room can equally see this.
| | 04:44 |
This would allow you to actually have a
smaller screen size.
| | 04:48 |
1024 by 1768 for instance, if you had two
screens, that way both sides could see it equally.
| | 04:52 |
That would also change the amount of
information and font size and image size
| | 04:55 |
that you would have on the presentation as
well.
| | 04:59 |
The next one is more of a big style
conference setup, you're right in front of
| | 05:02 |
the screen, the screen is projected behind
you, very large, almost like a movie
| | 05:06 |
theater like setup.
People don't have tables necessarily they
| | 05:10 |
just are seated right like this, and this
is actually one of the more common ones
| | 05:13 |
that I see at bigger conferences.
This allows you to have big, bold
| | 05:17 |
graphics, big bold typography, but it does
not allow you to have a small defined list
| | 05:20 |
of bullet points and things like that, so
if you're really trying to get into a
| | 05:24 |
technical presentation, this is probably
not the best set up for you.
| | 05:30 |
This is one of the more common room you
see in the corporate world, it's kind of a
| | 05:32 |
boardroom setup.
You're going to be seated somewhere around
| | 05:35 |
her controlling probably a TV somwhere on
the wall.
| | 05:38 |
So you need to be considerate of of the
fact that some of your audience members
| | 05:40 |
may or may not be able to actually see the
presentation while you're giving it.
| | 05:44 |
Meaning that you should keep your
information scarce on the presentation
| | 05:47 |
slides themselves, and just know it by
heart so that you can convey that
| | 05:50 |
information to them.
And they could take notes or write it
| | 05:53 |
down, or whatever they need to do.
Here's another common horse shoe like
| | 05:56 |
setup, where you on the front you got a
podium may be of to the one side, you got
| | 05:59 |
a desk up there, if you need to do a demo
in one single screen.
| | 06:04 |
This screen is usually push back a little
further and so the people in the back of
| | 06:08 |
the room have a little bit of a harder
time seeing smaller point text.
| | 06:13 |
Are there any needs for photos and videos
in your presentation.
| | 06:37 |
And will you need audio in your
presentation.
| | 06:41 |
These are all important bullet points that
you need to keep in mind while setting up
| | 06:44 |
your slide deck because how much info you
have to cover determines just how big each
| | 06:48 |
slide needs to be.
Or how much info needs to be on each slide.
| | 06:52 |
If we're trying to follow the rules of
good presentation design, we're trying to
| | 06:56 |
keep the amount of slides to a minimum.
While also trying to keep the amount of
| | 07:00 |
info on each slide at a minimum as well.
Remember the presentation needs to be
| | 07:04 |
engage and from start to finish.
You want to make sure that audience is
| | 07:08 |
just drawn in and focus on what you're
talking about.
| | 07:11 |
You don't want to bore them to death with
nonstop bullet and nonstop information.
| | 07:15 |
So you have to consider that and figure
out how to structure this deck appropriately.
| | 07:19 |
The data.
Are you going to be showing a lot of
| | 07:21 |
charts and graph?
If so, you might want to construct the
| | 07:23 |
deck in such a way that you create a theme
around this, that has big spaces left for
| | 07:27 |
big data points, charts, graph, that kind
of thing.
| | 07:32 |
Are you going to use a lot of photos and
video for this?
| | 07:34 |
If so, you need to understand, again, the
place where you're presenting.
| | 07:38 |
Do they have the ability to show video?
Is the setup of the audience conducive to
| | 07:42 |
show big things like photos and videos?
Sound consideration is also big here.
| | 07:47 |
Do they have an audio system that you can
play through inside of wherever it is
| | 07:49 |
you're giving this presentation?
These are all things you need to learn
| | 07:53 |
ahead of time and prepare for.
As you start to understand the areas that
| | 07:57 |
you go to most often, you'll get a lot of
this information already and you'll just
| | 08:01 |
know how to set up a presentation based on
the area that you're going to.
| | 08:06 |
For instance, when I go speak at certain
conferences that are at the same place
| | 08:09 |
every year, I know automatically what the
resolution is.
| | 08:12 |
How big my text should be where the
audience is going to be seated?
| | 08:15 |
Whether or not I'm going to have audio or
video support.
| | 08:18 |
And it's just a lot easier that way.
It also allows me to do exactly what I'm
| | 08:21 |
going to talk about during the last part
of this, is using a presentation app and
| | 08:24 |
developing templates based on certain
areas that you visit.
| | 08:29 |
Now, a lot of people design their slides
in different applications.
| | 08:32 |
Some people use Photoshop, some people use
Illustrator, some people use InDesign for instance.
| | 08:36 |
But I find that PowerPoint and Keynote are
the best applications for designing
| | 08:41 |
presentations in the end.
Now you can do graphics and all kind of
| | 08:45 |
cool things in the other applications, but
actually aggregating everything together
| | 08:49 |
into a presentation app to finish it off
is definitely the way to go because a, if
| | 08:52 |
you’re not able to use your computer at
the place where you’re giving this presentation.
| | 08:59 |
You may actually have to have your
presentation in one of these formats to
| | 09:03 |
use on the machine that they have for you.
And, B, you also need to make sure that
| | 09:08 |
whatever app you're building this in has
the ability to quickly and easily switch
| | 09:11 |
screen or slide size.
Both of these applications have the
| | 09:16 |
ability to instantly switch from, let's
say, 1024 by 768 to 1280 by 720, allowing
| | 09:19 |
you to create different templates for
different venues.
| | 09:24 |
And that's my final point.
Create your self-templates.
| | 09:28 |
You should have one theme that you use
consistently and you need to have that
| | 09:31 |
theme in several different formats.
800 by 600, 1024 by 768, 1280 by 720 and
| | 09:37 |
also in a super HD format what ever that
may be.
| | 09:42 |
So at the end of the day constructing your
slide X is a really important piece of the puzzle.
| | 09:49 |
Probably more so than even the fonts and
colors and images and things like that,
| | 09:52 |
that you use.
Because, none of that's going to look good
| | 09:55 |
if you haven't taken all of this
information into consideration.
| | 09:58 |
So, review all the points that I've given
you here.
| | 10:01 |
Write them down.
Start building your own template.
| | 10:04 |
And prepare yourself to build slidedecks
for several different applications and venues.
| | 10:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Developing a ThemeChoosing the right colors| 00:00 |
One of the most important elements when
you're developing a presentation theme is
| | 00:03 |
selecting the right colors.
In this movie, we're going to talk about
| | 00:07 |
selecting colors for your presentation and
how you can both select them and how you
| | 00:10 |
should use them throughout the
presentation as well.
| | 00:13 |
The first thing that I want you to do is I
want you to choose between four to five
| | 00:16 |
base colors that you're going to use
throughout the presentation.
| | 00:20 |
Now this could be for text, this could be
for backgrounds.
| | 00:23 |
Whatever the case may be.
Choose four to five based colors and
| | 00:26 |
you're going to choose these based on a
number of criteria which we'll get to a
| | 00:28 |
little bit later on, but I just want you
to focus on four to five base colors that
| | 00:31 |
you're going to use exclusively throughout
this presentation.
| | 00:36 |
You should also alternate the backgrounds
of the slides.
| | 00:39 |
This gives an easy definition between each
different point that you're trying to make
| | 00:43 |
in your presentation and allows you to
effectively change the conversation based
| | 00:47 |
on the slide that you're currently
showing.
| | 00:51 |
You should also select what I call an
accent color.
| | 00:54 |
That's one color out of those four to five
base colors that you're going to use
| | 00:58 |
throughout your presentation in order to
draw emphasis to different areas of text,
| | 01:02 |
imagery, etc.
So this should be one of the brighter,
| | 01:06 |
more bold colors in the set.
That is easily identifiable all throughout
| | 01:09 |
the presentation so that people know, when
they see that color, something important
| | 01:13 |
is happening.
When you're choosing colors, you need to
| | 01:17 |
consider, what's the tone of your
presentation and whether or not you have
| | 01:19 |
any branding guidelines.
When you're setting the tone of the
| | 01:23 |
presentation, this means what kind of mood
are you trying to set.
| | 01:26 |
We're going to get into, selecting a tone
in just a minute, but I just want you to
| | 01:28 |
think about that for a minute.
What type of mood do you want people to be
| | 01:32 |
in when they're watching this
presentation?
| | 01:34 |
Should they be happy?
Should they be sad?
| | 01:36 |
Should they be fired up and ready to go
sell something?
| | 01:38 |
It's all dependent on the tone that you
set.
| | 01:41 |
Now, that being said, if you have branding
guidelines that you have to stick to in
| | 01:44 |
terms of how to create a presentation,
then you have to work within those
| | 01:47 |
guidelines and use the colors that you're
given in order to set the proper tone.
| | 01:53 |
So find the colors within your brand's
guidelines that allow you to convey
| | 01:56 |
different emotions.
So find a warm color for happiness, find a
| | 02:00 |
cool color for sadness, that kind of
thing.
| | 02:02 |
Just work your way through it and find
what works best for each individual scenario.
| | 02:07 |
Now in order to set the tone of the
presentation you're going to have to
| | 02:10 |
really do some exploration in terms of
color, and so I'm giving you a few
| | 02:13 |
examples here of something like modern and
muted.
| | 02:18 |
This is a great color scheme that you can
choose if you're just doing something
| | 02:21 |
that's just in general, just kind of a
muted presentation.
| | 02:24 |
Nothing big.
Nothing exciting happening.
| | 02:26 |
Or you may want to go with bold and
aggressive.
| | 02:29 |
Maybe this is a sales pitch, maybe this is
something you're trying to fire up your
| | 02:32 |
employees for.
These big bold colors, are going to help
| | 02:35 |
do that.
They're going to draw the eye in, these
| | 02:37 |
types of really rich bright, warm colors
tend to spark emotion and creativity.
| | 02:43 |
Or you may want to go with just something
cheerful and bright.
| | 02:46 |
If you're presenting quarterly sales
numbers that you exceeded all the
| | 02:49 |
expectations, something happy needs to be
used to convey that message.
| | 02:53 |
Because not only are the words coming out
of your mouth important, but also what
| | 02:56 |
you're showing people on screen are
important as well.
| | 02:59 |
Now, where do I go for color inspiration?
Here's a couple of places that I frequent
| | 03:03 |
all the time in order to find good color
schemes for the presentations and other
| | 03:07 |
design projects that I work on.
Number one is a website called Adobe
| | 03:11 |
Kuler, which can be found at
kuler.adobe.com.
| | 03:13 |
Number two, a site called CoulourLovers,
coulourlovers.com is their web address; a
| | 03:18 |
very good site for selecting colors.
Color Scheme Designer, at
| | 03:23 |
colorschemedesigner.com and Color Hunter
at colorhunter.com.
| | 03:28 |
All of these places are great areas to
visit if you're stuck trying to find the
| | 03:31 |
right colors for a presentation or for any
design project for that matter.
| | 03:36 |
Using these as jumping off points for
selecting the color palettes that we
| | 03:39 |
choose is a great way to go.
Now, as you start to explore the different
| | 03:44 |
areas of color and start to select the
right colors for your presentation,
| | 03:47 |
remember, that color not only affects the
mood.
| | 03:50 |
But it also affects and sets the tone of
the presentation, and color also gives
| | 03:55 |
life to a presentation as well.
This is how you set the tone, control the
| | 04:00 |
attitude, and ultimately give life to your
presentation, and it's also the way that
| | 04:05 |
you control how your audience feels when
they leave that room.
| | 04:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choosing the right images| 00:00 |
Alright, now it's time to talk about one
of the more fun aspects of building a
| | 00:04 |
theme for your presentation.
And that's choosing the right images.
| | 00:08 |
And images are so important because they
actually help tell the story of the presentation.
| | 00:13 |
And when people are inside of a
presentation they're watching you do a presentation.
| | 00:17 |
They're not going to remember all those
bullet points and things you talked about.
| | 00:20 |
People only remember the big time images
and quotes that are memorable.
| | 00:23 |
And things that stick in their head as
they're leaving that presentation.
| | 00:26 |
That's what they're going to be talking
about for days and weeks to come.
| | 00:29 |
So you want to make sure that the images
and one liners and things that you throw
| | 00:33 |
at them during the presentation are
memorable, bold, easy to see, and just
| | 00:36 |
good overall.
It could be the difference of something
| | 00:40 |
like this.
Let's say we're giving a sales
| | 00:42 |
presentation and we're talking about how
to become the king of the sales jungle.
| | 00:46 |
And somebody looks at this and it's
written in Comic Sans and it's got this
| | 00:49 |
little clip art cat over to the right.
And, yeah, you know, he's got the little
| | 00:53 |
crown on.
He's a king.
| | 00:54 |
You know, cool.
But look at this compared to this.
| | 00:59 |
Which one do you think evokes the emotion,
the aggressiveness that's needed to
| | 01:03 |
succeed in a sales-type business?
I think this one is.
| | 01:06 |
You're drawn to the eyes of the lion, the
big bold text at the top.
| | 01:10 |
This is a memorable slide.
People look at this and they think, yeah,
| | 01:13 |
I can become the king of the sales jungle.
So I think using images in this way to
| | 01:17 |
help advance the story, to help sort of
set the mood of the presentation, is a
| | 01:21 |
very important piece of the puzzle.
I want you to avoid using clipart at all costs.
| | 01:28 |
I realize clipart is cheap, it's most of
the time free, and a lot of clipart is
| | 01:31 |
included in programs like PowerPoint and
things like that.
| | 01:35 |
But you run the risk of actually taking
away from the message of your presentation
| | 01:39 |
and also creating what I call a cookie
cutter look.
| | 01:42 |
Because everybody's got access to clipart.
Everybody who bought PowerPoint has access
| | 01:46 |
to the clipart in PowerPoint.
So you run the risk of creating a
| | 01:48 |
presentation that looks just like somebody
else's.
| | 01:51 |
You want your presentation to be genuine
and unique only to you.
| | 01:55 |
Let's take a look at this slide right
here.
| | 01:56 |
So it's a slide for a company retreat
let's say.
| | 01:59 |
And we've got two pieces of clip art here.
You know, a little golfer and a little bowler.
| | 02:02 |
And really and truly they distract me away
from the actual title of this presentation.
| | 02:07 |
I find myself focused because they're both
line art and the text is line art.
| | 02:11 |
And I just really get lost in this right
here.
| | 02:15 |
I'm going to use the same text.
We're going to switch it over to white though.
| | 02:18 |
And we're going to use one single image in
the background to sort of convey the
| | 02:20 |
message we're looking for.
Check that out right there.
| | 02:24 |
So the company retreat 2013 right there on
this green background with the golf ball,
| | 02:29 |
and this is such a calming image.
You can almost smell the fresh cut grass
| | 02:34 |
as everybody's going out golfing that day.
I think this is a really powerful image,
| | 02:38 |
much more so than the two clip art pieces
of imagery that we had on the last slide.
| | 02:43 |
So I think this is a much better way to
go.
| | 02:45 |
So just using images to better your
presentation and sort of make it feel
| | 02:49 |
different things as people go through it.
This is a very powerful thing.
| | 02:56 |
And you might be saying, oh yeah, but
Justin, I'm not a photographer.
| | 02:58 |
I can't go out and, hunch down in the
grass and take a picture of a golf ball
| | 03:01 |
that looks like that.
That's okay.
| | 03:03 |
You don't have to do that.
That's the best part about it.
| | 03:06 |
There are tons of sites and things like
that all over the internet, that make it
| | 03:09 |
easy for you to find photos to use in your
presentations.
| | 03:13 |
You may have to pay a little bit of money
for them, or you may have to do a lot of
| | 03:16 |
searching to find the right one.
But at the end of the day I think any of
| | 03:20 |
that far outweighs the cost or the time
investments that you're going to have to
| | 03:23 |
put in to find these images really and
truly.
| | 03:27 |
So where do I find my images online?
Well I have a couple of places, first and
| | 03:30 |
foremost I go to iStockphoto.
This is a tried and true place to find
| | 03:34 |
stock photography.
You find it at istockphoto.com.
| | 03:37 |
You do have to pay a little bit of money
here.
| | 03:39 |
But the selection and the quality of the
photographs is second to none.
| | 03:44 |
Number two, is one I'm starting to visit
more often, it's pond5, that's pond5.com.
| | 03:50 |
And this is a great site not only for
photos, but for video and audio and all
| | 03:53 |
different kinds of stuff.
And it's a new comer onto the scene, or at
| | 03:56 |
least it's new to me anyway, and pond5 is
really starting to expand their library
| | 04:00 |
and get some great content in there, so I
recommend checking that one out.
| | 04:05 |
As well as one that we use all the time
here at lynda.com, one called Thinkstock.
| | 04:08 |
And you can find them at thinkstock.com.
A great selection of stock photography.
| | 04:13 |
A lot of the photos you see me use in my
courses here at lynda.com have Thinkstock
| | 04:16 |
photos in them.
And I really enjoy using their service.
| | 04:20 |
The one that I go to all the time.
I've been going to them to years.
| | 04:23 |
I used this when I was doing tutorial
files for my old podcast and things like
| | 04:26 |
that, is the Stock.XCHNG.
This website is actually free.
| | 04:30 |
And you find it at sxc.hu.
It's a great site.
| | 04:35 |
Free stock photography.
You do have to check the terms of service
| | 04:38 |
on each individual image to make sure
you're not breaking that, because if do
| | 04:40 |
you break that, you know, you might get
into some trouble.
| | 04:44 |
But most of the time, they're available
for free use and you can put them into
| | 04:46 |
presentations, videos, whatever you want
to use them for.
| | 04:49 |
It is a great resource.
Stock.XCHNG.
| | 04:51 |
Check that out.
Alright, so here are some image guidelines
| | 04:54 |
that I think we need to go over.
Just general rules that I like to follow.
| | 04:57 |
Number one, you need to make sure that
your images tell a story.
| | 05:00 |
And you're already supposed to be telling
a story with this presentation, maybe
| | 05:04 |
following some sort of story arc.
You want these images to help advance that
| | 05:08 |
story along.
You also want them to fit the tone of the
| | 05:11 |
presentation, because along with the story
comes the tone, and so they have to sort
| | 05:14 |
of fit both molds.
So to speak.
| | 05:17 |
So if you're trying to, let's say the, the
golf presentation we had while ago.
| | 05:22 |
Let's say that we're trying to convey,
this is an atmosphere of relaxation, but
| | 05:25 |
also we want to talk about business.
Well, the business-y font that I used
| | 05:29 |
there, that tells us, hey, we're going to
talk corporate stuff.
| | 05:33 |
But the golfing stuff says, hey, but we're
also here to have a little bit of fun.
| | 05:36 |
It's got nice green soothing colors, and
everything else, it sort of just advances
| | 05:40 |
the story line along for you.
Also, images should complement text.
| | 05:45 |
They should not distract away from the
text.
| | 05:47 |
When I had those two line art images on
there, the two clip art guys, for the
| | 05:50 |
company retreat, I was distracted.
I couldn't figure out where they started.
| | 05:55 |
Where the text stopped and all this other
stuff.
| | 05:57 |
And so I just sort of lost my way on that
slide.
| | 06:00 |
Whereas on the golf ball slide it's just
kind of in the background.
| | 06:03 |
It's not really doing anything.
It's just there.
| | 06:06 |
It just sort of complements that big
heading that we have on the text and
| | 06:08 |
allows us to see oh, okay, yeah, this is
the, this is the mood we're trying to set here.
| | 06:13 |
I get that.
So it should always complement, it should
| | 06:16 |
never take away.
And, also, images should never, ever
| | 06:19 |
appear cut out.
This is one of the most common mistakes I
| | 06:23 |
see with what I call novice presentation
design, is people just find an image.
| | 06:28 |
They don't care that it's got some sort of
colored background on it and they just
| | 06:31 |
paste it in, no matter what color the
background is for your slide.
| | 06:34 |
Let's take a look at an example here.
Here's a good example of how to put an
| | 06:37 |
image into a slide.
This is a picture of a light bulb.
| | 06:40 |
I didn't cut out this light bulb, the
light bulb actually has a white background.
| | 06:43 |
But, that goes on to the white background
of my slide and therefore it blends in nicely.
| | 06:48 |
I could wrap text around this thing, it's
not distracting at all.
| | 06:51 |
It just fits.
I could put it anywhere on the page and it
| | 06:53 |
really wouldn't do any harm.
However, let's take a look at this
| | 06:57 |
example, same kind of light bulb but this
time it's sitting on a black background
| | 07:01 |
and this big box is just sitting in the
middle of my slide.
| | 07:05 |
It's distracting, it pulls your eyes away
from the content that you really want to
| | 07:09 |
focus on and it is not complimentary of
the text if we had any, at all.
| | 07:14 |
So you need to avoid this sort of cut out
look.
| | 07:16 |
Chances are if you're looking on those
stock image website that I gave you
| | 07:19 |
earlier you're going to be able to find an
alternate version of an image that you're
| | 07:23 |
looking for so that you can make sure that
it fits the presentation that you're
| | 07:26 |
working on.
Now if you find an image and it's got a
| | 07:30 |
background and you're using some sort of
color in your slide that is a good time to
| | 07:34 |
take it into an image application like
Photoshop for instance and mask something out.
| | 07:39 |
And we've got tons of courses here at
lynda.com on how to do things like that.
| | 07:43 |
So if you need some image editing tips, be
sure to check out our Photoshop courses
| | 07:46 |
here at lynda.com for more information on
that.
| | 07:49 |
Now one other tip that I'm going to give
you is please, please, please stop using
| | 07:53 |
Google Images.
I know Google Images is like this awesome resource.
| | 07:58 |
And everybody uses them for their college
term papers, and a lot of people use them
| | 08:01 |
for presentations and things like that.
But here's the deal.
| | 08:04 |
A lot of the images on Google Images are
in violation of copyright.
| | 08:08 |
And you really don't want to be that guy
that gets caught using the copyrighted
| | 08:10 |
image that you haven't paid for.
So using Google Images, I think is good
| | 08:14 |
for placeholders.
So if you're just mocking up a presentation.
| | 08:18 |
You can find some quick Google Images on,
you know, whatever the subject matter is
| | 08:21 |
that you're looking for.
Put them into your presentation and then
| | 08:24 |
if you're not the actual person putting
the presentation together, send it off to
| | 08:27 |
your designer, or if you have an art
department, just say, hey, here are the
| | 08:30 |
images that I want to use, kind of.
And I want you to find equivalents of
| | 08:35 |
these on a stock photography website, or
if you're the person putting it together,
| | 08:38 |
just use Google Images like I said, as a
placeholder, and then go back in and fill
| | 08:41 |
them in with actual images from a stock
photography website.
| | 08:46 |
because chances are, the stock photography
images are going to be better than the
| | 08:48 |
ones you found on Google Images anyway.
Alright, wrapping up here, photos should
| | 08:53 |
be part of your budget without a doubt.
You should put in for the presentation
| | 08:57 |
budget, which you should have a budget
when you're starting to spec this thing
| | 09:00 |
out, you should put in a few dollars for
some stock photos, period.
| | 09:04 |
Because that's going to allow you to get
the best imagery possible and allow you to
| | 09:07 |
deliver your message in a more effective
way.
| | 09:11 |
Finally when it comes to photos, I want
you to use them, but I want you to use
| | 09:15 |
them wisely.
A lot of people overuse photos, a lot of
| | 09:18 |
people don't use the right kind of photos.
Some people just don't care that they've
| | 09:21 |
used the cutouts and all the different
things that I've talked about in this movie.
| | 09:27 |
But please take the time, analyze your
presentation, find the right images and
| | 09:30 |
find the ones that fit your presentation,
and its voice and its tone.
| | 09:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choosing the right fonts| 00:00 |
Alright.
Now it's time to talk about choosing the
| | 00:02 |
right font for your presentation.
Now, this is something that I feel trips
| | 00:05 |
people up all the time because a lot of
people have different ideas about exactly
| | 00:09 |
what good typography is.
And good typography is not just something
| | 00:13 |
that translates into graphic design like
business cards and posters, it actually
| | 00:16 |
goes into the presentation world as well.
My suggestion for you if you're not really
| | 00:21 |
adept at understanding the nuances of
typography, is to watch our Foundations of
| | 00:24 |
Typography course here at lynda.com before
you get started.
| | 00:28 |
But in this movie I'm just going to give
you some general guidelines for choosing
| | 00:31 |
fonts for your presentation.
And so here are my rules for fonts.
| | 00:35 |
Number one, keep them simple.
Number two, keep them readable.
| | 00:39 |
Number three, have a hierarchy.
And number four, don't overdo it.
| | 00:44 |
This is something that people do all the
time, and so what I mean by keeping them
| | 00:47 |
simple, I mean simple fonts that everybody
already has.
| | 00:52 |
You never know when you're going to be
taking this presentation to a different
| | 00:54 |
machine or something else that you're
going to need that font on it, and you're
| | 00:57 |
always going to catch spelling errors,
readability problems, punctuation issues,
| | 01:00 |
different things like that where you're
going to need to change that font at some point.
| | 01:06 |
Keeping the fonts simple enables you the
most flexibility across any different
| | 01:09 |
screen or machine that you happen to be
using them on.
| | 01:13 |
You also want to make sure that the fonts
are completely readable, because
| | 01:15 |
everything that you're putting up on
screen, people are trying to take in to
| | 01:18 |
their brain.
If it's not easily readable, they're going
| | 01:21 |
to be spending time trying to decipher
exactly what it says, and not focusing on
| | 01:25 |
actually what you're saying and the
message you're trying to get across.
| | 01:30 |
You also want to make sure you have a
defined hierarchy for your fonts.
| | 01:33 |
Use one font for one thing, one font for
another, et cetera.
| | 01:36 |
I'm going to go through my basic
three-step hierarchy here in just a moment.
| | 01:40 |
And, finally, don't overdo it.
Don't throw out a bunch of fonts that you
| | 01:44 |
just think look cool.
I think a lot of fonts look cool, but I
| | 01:47 |
also think that they don't fit in every
single presentation.
| | 01:51 |
I've seen a lot of people that try to get
cute by using more, and more, and more
| | 01:54 |
fonts in their presentations, and it
overall just makes the presentation look
| | 01:58 |
muddy, sloppy and unprepared.
So my rule is to pick three, three fonts,
| | 02:03 |
that's right just three.
The first font I want you to pick is a
| | 02:06 |
title font.
This should be something big and bold that
| | 02:09 |
looks good, not only in all upper case,
but in mixed case and in all different
| | 02:12 |
types of cases.
But this is the big, bold font you want to
| | 02:16 |
draw people's attention in with that says,
hey, read this.
| | 02:20 |
Next up is body copy.
Body copy is very important because this
| | 02:23 |
is where you're going to be putting in
sort of the meat and potatoes of your
| | 02:26 |
presentation, all the bullet points, the
fine print, that kind of thing.
| | 02:30 |
Stuff that you want people to remember
about the data or the information that
| | 02:33 |
you're giving them.
And then finally I want you to choose an
| | 02:36 |
accent font.
This is just something that's gong to be
| | 02:39 |
used for lets say captions on photos,
giving credit to stock photographers for instance.
| | 02:43 |
Drawing attention to different pieces or
bits of an image or something in a
| | 02:47 |
paragraph of text, that kind of thing.
An accent font is exactly that, it should
| | 02:51 |
be an accent to whatever it is that's
going on around it, it should not distract.
| | 02:56 |
It should just be there in case someone
needs to read it or wants to read it.
| | 03:00 |
As they go along.
Once you defined that, I also want you to
| | 03:04 |
understand what some examples of good
fonts are.
| | 03:07 |
Number one, Arial.
It's a simple font that's on almost every
| | 03:10 |
computer out there today.
Helvetica.
| | 03:13 |
Again, it's right up there with Arial, one
of the most common fonts you'll ever see.
| | 03:18 |
Gotham is another font that's very popular
nowadays.
| | 03:20 |
It's great for presentations.
League Gothic is one of my favorite title
| | 03:24 |
fonts that I use.
And, of course, Times New Roman is the
| | 03:27 |
never go wrong body copy font that many,
many people use.
| | 03:31 |
As far as bad fonts, here are some
examples of what I consider to be bad fonts.
| | 03:36 |
Number one is a font that has always had a
bad name.
| | 03:38 |
And I apologize to Comic Sans for this.
But it is.
| | 03:42 |
It is the quintessential bad font.
Comic sans.
| | 03:45 |
Unprofessional, not a well built font.
I just don't like it.
| | 03:48 |
Bauhaus.
Or Bauhaus.
| | 03:50 |
However you say that.
It's another font, it's not easily readable.
| | 03:54 |
It's very blocky.
It runs together very easily unless you
| | 03:56 |
control the tracking or kerning which you
may not know how to do.
| | 03:59 |
Brush Script.
Or let's just say all script fonts in
| | 04:03 |
general, bad idea in a presentation.
Chalkduster, another sort of
| | 04:07 |
unprofessional font, and finally one
called Giddyup.
| | 04:11 |
Now, these aren't the only bad fonts.
These are just examples of fonts that I
| | 04:15 |
would never use in a presentation unless I
had a really specific use for them.
| | 04:20 |
For instance, throughout the presentations
you've been watching in this course, I've
| | 04:23 |
used several of these fonts.
Mostly in examples of what not to do, but
| | 04:27 |
I still use them.
So using these fonts can be useful in some
| | 04:30 |
cases when you're trying to make certain
points.
| | 04:33 |
But overall these are not good fonts for
getting your message across or presenting
| | 04:36 |
easily readable information.
The last thing I want to talk about is
| | 04:40 |
that fonts must fit the presentation.
We've talked a lot about setting the tone
| | 04:44 |
of your presentation and how imagery plays
into that equation.
| | 04:48 |
Fonts play an equally important part in
that as well.
| | 04:51 |
When you're setting the tone of your
presentation, you want to make sure that
| | 04:54 |
the fonts complement that.
Let's say for instance that we're doing a
| | 04:57 |
presentation on the game schedule for a
professional sports team.
| | 05:00 |
I don't think Comic Sans is the right font
for that.
| | 05:03 |
Do you?
I don't think so.
| | 05:05 |
It doesn't compliment the imagery well.
Same way here, how to tell a bedtime story
| | 05:09 |
you wouldn't want to use some sort of
creepy font like this, especially if
| | 05:12 |
you're telling this to kids.
You want to use something that's nice,
| | 05:16 |
easily readable, maybe big blocky fonts.
Things that are fun, something that looks
| | 05:19 |
like Legos perhaps.
At the end of the day you have to know why
| | 05:23 |
this is a bad choice.
And that's going to come with some time.
| | 05:26 |
But as you start to realize, oh okay, I
shouldn't use this font for that.
| | 05:31 |
It's going to become more clear and you're
going to be saying that's good, I'm glad I
| | 05:34 |
know that now.
So when it comes to fonts, I want you to
| | 05:38 |
stick to the basics, and just say no to
gimmick fonts.
| | 05:42 |
Those are the fonts that, you know, look
like Disney, or look like different things
| | 05:46 |
that are, they're all out there.
You can find many different fonts online.
| | 05:50 |
And I just say no to those gimmick fonts.
So as you're finding the right fonts for
| | 05:54 |
your presentation just take the time to
make sure that you're developing a hierarchy.
| | 05:59 |
That you're keeping them complimentary to
the theme.
| | 06:01 |
And that you're making sure that they
compliment the overall presentation,
| | 06:05 |
rather than taking away, or by changing
the overall feel of the presentation as well.
| | 06:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Putting it all together| 00:00 |
The final step in developing your theme is
to put it altogether inside of a
| | 00:03 |
presentation application like Apple's
Keynote, for instance.
| | 00:07 |
Now you may choose Microsoft PowerPoint
for PC or Mac or you may choose something
| | 00:10 |
else, but just have it somewhere so that
you can put it together and easily use it
| | 00:14 |
over and over and over again.
Now, I've chosen Apple's Keynote here, and
| | 00:19 |
I'll show you exactly how I did that.
I just started off by going and creating a
| | 00:22 |
new file.
I chose one of the default templates, one
| | 00:25 |
that's close to what I was looking for.
In this case, the white one just sort of
| | 00:29 |
flowed because I was going to change the
rest of the backgrounds and the fonts and
| | 00:31 |
everything else, so I just selected a new
document like so.
| | 00:35 |
I went up to the View menu and I chose
Show Master Slides, and then I just went
| | 00:38 |
on each Master Slide and I changed all of
the different areas that I needed to
| | 00:42 |
change, font-wise etc.
Now, so you can see mine, I'll just go
| | 00:47 |
back over into this document and you can
see here are my Master Slides, so I
| | 00:50 |
alternate the background fill just like I
talked about earlier.
| | 00:54 |
I also have the same type of text on each
slide, titles are the same, body copy is
| | 00:58 |
the same.
Anywhere that I needed any accent fonts
| | 01:01 |
I'll just add that along the way.
But you can see here that it just
| | 01:04 |
maintains those three fonts that I chose
earlier in the course and it also goes
| | 01:07 |
along with the color choices that I made
too.
| | 01:11 |
If I jump over into Adobe Photoshop you
can see here are my colors that I used for this.
| | 01:16 |
I selected these from Adobe Kuler and so
all I had to do was sample each one of
| | 01:19 |
these colors and that became one of my
slide backgrounds.
| | 01:23 |
Moving back over in the Keynote now, I
want to address something because you will
| | 01:27 |
notice that a few of these actually have
the same background color.
| | 01:31 |
And that is because I like to keep the
same background color with like-minded slides.
| | 01:35 |
So, for slides that have pictures on them,
for instance, you might have this color.
| | 01:40 |
Or, for slides that are just mainly text
have this color.
| | 01:43 |
Slides that are title only have this
color.
| | 01:45 |
It's totally up to you how you structure
this.
| | 01:48 |
You just want to make sure that you have a
wide variety of each color and you want to
| | 01:51 |
make sure that each color sort of tells a
story to the audience on what they're
| | 01:53 |
looking at and what kind of information is
being presented to them.
| | 01:58 |
So for instance here, this is the main
title and subtitle slide.
| | 02:02 |
Which has got a big bold title, the body
level one, the body level two on it.
| | 02:06 |
This one here, little bit different, it's
title with bullets.
| | 02:09 |
So a little bit different here.
Same thing here, a little bit different,
| | 02:12 |
all bullets, no title so it gets a
different color.
| | 02:14 |
The blank, it gets a different color
because there's nothing on it.
| | 02:17 |
We go back to our regular title slide,
well it's going to be this color again
| | 02:20 |
because it's just got the title on top.
Go back to this to center title.
| | 02:24 |
I chose this look for this one just
because it's a little bit different look
| | 02:27 |
for a slide but you may also, since it's
just got the single title in the middle,
| | 02:30 |
you may want to go back to, like the green
for that.
| | 02:34 |
It's totally up to you but you can kind of
see my thought process as I was generating
| | 02:36 |
these slides.
Now once I have this all completed.
| | 02:41 |
I can just hide my Master Slides and I can
start building out a presentation.
| | 02:45 |
Every time I add a new slide to this, you
can see if I change the master it's
| | 02:50 |
going to reflect my theme that I've
created, so I'm just adding new slides to
| | 02:54 |
this so you can see each example.
And every time I add one it takes on the
| | 03:02 |
appearance of my theme, which is pretty
cool.
| | 03:06 |
So I've kept my theme simple, it's got the
colors it's got the fonts, everything that
| | 03:10 |
I need is there and so my theme is
complete.
| | 03:13 |
Now if you need help building your own
themes in applications like PowerPoint or
| | 03:17 |
PowerPoint for Mac, we actually have two
courses in the lynda.com library which
| | 03:20 |
would be very helpful to you.
The first one is for regular PC PowerPoint users.
| | 03:26 |
Watch PowerPoint 2013 Essential Training
with Jeff Stratton.
| | 03:30 |
And the movies that you're specifically
looking for to create your own theme would
| | 03:33 |
be in Chapter 10, Saving a Custom Theme,
Saving Presentations as Templates, that
| | 03:37 |
kind of stuff.
So check those out right there.
| | 03:41 |
And then PowePoint for Mac 2011 Essential
Training, you want to check out Chapter 3
| | 03:46 |
in that particular course.
All right, we've chosen the fonts, we've
| | 03:50 |
chosen the colors, we've chosen images
that we're going to use inside of the presentation.
| | 03:56 |
Now we've aggregated it all together and
we've put it into our own custom theme
| | 04:00 |
here inside of Keynote.
Could be Keynote, could be PowerPoint,
| | 04:03 |
could be any application really.
Just as long as we've got a defined
| | 04:07 |
hierarchy of text.
We've got our colors well-defined.
| | 04:10 |
We're now ready to start story-boarding
out our presentation.
| | 04:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Building Your PresentationCreating a storyboard| 00:00 |
Once you've decided on a theme for your
presentation, you've got everything ready
| | 00:04 |
to go, now it's time to actually start
assembling the presentation into its own structure.
| | 00:09 |
And for this we create a storyboard.
And that's what we're going to be talking
| | 00:12 |
about in this movie, how to create a
storyboard.
| | 00:15 |
Now, there are few things that I want you
to understand on why we do this step.
| | 00:18 |
Because most people would just say, okay,
I've got all my information, I've gotten
| | 00:21 |
my theme.
I just want to aggregate it all together
| | 00:24 |
in one big pile.
Well, we do this so that we can visualize
| | 00:27 |
the structure of the presentation.
By developing a storyboard, you can
| | 00:31 |
actually move pieces around and change
things without doing any damage to the
| | 00:34 |
presentation itself.
It's sort of like visualizing before you attack.
| | 00:39 |
It also allows you to determine the
storyline for the presentation, setting
| | 00:43 |
the beginning, middle and end point.
And as we know, telling a story during a
| | 00:47 |
presentation is very important for keeping
the audience's attention, no matter what
| | 00:50 |
the subject matter.
It also allows you to visually map out the slides.
| | 00:55 |
As I said, you can actually move these
things around physically.
| | 00:58 |
Let's say you do every different slide on
a separate sheet of paper, or you have
| | 01:01 |
different templates that you use that are
magnetic on a white board or something
| | 01:05 |
like that.
You can actually just move things around.
| | 01:09 |
Changing the structure visually, making it
easier to just touch the information,
| | 01:12 |
rather than having to visualize it in your
head.
| | 01:16 |
This helps get it out in the open where
you or someone else can help to actually
| | 01:19 |
craft and construction this idea.
I want you to think of storyboards as a
| | 01:24 |
sketch pad.
This is where all of your ideas just sort
| | 01:27 |
of flow out of your mind and then hit the
wall and on that wall you take everything
| | 01:30 |
that's stuck to it and then you just sort
of rearrange it until it makes sense.
| | 01:35 |
That's what storyboards are all about.
You just take whatever the idea is.
| | 01:39 |
For the intro slide, for instance, okay.
I want my name here.
| | 01:42 |
My picture here, etc., and then you just
kind of sort of work through that process
| | 01:45 |
and get everything mapped out exactly
where you want it.
| | 01:50 |
It should also be noted that there is no
right or wrong way to do this.
| | 01:54 |
Everyone’s going to have their own way.
I have a way that works for me.
| | 01:56 |
You should find a way that works for you
and make it so.
| | 02:00 |
Now, I also want you to understand that
you should be using just basic tools for
| | 02:04 |
this storyboard.
You don't need to go into Photoshop or
| | 02:08 |
Illustrator or anything like that.
Although you could.
| | 02:10 |
You could absolutely do it in a program
like that but it sort of defeats the purpose.
| | 02:14 |
In this case, we're talking about
whiteboards, notebook paper, even tablet
| | 02:17 |
drawing apps.
If you have an iPad, or something like
| | 02:20 |
that and of course the tried and true
method of just sketching stuff out on napkins.
| | 02:24 |
Keeping things basic makes it easier for
you to focus on the ideas coming out of
| | 02:27 |
your head and not so much the tools that
you'll be using to do that.
| | 02:31 |
You should just grab whichever one of
these or whatever is closest to you in a
| | 02:34 |
room when you have these ideas and just
start sketching them out.
| | 02:39 |
That's the purpose of the storyboard.
Just to sort of say okay, I've got this
| | 02:42 |
sheet of paper here, I'm just going to go
ahead and write down what I want on the
| | 02:44 |
slide and then just stick it up on the
board, on the whiteboard, or wherever it
| | 02:47 |
might be going.
Or, you know, you just grab a marker, go
| | 02:51 |
to the whiteboard and do it that way.
Just using basic tools keeps the ideas
| | 02:55 |
flowing and, like I said, keeps your mind
focused on what you're doing, not how
| | 02:58 |
you're doing it.
Here is an example of a storyboard that I
| | 03:02 |
did recently for a sales presentation.
So you can see here that it's just
| | 03:06 |
basically markers on a whiteboard.
I've got a box simulating each one of the
| | 03:11 |
slides, and I just tell the story through
arrows.
| | 03:14 |
So we've got a title, then we go to about
me, then we go to an agenda then we go all
| | 03:18 |
the way down.
Okay, we're talking about what happened in Q3?
| | 03:22 |
What do we did in Q3 and what type of
goals did we set moving into Q4 targets?
| | 03:27 |
Okay, here's all the goals we had set,
okay here's our results, Q4 results.
| | 03:32 |
That flows down to, all right who was the
was top dog salesman?
| | 03:34 |
And all right, now but we've rounded that
out, what do we want to see next year from
| | 03:38 |
the company?
And then finally, okay, now that we've
| | 03:41 |
done really well this year and we've set
our goals for next year.
| | 03:45 |
Let's talk about how we're going to relax
at the company retreat.
| | 03:48 |
And then finally we conclude out with some
sort of conclusion.
| | 03:52 |
So this is just a basic outline of my
presentation.
| | 03:55 |
It's the first step in outlining my
presentation.
| | 03:57 |
And I've got the flow, I've got the
structure, I've got all of the key points
| | 04:00 |
that I need to cover and so I got all of
that out, right here on the whiteboard.
| | 04:05 |
And I can now translate this into some
sort of design application to start
| | 04:08 |
putting these slides together.
I want you to understand that storyboards
| | 04:12 |
aren't complex; they need to be as simple
as possible, as you saw before.
| | 04:17 |
And, also, you can refine them later in
other applications.
| | 04:20 |
This should be just like a skeleton that
you're putting together, and then you're
| | 04:22 |
going to take them into another
application, Keynote, Photoshop,
| | 04:24 |
Illustrator, PowerPoint.
Whatever it might be down the road to
| | 04:28 |
refine them and turn them into an actual
presentation.
| | 04:32 |
Here is my proposed workflow for you when
you're actually creating a full fledged
| | 04:35 |
presentation, this is after you've
developed your theme and all that stuff
| | 04:38 |
we've been talking about so far.
You start on a whiteboard, a napkin,
| | 04:43 |
something like that, you just sketch
something out.
| | 04:46 |
Then you're going to refine that in a
design application.
| | 04:48 |
You're going to put the images together,
the text together, all the stuff that
| | 04:51 |
needs to flow and look pretty.
That's going to be inside of the design application.
| | 04:55 |
And then finally you're going to aggregate
all of that information into an
| | 04:58 |
application like Keynote or PowerPoint or
whatever the case may be.
| | 05:04 |
The big thing that you need to take away
from this is that this is what works for
| | 05:06 |
me, and you need to find what works for
you.
| | 05:09 |
If you don't like sketching out on paper,
then don't do it.
| | 05:11 |
Do your sketching in an app, like
Photoshop or using Adobe Ideas on your iPad.
| | 05:16 |
If you like to not sketch out at all, you
just like to go off the cuff, that's
| | 05:19 |
totally fine too.
This is, as I said, my proposed work flow,
| | 05:23 |
and I would encourage you very much so to
find what works for you.
| | 05:28 |
I also want you to save your storyboards
because saving your storyboards is
| | 05:31 |
going to be essential to you down the road
because often times when I'm building a
| | 05:34 |
storyboard if I don't save it, then when I
actually go and build the presentation I
| | 05:37 |
start rearranging things based on what I
think at the time might look good or
| | 05:40 |
something like that.
But as long as I save that storyboard,
| | 05:46 |
especially with the notes that I have
attached to it, it's very useful for me
| | 05:49 |
during my review process before I actually
finish out the presentation.
| | 05:54 |
Because of the fact that I can go back to
my storyboard, read my notes about it and
| | 05:58 |
say, oh, okay, this is why slide X went
ahead of slide Y or vice versa.
| | 06:03 |
And so, I can rearrange things based on
that storyboard.
| | 06:06 |
Or I can say, you know what, that really
wasn't a good idea in the storyboarding phase.
| | 06:09 |
It looks a lot better this way, so we just
go from there.
| | 06:12 |
But keeping that storyboard all the way
through ensures that you have a nice,
| | 06:15 |
easily structured presentation from start
to finish and allows you that single
| | 06:19 |
review point to understand exactly what
you were thinking beforehand all the way
| | 06:23 |
to the end of the process.
So again, take some time, build your own
| | 06:29 |
storyboards, find your own workflow.
You'll be really glad you did.
| | 06:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choosing a layout program| 00:00 |
When you're selecting a design application
for which to use during your presentation
| | 00:04 |
development phase.
I recommend starting with a, what you have
| | 00:07 |
available to you, and b, what you're most
comfortable with.
| | 00:12 |
If you have access to tools like Adobe
Photoshop or Illustrator, and you're
| | 00:16 |
comfortable using those tools to design
and create things, then I highly suggest
| | 00:19 |
that you use those in the creation process
of your presentation.
| | 00:25 |
However, if you don't have access to those
you may want to stick with something
| | 00:28 |
simple like Keynote or PowerPoint or even
Google Presentations, or whatever it is
| | 00:31 |
that you have at your disposal.
In any case, find a way that you can
| | 00:36 |
actually start to create basic layouts for
your presentation.
| | 00:41 |
I have here a couple of slide examples,
and I've included these in your asset
| | 00:44 |
files folder.
And these slide examples are just a basic
| | 00:47 |
was to show you how I design slides inside
of something like Photoshop.
| | 00:52 |
Now these are all JPEGs.
But these were done, some in Illustrator,
| | 00:55 |
some in Photoshop.
And so basically I use these application
| | 00:58 |
as a way to just kind of lay out what the
slides are going to look like.
| | 01:01 |
Of course, they don't necessarily have any
motion to them.
| | 01:04 |
They don't have any transitions or
anything like that, but it gives me a
| | 01:06 |
better idea of what the finished product
is going to look like.
| | 01:09 |
And I can actually deliver this as a PDF
to someone else to look at very quickly
| | 01:13 |
before I put together the final
presentation.
| | 01:16 |
So they can say okay, I like this image,
or no, I don't like that image, et cetera.
| | 01:20 |
So let's take a look at this one here for
instance.
| | 01:22 |
They could say okay, I don't like this
image here.
| | 01:24 |
Text at the bottom is fine, but we need to
swap out that image for something else.
| | 01:28 |
Or on this one here, they could say, you
know what, the big eye in the background
| | 01:30 |
is a little distracting.
So what we want to do is change that out a
| | 01:33 |
little bit, and just focus mainly on the
text.
| | 01:36 |
And in any case, I use these applications,
like I said, as more of a refined
| | 01:39 |
storyboard application where I can
actually put some depth to the storyboard
| | 01:43 |
slides that I have made so that other
people can easily translate my ideas and
| | 01:47 |
understand exactly what I was thinking.
Because just looking at the sketch that I
| | 01:53 |
have, they might not know exactly what I'm
trying to say.
| | 01:56 |
But looking at this, they know exactly the
message, the tone, and everything that I
| | 01:59 |
am trying to do with this presentation.
Now like I said, you may use something
| | 02:02 |
like Photoshop, you may use something like
Illustrator.
| | 02:05 |
Let me talk about the pros and cons of
each one.
| | 02:07 |
Photoshop, for instance, is probably the
least flexible of any of the design
| | 02:10 |
applications we have for presentations
because of one simple thing.
| | 02:14 |
It's tied to a document size and to a
document resolution.
| | 02:19 |
So when I go into the Image menu and I
choose Image Size you can see here that
| | 02:22 |
this document is 1280 by 720 and it is at
72 pixels per inch.
| | 02:26 |
If I were to change this.
Let's say that I just changed the canvas
| | 02:31 |
size of this.
And I'll just bring up the Canvas Size
| | 02:33 |
dialogue box and let's say that I wanted
it to be 1024 by 768, and I hit OK.
| | 02:39 |
It's going to say okay, this is smaller,
it's going to clip, I just hit Proceed,
| | 02:41 |
and now look what happens.
I get this up here at the top.
| | 02:45 |
I get the sides cut off a little bit.
Because this is a JPEG I can't move the
| | 02:48 |
text around, so if it got off centered
somehow, I'm in a world of hurt.
| | 02:52 |
So it's not exactly a flexible way to
work.
| | 02:55 |
However, I'll just undo that with Command
or Control Z.
| | 02:57 |
Let's say that I go into Adobe
Illustrator.
| | 03:00 |
Inside of Adobe Illustrator, I can create
a new document.
| | 03:04 |
And lets just say that we're going to use
the web profile, and we're going to choose
| | 03:09 |
1024 by 768 as our slide size.
Now, if I needed to I could create a new
| | 03:15 |
art board for each one of the slides.
That means all of my slides could be
| | 03:19 |
theoretically within this document.
So I could easily map out my entire
| | 03:23 |
presentation recreating my storyboard
inside of Adobe Illustrator, or I could
| | 03:27 |
also create multiple sizes of each slide
in here as well, so I could add a new art board.
| | 03:33 |
So I could grab the art board tool.
And just start drawing out an art board
| | 03:38 |
here, and so I'll just do this until I
get, out to about, and I'll just extend
| | 03:43 |
that out so I can actually see it.
We want to go to about 1280, something
| | 03:50 |
like that, and then I'll refine the height
to 720.
| | 03:55 |
And, I may have to actually come up here
and do that.
| | 03:57 |
720.
There we go.
| | 03:59 |
So now I've got 1280 by 720.
I've got two sizes.
| | 04:01 |
1024 by 768.
1280 by 720.
| | 04:04 |
And I could actually now start to take
artwork that I had here on the 1024 board.
| | 04:09 |
Move it over it to the 1280 board.
Rearrange things.
| | 04:11 |
That way if I haven't picked a venue for
my presentation yet, I have two flexible
| | 04:14 |
ways of presenting the information.
I could also make one for 1080p.
| | 04:18 |
Or I can make one for 800 by 600.
Illustrator, I think, is the most flexible
| | 04:22 |
way to go.
And the fact that everything you create in
| | 04:24 |
here is a vector object and easily
scalable across multiple screen sizes
| | 04:28 |
makes it even more of a great application
choice for this.
| | 04:32 |
But, like I said, at the end of the day it
comes down to your comfort level and what
| | 04:35 |
you have available to you.
So if you don't have one of these, that's
| | 04:38 |
totally fine.
You can map out the same kind of stuff In
| | 04:41 |
Keynote or PowerPoint.
My suggestion would be to just actually
| | 04:45 |
create multiple versions of your
presentation either in a 1024 by 768, or
| | 04:49 |
1280 by 720, or 800 by 600 version.
That way you have all of those available
| | 04:54 |
to you that you can easily cut, copy, and
paste information from one to the other
| | 04:58 |
and make sure that the information looks
good presented in all sizes, at all resolutions.
| | 05:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up your document| 00:00 |
Once you've decided on an application that
you're going to use for your presentation
| | 00:03 |
design phase.
What you need to do now is decide how
| | 00:05 |
you're going to set up that document.
Now, I'm going to assume you're just going
| | 00:09 |
to use a basic presentation software like
PowerPoint or Keynote in this case, but
| | 00:12 |
you can also do the same thing in
Photoshop or Illustrator.
| | 00:16 |
So, let's say that we're inside of
PowerPoint, and I'm using PowerPoint for
| | 00:19 |
Mac right now.
But all you have to do is create a new
| | 00:22 |
document and you need to base this
document off of what you think the most
| | 00:25 |
common set up is going to be for this
presentation.
| | 00:29 |
So if you know for a fact that where
you're going has a 16 by nine high
| | 00:31 |
definition projector then you would pick
something like 16 by nine.
| | 00:36 |
In any case choosing one of these sizes
over here just enables you to pick the
| | 00:40 |
right kind of slide deck for whatever
you're doing.
| | 00:45 |
Now, like I said before, I recommend
actually creating two versions of this,
| | 00:47 |
because if you're going to be giving this
presentation more than once, you might not
| | 00:50 |
know exactly where you're going to be
giving it each and every time.
| | 00:54 |
You might not know the equipment you're
going to be giving it on.
| | 00:56 |
So having multiple versions of it really
is going to save you a lot of heartache
| | 00:59 |
down the road.
So once I do this, I just hit Choose.
| | 01:03 |
And this is going to create a new 16 by
nine document for me, just like so.
| | 01:08 |
The same holds true in any application.
Let's say that we're over in Photoshop,
| | 01:12 |
for instance.
Inside of Photoshop, I would go to the
| | 01:14 |
File menu, and I would choose New.
And then I would start off by selecting a
| | 01:18 |
size, so I would do something like 1024 by
768.
| | 01:21 |
And my resolution is going to be 72 pixels
per inch because most projectors are just
| | 01:26 |
going to be able to display that so I
wouldn't worry about anything higher than that.
| | 01:32 |
And then we're going to go ahead and hit
OK.
| | 01:34 |
So that's my basic size, there.
If I needed a wide screen template I would
| | 01:38 |
create a new file again.
This time, 1280, 720.
| | 01:42 |
So now I have my 16 by nine and my four by
three slides ready to go and ready to map
| | 01:46 |
out in Photoshop.
If I jump over into Keynote, inside of
| | 01:51 |
Keynote, I'll just hit File > New and it
comes up with the theme chooser.
| | 01:58 |
And I pick from the bottom here, the
different slide sizes that I want.
| | 02:01 |
This is probably the most helpful of all
of them, because 800 by 600, 1024, 1280,
| | 02:06 |
1680 by 1050, 1920 by 1080, all of these
slide sizes here are exactly what I need.
| | 02:13 |
I don't have to think about it, I can just
say, okay, I want to design the small one
| | 02:15 |
now, or I want to design the wide screen.
Or I want to design the traditional.
| | 02:19 |
It's all up to you.
Once you pick one of those, then you
| | 02:22 |
select your theme.
Hopefully you have created and saved your
| | 02:25 |
own theme in your presentation app of
choice, PowerPoint, Keynote whatever it is.
| | 02:29 |
So you would select that.
Hit choose and then you can start to build
| | 02:32 |
your presentation that way.
So really and truly, setting up your
| | 02:36 |
document is the simplest of all of the
processes that we're going through here.
| | 02:41 |
Because by now, you've already got your
storyboard, you've got your design in
| | 02:44 |
mind, and you've also got somewhat of an
idea, hopefully, of where you're going to
| | 02:48 |
be presenting this and what kind of
equipment you're going to be working with.
| | 02:53 |
So that you know exactly what sizes you
need to design for, before you get going.
| | 02:58 |
And then all you have to do is create this
new document, start using the theme you've
| | 03:01 |
already created and you're ready to go.
It's just that simple.
| | 03:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using your theme| 00:01 |
Once you've chosen your design
application, now it's time to start
| | 00:03 |
actually putting your theme in play in
that given application of choice.
| | 00:08 |
Now, if you're using something like
Photoshop or Illustrator or GIMP or
| | 00:10 |
whatever the case may be, I suggest
setting up what I call a template
| | 00:13 |
document, so that you can easily reference
any of the information that you need
| | 00:16 |
within your theme.
This is almost like setting up your own
| | 00:20 |
master pages inside of these applications.
I recommend setting things up like this.
| | 00:25 |
You have light slides and you have dark
slides.
| | 00:27 |
These are going to be slides with a light
background that require dark text, slides
| | 00:30 |
with a dark background that require light
text.
| | 00:33 |
So, in this case, let's go ahead and take
a look at the dark slide, so I'll just
| | 00:36 |
turn off this layer and look inside here.
And so you can see I've got everything
| | 00:40 |
planned out.
I've got the background colors for the
| | 00:43 |
dark backgrounds.
I've also got title text, which is the
| | 00:48 |
title text that I chose earlier.
I've got my body copy, and I've got my
| | 00:52 |
accent text, all of which have the proper
color, size, and everything applied to
| | 00:56 |
them, so that when I'm designing my
slides, I could easily come in here, and I
| | 00:59 |
could just copy two or three layers.
So I could say, okay, for this slide that
| | 01:05 |
I'm going to design next I need the body
copy.
| | 01:08 |
I need a title.
And I'm going to need the green background.
| | 01:11 |
So I can select all of those.
Then I create a new document to design a slide.
| | 01:16 |
And then I just come back over here and I
take these.
| | 01:18 |
And drag and drop them over.
And put em in.
| | 01:23 |
So now I've got everything set up to build
this slide.
| | 01:25 |
I can put in images if I want to.
I can set things up.
| | 01:28 |
That's how I would design this particular
slide.
| | 01:31 |
So that's how I put my theme sort of in
play inside of Photoshop.
| | 01:34 |
You can do the same thing in Illustrator
except you can do it with multiple art
| | 01:36 |
boards as opposed to multiple documents.
In GIMP you would do the same thing.
| | 01:40 |
Multiple documents, et cetera.
Now, if you're using an application like
| | 01:44 |
Keynote, for instance.
And now I'll just go to File > New.
| | 01:47 |
It's a little bit simpler.
Providing that you saved your own custom
| | 01:50 |
theme, all you have to do is just scroll
in the themes list until you find your theme.
| | 01:56 |
In this case mine is called my theme,
right here.
| | 01:58 |
I would choose my size and then I now have
my presentation.
| | 02:05 |
And so now I can come in, and I'll just
shrink this down so you can actually see it.
| | 02:10 |
Now I would come in, and I would just
start designing slides, and of course, I
| | 02:12 |
have all of my master slides already
planned out.
| | 02:15 |
So everything is easier to do in here.
That's why I think that, you know, you can
| | 02:19 |
design elements in applications like
Photoshop and Illustrator and things like that.
| | 02:24 |
But really to lay out the slides, I think
that Keynote, PowerPoint, et cetera, is
| | 02:27 |
the best way to go, because this gives you
the most flexibility and it's already in
| | 02:30 |
its quote unquote, finalized format of
Keynote, or PowerPoint, et cetera.
| | 02:35 |
Again it's up to you, what applications
you choose, but I just think this works a
| | 02:38 |
little bit easier for me.
Again, this is just how you put your theme
| | 02:42 |
in play across multiple places.
Make sure you have your text hierarchy
| | 02:46 |
defined, your colors defined.
Everything else should be in place and
| | 02:49 |
then you just build what I call a template
document or a template art board or
| | 02:52 |
whatever the case may be.
And then just use those different elements
| | 02:56 |
to design your slides going forward.
That way everything has a nice consistent
| | 03:00 |
look across the board.
| | 03:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Working with ImagesOptimizing images for your slides| 00:00 |
One of the great things about stock
photography websites is the fact they
| | 00:03 |
provide you with high quality, high
resolution files.
| | 00:06 |
One of the downsides of that, is the fact
that these files are huge and when you
| | 00:10 |
paste them into an application like
keynote or PowerPoint, it really increases
| | 00:13 |
the file size of that file.
For the presentation that you're working on.
| | 00:19 |
So, I recommend actually optimizing your
images before you bring them in to
| | 00:23 |
PowerPoint or Keynote.
In order to do that, you're going to need
| | 00:26 |
some form of an image editing application.
Now, that could be Photoshop, it could
| | 00:29 |
Gimp, it could be Pixelmator, it could be
anything that you have access to.
| | 00:33 |
Just find a way to optimize it and I'm
going to talk about how to do that.
| | 00:36 |
The easiest way to optimize something, is
to change the size of it and if you look
| | 00:41 |
at the size of this document, it's
actually 20 something megabytes.
| | 00:47 |
And if I look in here it's 3,264 pixels
wide by 2,448 pixels tall.
| | 00:52 |
That's pretty large, especially when I'm
only going to, let's say a 1024 by 768 slide.
| | 00:58 |
So, how do I optimize it?
Well, first and foremost I just create a
| | 01:01 |
brand new document, the same size as the
slide that we're going to be working with.
| | 01:05 |
So, for this case 1024 by 768 is the slide
size I'm going to choose, hit OK.
| | 01:10 |
Then I just bring the document over and I
just click and drag over, and place it in there.
| | 01:15 |
Once it's in there, what I'm going to do,
is I'm going to free transform this and
| | 01:17 |
you could do this in any application, I'm
just showing you in Photoshop.
| | 01:22 |
And I did that with Cmd or Ctrl+T, then
we're going to re-size down til it just
| | 01:26 |
about fits.
Then I'll start zooming back in, and I'll
| | 01:30 |
place it exactly where I want it to go.
because there maybe certain areas of the
| | 01:35 |
photo you can get away with cropping out
versus the other.
| | 01:39 |
And then, once you're ready to go, hit
Enter and there we go.
| | 01:42 |
So, theoretically it is optimized and if I
look now in the Image > Image Size dialog
| | 01:47 |
box you can see now it is 2.2 megs,
significantly smaller 1024 by 768 looks good.
| | 01:54 |
And so, from here what I would do, is then
save this for the web, that's going to get
| | 01:57 |
you the optimum amount of compression and
everything else.
| | 02:01 |
So, let's go to File > Save For Web.
And we're going to use JPEG for this And
| | 02:07 |
once we save it out as a JPEG, what I'm
going to do is make sure that 1024 by 68
| | 02:10 |
is the size.
I can probably get away with either medium
| | 02:15 |
or high quality JPEG.
High quality JPEG sets the quality setting
| | 02:19 |
to about 60 so, I think you're going to be
good there.
| | 02:22 |
You can see here that the estimated file
size is going to be 137k, that's
| | 02:26 |
significantly smaller.
I'll hit Save and I'm just going to call
| | 02:32 |
this frontier_optimized.
And I'll save this out into my assets file folder.
| | 02:38 |
And there we go.
So, now instead of a 22 megabyte image, I
| | 02:42 |
have less than 200k of an image.
It's the same great looking image, but its
| | 02:48 |
just optimized for optimal performance
inside of my presentation application
| | 02:52 |
whatever that may be.
So, whatever you have access to Photoshop,
| | 02:57 |
Gemp, Pixelmator whatever the case may be,
just save this out as a medium to high
| | 03:00 |
resolution JPEG at the size that you are
going to use.
| | 03:05 |
In the presentation application for
whatever slide you are designing.
| | 03:09 |
And hopefully you'll get better file size
and optimal performance out of your
| | 03:12 |
applications going forward.
| | 03:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using images as a background| 00:00 |
One of the more popular trends in
presentation design today is to use big,
| | 00:04 |
bold background images in your slides.
And that's something we're going to talk
| | 00:09 |
about in this movie, how to properly use
images as a background for your slide decks.
| | 00:13 |
Now I've just got a new document created
inside a keynote.
| | 00:17 |
You could be inside of PowerPoint,
Photoshop illustrator it does not matter.
| | 00:20 |
I;m just using this as a way to easily
show you what I'm talking about.
| | 00:24 |
So don't worry about that if you are not
in the same application as I'm.
| | 00:27 |
And so what we are going to do here is I'm
going to actually change the background of
| | 00:30 |
this slide and you are going to see
exactly what I mean by full image background.
| | 00:35 |
So I'm just going to go to the inspector
here really quickly.
| | 00:37 |
Go in and change the background to an
Image Fill.
| | 00:42 |
And then we'll go out to my desktop and
I'll grab this wide frontier and put in there.
| | 00:47 |
Okay, so this is what we mean by a full
image background on a slide.
| | 00:51 |
Now the problem with this is the fact that
a, usually images are not going to be sort
| | 00:56 |
of considerate of where your text is on
your master slide.
| | 01:02 |
So what you have to do is sort of
work-around the image.
| | 01:04 |
This is going to change the layout of your
slide a little bit but it is also going to
| | 01:07 |
make it a little bit more effective in my
opinion as well.
| | 01:11 |
Now if you want to, you can take a look at
the image that you've selected.
| | 01:15 |
And find different areas.
What I call blank spaces where you could
| | 01:18 |
easily insert text.
For example, the big sky up here at the top.
| | 01:21 |
The bottom right corner, the bottom left
corner.
| | 01:23 |
All have areas where I could put things.
I could even put a small bit of text, you
| | 01:26 |
see right here on his outstretched arms.
That's a perfect area to put something.
| | 01:30 |
Just so the audience has something to look
at right there.
| | 01:33 |
So in this case, what I'm going to do is
I'm going to change the master slide to
| | 01:36 |
something like title, and bullets just to
show you.
| | 01:41 |
The title looks great up here at the top,
so I may start with that.
| | 01:44 |
So I can just actually take this, and
remove the bottom part of it, and so let's
| | 01:47 |
say, that we're doing a presentation on
social media.
| | 01:51 |
So I'll just say.
Social media.
| | 01:54 |
Something like that.
And then maybe I want to put something
| | 01:58 |
across his back.
Like that, from before.
| | 02:00 |
Right?
What I could do is now insert a text box.
| | 02:05 |
And I could call this The New Frontier.
And then we'll select that.
| | 02:11 |
I'm going to change to one of my fonts.
Remember, we have to stay with one of our
| | 02:15 |
three fonts, so in this case, I'm going to
do my accent font.
| | 02:18 |
And my accent font, I know is, is at 24
pixels.
| | 02:21 |
There we go.
And we'll change the color to white.
| | 02:25 |
And then we're just going to move it into
place, something like that.
| | 02:30 |
And you may actually blow up the size of
your title, and that's perfectly
| | 02:33 |
acceptable on something like this.
So I can just re-size it.
| | 02:37 |
There we go.
Make sure we re-center it, and there we
| | 02:40 |
have it.
And there we have a nice little title
| | 02:43 |
slide for our presentation.
Big, bold text, nice image in the
| | 02:46 |
background, one of our accent fonts
complimenting it nicely.
| | 02:50 |
I can move that into the center.
Actually, center it around his back right
| | 02:53 |
there just so that we have that sort of
hidden in there.
| | 02:56 |
We could also put my byline in the bottom
right corner but you get the idea, we're
| | 03:00 |
using the space given to us in the image.
We're still adhering to our style
| | 03:05 |
guidelines with our title text, our accent
text and so forth, but we are making sure
| | 03:08 |
that that sort of flows around the image
that we've chosen.
| | 03:13 |
This is the challenge that you're
presented with when you're using big
| | 03:15 |
images like this.
Now, I tend to be more of a solid color
| | 03:19 |
kind of guy.
I do use big images for accent pieces,
| | 03:22 |
like off to the side or at the top or at
the bottom.
| | 03:25 |
I'm not real big on using full-fledged
images like this, but if you are, and I
| | 03:28 |
know a lot of people are, this is the way
that you should be trying to lay it out.
| | 03:33 |
Analyze the image, find the blank spaces
and then make your text flow around it and
| | 03:36 |
make your text fit the image.
For instance, I might even change the
| | 03:41 |
color of this up here to match sort of the
off blue color of his shadow down here to
| | 03:44 |
make it look more like this cross process
look that we have, going on in the background.
| | 03:50 |
True, it does break my style just a little
bit, but it does make the slide flow that
| | 03:53 |
much easier.
And that's the kind of thing you need to
| | 03:56 |
look for.
You need to make sure everything looks consistent.
| | 03:58 |
Consistency promotes awareness when we're
talking about presentations.
| | 04:03 |
You want people to be aware what's going
on, you want to be engaged in what you're
| | 04:06 |
doing and you want them to remember these
big, bold images that you took time to choose.
| | 04:11 |
So make sure everything flows together and
compliment each other nicely without
| | 04:14 |
distracting away from the message you're
trying to send.
| | 04:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Working with TextExploring the rules of slide typography| 00:00 |
Now it's time to talk about slide
typography.
| | 00:02 |
And I think typography is one of the most
important pieces of a presentation,
| | 00:06 |
because of the fact that this is how you
are conveying your message to your audience.
| | 00:11 |
This is what is being used to communicate
every single point of data that you have
| | 00:15 |
to your audience.
That's the type that they see on the screen.
| | 00:19 |
And so I'm going to be giving you some
basic rules for slide typography.
| | 00:24 |
First and foremost, use basic fonts.
This is going to help you immensely
| | 00:27 |
because there are a lot of times when you
don't get to use your machine when you are
| | 00:31 |
delivering a presentation.
So using basic fonts is really going to
| | 00:35 |
help you with a lot of the system
headaches, as they're called.
| | 00:39 |
Some of the basic fonts include things
like Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman,
| | 00:43 |
and Courier.
However if you don't like these sets of
| | 00:47 |
fonts here you could also use some of the
exceptions like League Gothic, Gotham,
| | 00:51 |
Impact or Menlo.
All of these are good alternatives to the
| | 00:56 |
one I mentioned and they are also easily
found on-line.
| | 00:59 |
Or in most cases already on certain
machines based on the software you have installed.
| | 01:04 |
So if you don't like the originals, you
can always look for these.
| | 01:07 |
So you might be asking me, why do you want
to use just the basic fonts?
| | 01:11 |
What you're looking to avoid here are the
missing font errors that your going to run
| | 01:15 |
into if you move this presentation to
another machine and it doesn't have the
| | 01:18 |
proper fonts installed.
This can lead to some severe headaches
| | 01:22 |
especially if you find you need to revise
the presentation before you give it.
| | 01:26 |
Because you won't have the right fonts and
therefore the design of the presentation
| | 01:29 |
will be thrown off.
And if you've spent all this time
| | 01:31 |
designing the perfect presentation, only
to screw it all up by not having the right
| | 01:35 |
font on the machine you're delivering it
from.
| | 01:38 |
That sort of defeats the whole purpose.
Another rule that I follow is that I don't
| | 01:42 |
center multiple lines of text on a single
slide.
| | 01:46 |
It's very hard to read and I think a lot
of people find it annoying when you do this.
| | 01:50 |
Just trust me on this one, please.
And also, don't put a lot of information
| | 01:54 |
on a slide.
Like this right here, four lines, it's a
| | 01:57 |
little bit too much for people to read.
I look for one to two lines max when I'm
| | 02:00 |
mapping out a typographical layout for a
slide.
| | 02:03 |
Because in this case I don't want people
having to sort of scan the entire slide
| | 02:06 |
multiple times in order to read what I'm
telling them.
| | 02:10 |
As you'll learn when we talk about less is
more, when it comes to typography, that is
| | 02:14 |
exactly the case.
Less is always more.
| | 02:17 |
Use slides as a jumping off point, a
launch pad, if you will, for your ideas
| | 02:21 |
that you want to convey.
Don't use them as a paragraph or a book.
| | 02:27 |
You also need to make sure that you use a
minimum of 30 point font, if you read
| | 02:31 |
anything by Guy Kalasaki on his
presentation rules.
| | 02:35 |
One of his sticking points is the fact
that people need to use a minimum of 30pt
| | 02:38 |
font in their presentations.
Because if you use anything less than that
| | 02:42 |
it just becomes harder and harder to read.
Now a lot of people would argue that they
| | 02:47 |
could use something like 12 or 14pt font,
as that's usually the default in, say, a
| | 02:50 |
word processing application.
But take a look at this example.
| | 02:54 |
This is 14 point font.
Can you read it?
| | 02:58 |
How about now at 18 points?
How about at 24 points?
| | 03:04 |
And finally, at 36 points.
I think 36 points is the minimum that it
| | 03:08 |
takes for you to be able to read this
clearly at almost any size.
| | 03:13 |
So, having a minimum of 30 points in your
presentation is definitely the way to go.
| | 03:18 |
Also, I want you to say No to bullet
points.
| | 03:21 |
Just say No.
And I'm not talking about bullet points
| | 03:24 |
all together.
I'm talking about massive amounts of
| | 03:26 |
bullet points.
Because some people have five columns of
| | 03:30 |
non-stop bullet points, and it just drives
me absolutely insane.
| | 03:35 |
Number one, I'm not going to be able to
read all of those bullet points by the
| | 03:38 |
time you're done talking about this slide.
Number two, all of those bullet points
| | 03:42 |
just sort of muddy themselves together,
and becomes very, very hard to read.
| | 03:47 |
And number three, that's just way too much
information to present to somebody at one
| | 03:50 |
given time.
Break it out and have three to five
| | 03:55 |
bullets per slide.
That way you only have three to five
| | 03:59 |
things that you have to specifically
address.
| | 04:02 |
During that one slide, so that people can
pay attention to one, two, three, four, or five.
| | 04:09 |
You don't want them having to pay
attention to 50 things that you show them.
| | 04:13 |
You should also work on having proper
spacing.
| | 04:16 |
In your presentation, if you've got big
gaps in between words, in between letters,
| | 04:19 |
in between lines.
It becomes very hard to read, and the
| | 04:22 |
audience loses their focus.
Always make sure that you have proper
| | 04:26 |
spacing in-between all facets of your
typography.
| | 04:29 |
We're going to talk about that just a
little bit later on in this chapter.
| | 04:33 |
So don't worry if you don't have that
nailed down right now.
| | 04:36 |
You also want to make sure that you're
using contrasting fonts and colors.
| | 04:40 |
If you're on a black background, use white
text.
| | 04:42 |
If you're on a white background, use black
text, and so forth.
| | 04:45 |
Always having contrast makes it easy to
ready and easy to focus on the areas you
| | 04:49 |
want the audience to focus on.
Now these are just a few of the basic
| | 04:53 |
rules that I try to follow when it comes
to slide design typography.
| | 04:57 |
If you want more information on typography
in general, I recommend checking out the
| | 05:01 |
foundations of typography course with Ina
Salt.
| | 05:04 |
One of the best courses in lynda.com
online training library about typography.
| | 05:08 |
Which specifically addresses all of the
different types and ways that you can
| | 05:11 |
change the way type appears in your
designs.
| | 05:14 |
And it focuses on legibility and
readability typographic composition.
| | 05:19 |
Many different things for you to think
about and learn from in this course.
| | 05:22 |
I find this course to be an essential
piece of any designers education.
| | 05:26 |
So be sure that you check that out as
well.
| | 05:28 |
In any case, follow the basics that I've
outlined for you here in this movie.
| | 05:32 |
Also, take a look at this course to learn
even more about typography.
| | 05:36 |
And you'll be really glad you did, because
all in all, typography is the life force
| | 05:40 |
of your presentation.
| | 05:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the "less is more" principle| 00:00 |
Less is more.
Truer words have never been spoken.
| | 00:04 |
When it comes to laying out type on your
slide, this should be your guiding principle.
| | 00:09 |
The key here is to avoid information
overload on your audience and create a
| | 00:12 |
more organic experience for them as well.
Let's take a look at an example here.
| | 00:17 |
I have a slide where I'm going to be
talking about the earnings from a quarter.
| | 00:21 |
Let's say for a sales presentation.
So on this slide, I'm going to give you
| | 00:24 |
information overload.
This month we're on track to exceed our Q2
| | 00:28 |
earnings goal.
We're excited about that progress and
| | 00:31 |
applaud our team members for their hard
work.
| | 00:34 |
Now, not only did I give you too much
information to digest on this slide, where
| | 00:37 |
you have to read this sort of short
paragraph.
| | 00:40 |
But, you also have to deal with me reading
from the slide as well.
| | 00:44 |
That's not organic, that's not realistic,
that's not me just sharing information
| | 00:47 |
with you.
That's me reading from a script, and
| | 00:49 |
that's not what you want in a
presentation.
| | 00:52 |
Check out this example of the same, exact
slide, which does the exact, same thing
| | 00:55 |
with minimal information.
Q2 = On Track.
| | 01:01 |
From this, I get a cue in my head to talk
about the Q2 earnings and to let people
| | 01:03 |
know that everything is going as planned.
So when this comes up, I might say
| | 01:08 |
something like, oh, and we're on track
completely in Q2 to exceed our earning skills.
| | 01:13 |
I want to thank everybody that's been
involved for their hard work and dedication.
| | 01:16 |
We really appreciate it.
That sound allot more realistic then what
| | 01:20 |
I just gave you.
And the only thing the audience has to see
| | 01:23 |
is that Q2 is on track, they don't have to
know any of the other stuff.
| | 01:27 |
They don't need to see your speaker notes,
they just need to know the fine points of
| | 01:30 |
what it is that your talking about.
And that's what we're talking about when
| | 01:34 |
we talk about less being more in terms of
typography.
| | 01:39 |
So, too much information, can, give you an
excuse to read as we've already seen.
| | 01:43 |
It can also bore your audience to tears,
and it can sway the focus of the audience
| | 01:47 |
as well.
You might want them concentrated on an
| | 01:50 |
image, but if you've got a paragraph of
text they're trying to read.
| | 01:54 |
Chances are they're going to do that first
before ever focusing on that image.
| | 01:57 |
And then finally yes, it can cause
headaches, especially if you are in a
| | 02:00 |
large, crowded room.
People trying to read paragraphs and
| | 02:04 |
paragraphs of text on a small screen from
across the room fight trying to read a
| | 02:07 |
book from outer space, it just doesn't
work.
| | 02:12 |
By limiting the amount of information, we
should be able to make it easier for the
| | 02:14 |
presentation to be understood by our
audience.
| | 02:18 |
It also should help guide the audience in
the right direction from where they're
| | 02:21 |
supposed to look on any given slide.
And it should give you talking points.
| | 02:26 |
That way you get cues as what to say to
the audience without actually having to
| | 02:29 |
read it.
And it will force you to be real in your presentation.
| | 02:35 |
Let's take a look at some examples here.
I have three slides that are taken from
| | 02:38 |
one of my personal presentations that I
want to share with you here.
| | 02:41 |
So this one here, this was from how to
deal with certain clients, right.
| | 02:46 |
So it just says, how to deal with that
guy, you know the client that you hate.
| | 02:49 |
This is minimalistic information, but it
gave me a talking point from which to go on.
| | 02:54 |
Where I could explain how to deal with
difficult clients that you might run
| | 02:57 |
across in the freelance design business.
This slide right here was supposed to
| | 03:02 |
convey that you, as a designer, need to
share your knowledge with your client.
| | 03:06 |
I didn't need to express on this slide all
of the bullet points of things you need to
| | 03:08 |
teach your client.
For instances, this was in a web design
| | 03:12 |
scenario so I didn't need to put on here
teach them HTML, CSS, PHP, WordPress, My
| | 03:15 |
SQL, all that kind of stuff.
I just basically said, hey, share your
| | 03:20 |
knowledge, and it gave me that launching
part to say.
| | 03:23 |
You know, if you're showing them the CSS
page you've constructed to them explain to
| | 03:26 |
them why it took you three or four hours
to do this one block of code.
| | 03:30 |
Or whatever the case may be.
This is how I start of most of my slides,
| | 03:33 |
with one single solitary point, that
allows me to then go off on sort of an
| | 03:37 |
adlib tangent.
If you will, pertaining to that information.
| | 03:42 |
And then finally, this is usually how I
wrap up any of my Q and A in my presentations.
| | 03:47 |
I give a nice big graphic and then I say
any questions or Q and A or something like that.
| | 03:52 |
This gives the audience an immediate
queue, that, hey the presentation is now over.
| | 03:56 |
It's time for you to start thinking about
any and all questions you might have for me.
| | 03:59 |
And gather those, so that you can shoot
them to me and I can answer them in real
| | 04:02 |
time here in the presentation.
There is no, please ask me about x, y, z
| | 04:07 |
or whatever on this slide.
It's just one, single image, one single
| | 04:11 |
piece of text.
Not information overload, just enough for
| | 04:14 |
you to know what 's going on.
Why I am saying this and what you need to
| | 04:19 |
do with it.
All in all, you need to let your images
| | 04:22 |
and your text tell the story of your
slides.
| | 04:25 |
Images more important than text because
they actually have a visual representation
| | 04:29 |
of what you're trying to convey to the
audience members.
| | 04:33 |
You should also rehearse your talking
points prior to delivering the keynote
| | 04:36 |
speech or whatever it is that you're
giving.
| | 04:39 |
Because rehearsing your talking points
allows you to go off of these bullet
| | 04:42 |
points in a more effective and realistic
manner.
| | 04:45 |
That way you don't need all those bullet
points or those paragraphs to go from.
| | 04:49 |
All you need is that one phrase, that one
key word that automatically clicks in your
| | 04:52 |
brain and says I need to be talking about
that right now.
| | 04:56 |
And then finally, I want you to try to
abide by the K.I.S.S., principle.
| | 05:00 |
What does K.I.S.S., stand for?
Keep it super simple.
| | 05:04 |
I was introduced to this concept during a
photography class that I took during college.
| | 05:08 |
And the basic premise here is that
simplicity is often times the counterpart
| | 05:11 |
of elegance.
And that's exactly what we should be
| | 05:14 |
striving for in our presentations.
| | 05:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with text spacing| 00:00 |
One of the most important facets of
typography to get control of is text spacing.
| | 00:04 |
And that's what we're going to be working
on in this movie.
| | 00:07 |
Now I've got several slides here with a
lot of different information, lot of
| | 00:09 |
different examples.
And I'm just going to show you how to
| | 00:12 |
control text spacing in various ways.
One of the things that we need to focus on
| | 00:16 |
is the fact that text should be readable,
flow together, not contain any huge gaps
| | 00:19 |
and it should never, ever look out of
place.
| | 00:23 |
Like this, for example.
Here's a bad example of text spacing.
| | 00:26 |
It's very hard to read.
It's very hard to tell what the words even are.
| | 00:30 |
Another example would be here, where the
text is so close together that it just
| | 00:33 |
sort of runs in one big blob.
We don't like that either.
| | 00:36 |
An example of good spacing would be
something like this, and this is actually
| | 00:39 |
different from the default spacing you
would as well.
| | 00:42 |
It's actually a little bit tighter.
When we talk about spacing in-between all
| | 00:46 |
of these characters, we're talking about a
specific thing.
| | 00:49 |
And that's what we're going to be
discussing, the differences between all
| | 00:52 |
the different types of spacing that we
have inside of the typography world.
| | 00:57 |
So we have three basic terms that you need
to be familiar with, leading, kerning and tracking.
| | 01:01 |
Leading is the space between lines.
So lets take a look at how we can adjust
| | 01:06 |
the spacing between line in key note.
It would be the same type of process in
| | 01:09 |
any the other application.
You are just basically reducing the amount
| | 01:12 |
of space in between these lines.
First and foremost you want to to make
| | 01:16 |
sure you have the text selected and then
go to proper formatting channel.
| | 01:19 |
In keynote you are going to actually use
the line part of the text formatting options.
| | 01:24 |
And you are just going to reduce the
amount of space by clicking and dragging
| | 01:28 |
the slider back.
You don't want to go too far because you
| | 01:31 |
run the risk of it bleeding together.
You don't want to go too far apart because
| | 01:35 |
then it just becomes too far and it might
fall off of the place holder that you have
| | 01:39 |
as well.
So I think anywhere from 1 to .9 is
| | 01:43 |
actually a good amount of space.
Now depending on the type of look you're
| | 01:47 |
going for, you may want this to be a
little bit loose or you may want make it a
| | 01:50 |
little bit tighter.
Again, it's up to you.
| | 01:54 |
That's what we call it, by the way.
When things are close together, we call
| | 01:56 |
that a tight fit.
When things are spread apart a little bit
| | 01:59 |
more, we call that a loose fit.
So in this case the leading of this would
| | 02:03 |
be tight whereas here, the leading would
be a little loose.
| | 02:07 |
I think 0.9 works well for this because I
can still read it, leading is the space
| | 02:10 |
between lines, flows nicely together.
Doesn't look like there's any big gaps,
| | 02:15 |
doesn't look squished together, everything
looks pretty good.
| | 02:19 |
Now, kerning, on the other hand, is a
different story.
| | 02:21 |
Kerning is the space between each
individual character and as you can see
| | 02:24 |
here, you can tell the words as kerning.
But there are several different areas of
| | 02:29 |
this text that need our help.
So for instance, here we want to reduce
| | 02:32 |
the amount of space between the k and the
e.
| | 02:35 |
So in order to do that, I would select the
k and then the character spacing,
| | 02:38 |
obviously, has been cranked up, so we
would take that back down.
| | 02:42 |
But even when I get that back to 0, I
think there's still a little bit too much
| | 02:46 |
of a gap there.
So I might actually tighten up the kern in
| | 02:49 |
between these two characters, something
like Negative 4.
| | 02:53 |
On the e, I think there could be a little
bit of a tighter kern here as well, so
| | 02:56 |
let's maybe move those in.
Something like that.
| | 03:00 |
The r already has some spacing applied to
it.
| | 03:03 |
I think we back that down to something
like negative 1.
| | 03:06 |
That looks a little better.
And maybe the I or the N.
| | 03:10 |
Have some spacing issues.
Let's try this.
| | 03:13 |
Got negative 12 on the I so we'll just
kind of spread that back out.
| | 03:19 |
That looks okay.
And the N, maybe we'd bring the G just a
| | 03:21 |
little closer.
Something like that, so that looks
| | 03:25 |
relatively well kerned.
I could spend some more time in here just
| | 03:28 |
sort of tidying things up.
But basically what your looking for is
| | 03:32 |
just a nice easily readable tight fit in
between all of these.
| | 03:36 |
Now you may go for a looser fit or a
tighter fit, again that's totally
| | 03:39 |
basically up to you.
But you basically want it to look even all
| | 03:42 |
the way across adjusting the spacing
accordingly between each character, that
| | 03:45 |
is what kerning is, spacing between each
character.
| | 03:50 |
Now as far as tracking is concerned.
Tracking is the space across a multiple
| | 03:53 |
set of characters.
So in this case if I want to adjust the
| | 03:56 |
tracking of this, I would just select the
box itself, not individual characters and
| | 03:59 |
then adjust the character spacing like so.
You might have a close amount of tracking
| | 04:05 |
or you might have a loose amount of
tracking.
| | 04:09 |
In this case, I think loose actually looks
okay.
| | 04:12 |
I might also tighten it up.
Again, it just depends on your personal
| | 04:15 |
level of comfort with this.
I might actually start it off with
| | 04:18 |
negative two for the whole thing.
And then actually go in and kern
| | 04:21 |
individual characters based on how they
need to look.
| | 04:25 |
So this case, the "a" needs to be closer
to the "c".
| | 04:28 |
And that actually looks pretty good.
I might actually tighten up a few more
| | 04:30 |
but, all in all, tracking is a great way
to get started.
| | 04:34 |
And then kerning is a great way to refine
it.
| | 04:36 |
So you might also want to check into that.
Now what are my rules of thumb?
| | 04:40 |
If it's not readable to you, then it's
probably not readable.
| | 04:44 |
So I want you to go through the text in
your slides.
| | 04:47 |
One by one, make sure that the lines are
spaced properly, make sure the characters
| | 04:50 |
don't have holes big enough that you could
drive trucks through them.
| | 04:55 |
Make sure that everything flows together
nicely, is easily read, easily understandable.
| | 04:59 |
And really works well with the slides, the
colors and the images that you've chosen.
| | 05:03 |
Only then can you say that you truly have
a handle on typography spacing and your
| | 05:07 |
ability to control it.
| | 05:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Showcasing DataExploring data visualization| 00:00 |
One of the more common goals of a
presentation is to visualize data, whether
| | 00:04 |
it's sales numbers or the amount of water
that's being used over time by the planet,
| | 00:07 |
or whatever the case may be.
Data visualization is a key component in
| | 00:13 |
the presentation design space.
So in this movie we're going to be
| | 00:17 |
focusing on Data Visualization and ways
that you need to represent data inside of
| | 00:20 |
your presentations.
So here are some things to consider when
| | 00:24 |
you are working with data.
Design needs to follow the data.
| | 00:28 |
That means that the design needs to be
conducive to exactly what the data allows
| | 00:31 |
it to be.
You should think about what makes the
| | 00:35 |
information that you have look good.
Does it look best in a flow chart?
| | 00:39 |
Does it look best plotted along a
timeline?
| | 00:41 |
Does it look best in a bar graph, a pie
chart?
| | 00:44 |
Does it look best as an infographic?
What does it look like?
| | 00:47 |
And remember pie and bar charts are for
the weak.
| | 00:50 |
These are the basic things that everybody
does.
| | 00:52 |
I want you to think outside the box when
it comes to data visualization and find
| | 00:55 |
new ways to make data relate to itself.
Find new ways to display and find more
| | 01:00 |
creative ways of creating these different
types of visualizations.
| | 01:05 |
Now data should be presented in a clear
way that's easily understandable and
| | 01:08 |
digestible by your audience.
It should not be hidden by the design.
| | 01:13 |
It should be very obvious, exactly what
you're showing.
| | 01:16 |
And it should also be the main focal point
of any slide that you're working on.
| | 01:21 |
So whatever the case may be, whether
you're showing, like I said, sales numbers
| | 01:23 |
or what have you, those should be the main
focal point.
| | 01:26 |
The heading, any pictures, anything like
that should be an afterthought, so make
| | 01:30 |
sure you design it in such a way that the
data is clearly where you want the
| | 01:32 |
audience to look.
It should also not be overshadowed by any
| | 01:37 |
text, so you don't want a lot of arrows
and things pointing to different areas.
| | 01:41 |
Use your design skills in order to make
the data visually pop in the way that it
| | 01:45 |
needs to so that you don't need to have
circles and squares and text and call outs
| | 01:48 |
and all that kind of stuff happening all
over the place.
| | 01:54 |
You want the data to stand on its own two
feet.
| | 01:56 |
Basically when we’re talking about data
visualization, we’re talking about
| | 02:00 |
storytelling with numbers.
You are telling the story of this data and
| | 02:05 |
you’re doing so in a very visual way that
needs to be very easily explained to your audience.
| | 02:12 |
And that's what we're talking about here.
But don't overdo it.
| | 02:16 |
Far too many times people focus on making
the colors crazy in a bar chart or making
| | 02:20 |
the data go up and down in an animation or
something like that.
| | 02:25 |
Don't over do it.
Just go with nice, easy, simple, well
| | 02:28 |
presented data in a very creative way.
My suggestion to you, is to learn from infographics.
| | 02:35 |
One of the more popular things on the
internet today is to create infographics.
| | 02:38 |
And we actually have a very great course
about this inside the lynda.com online
| | 02:42 |
training library, called Creating
Infographics with Adobe Illustrator by
| | 02:45 |
Mordy Golding.
And, Mordy actually has several different
| | 02:49 |
examples in his course of how to display
data in really creative ways.
| | 02:53 |
So here you can see the numbers are all
very well explained.
| | 02:57 |
You've got little visual points like icons
and things like that indicating what each
| | 03:00 |
one means, it's just a very easy separated
concise way to display data and you can
| | 03:04 |
display data this way inside of a
presentation as well.
| | 03:09 |
Check out this example of wind and solar
energy and how they're the fastest growing
| | 03:12 |
electricity technologies.
We got the solar technology over there on
| | 03:16 |
the left and all the breakdowns of the
numbers.
| | 03:19 |
And you've got the wind energy over there
on the right.
| | 03:20 |
And the bar chart is actually broken down
in to wind mills.
| | 03:24 |
Which is actually, I think, really super
creative.
| | 03:27 |
And I just think this is a great way to
represent these.
| | 03:30 |
It's not a traditional bar graph by any
means.
| | 03:32 |
It's a very creative way to display a wide
range of data across a lot of time.
| | 03:38 |
You can see 2006 all the way to 2011
there.
| | 03:41 |
So just take your cues from infographics,
study info graphics.
| | 03:45 |
There's a ton of them on the internet.
So look at those, look at how they're
| | 03:48 |
displaying data, and work that into your
presentations.
| | 03:52 |
You also need to focus on relationships in
data.
| | 03:54 |
Can you relate data points over a certain
amount of time?
| | 03:58 |
Can you compare two groups of data?
If the answer to either one of these
| | 04:02 |
questions is yes, then I want you to
visualize that data in that manner showing
| | 04:05 |
that relationship.
This is just like another plot point in
| | 04:08 |
the story line of your presentation.
This could be a conflict.
| | 04:12 |
This could be some sort of turning point
in the presentation.
| | 04:16 |
All of these relationships matter, and
they should be explained and displayed in
| | 04:20 |
a very nice, easy-to-understand manner.
Remember, when you're dealing with data,
| | 04:26 |
you need to tell a story.
You also need to appeal to your audience.
| | 04:31 |
Make sure the visuals that you use
correspond to the audience that you're
| | 04:34 |
presenting to.
And then finally, always and most
| | 04:37 |
importantly, cite your sources.
Let me people know where this information
| | 04:41 |
is coming from so that they know that it's
creditable.
| | 04:44 |
And they know that you got it from a
reliable source and that way they can put
| | 04:47 |
faith not only in your design, but also in
the data points that you're giving them.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating charts and graphs: PowerPoint| 00:00 |
Data visualization inside of Microsoft
PowerPoint is actually even more powerful
| | 00:04 |
than Apple's Keynote in my opinion.
There are several different options that
| | 00:09 |
you have available to you inside of
PowerPoint and I actually prefer it, for
| | 00:12 |
creating charts and graphs versus Apple's
Keynote application.
| | 00:16 |
So, let's take a look at how to create a
simple chart or graph inside of Microsoft PowerPoint.
| | 00:21 |
Now, I'm on the Mac version of PowerPoint,
but the PC version of PowerPoint works
| | 00:24 |
much the same way.
You're just going to find the area on the
| | 00:27 |
ribbon at the top here that contains the
charts area, and then you just select the
| | 00:30 |
chart that you would like to use.
You could also, of course switch the
| | 00:35 |
master of the slide that you're working
on.
| | 00:37 |
So, I could go back to the Home tab, and I
could choose the layout of this.
| | 00:41 |
So, I could just say, okay we're just
going to do blank.
| | 00:43 |
Then go back to charts and I am going to
select other, and we are going to select
| | 00:47 |
something like oh, lets pick a doughnut
chart.
| | 00:51 |
And it is going to automatically open a
chart data set inside of Excel, and allow
| | 00:55 |
me to start plugging in information into
that.
| | 00:59 |
That's one of the cool things about
PowerPoint, is the fact that it's linked
| | 01:03 |
to Excel data.
So, if you're comfortable working inside
| | 01:06 |
of a spreadsheet, you just come in here
and start plugging in things, so like
| | 01:10 |
first quarter, second quarter, third
quarter.
| | 01:14 |
And you could type out things like, 40 and
we'll do something like 20 and then do
| | 01:18 |
something like ten and then 30, something
like that.
| | 01:23 |
There we go, get all those there.
And now it says, to update the chart,
| | 01:26 |
enter the data into this table.
And, the data is automatically saved in
| | 01:29 |
the chart.
So, if I jump back into PowerPoint now, I
| | 01:32 |
can actually see all of these broken down.
And when I hover over them, you can see
| | 01:38 |
there's 30%, 10%, 20% and 40%.
I can also select individual pieces of
| | 01:43 |
this and make changes or, I can come up
here and select from the different chart
| | 01:47 |
styles as well.
If I open the the Styles drawer, there are
| | 01:51 |
a ton of different templates.
I actually prefer the flat design,
| | 01:55 |
something like this.
And then when I look at it, I can actually
| | 01:57 |
get a better breakdown of all of this
information as well.
| | 02:01 |
You can also change the chart layout, if
you want to by clicking up here.
| | 02:05 |
So, I could see something like this, where
it actually breaks down an shows me,
| | 02:07 |
different data points.
I can see it visualized in different ways.
| | 02:12 |
All different types of things can be
accomplished, just by clicking on
| | 02:14 |
different areas of this interface up here
on the ribbon.
| | 02:18 |
And I find this to be tremendously
helpful, especially when you're creating
| | 02:22 |
complex info-graphics or complex things
like this.
| | 02:26 |
Let's go ahead and create a new slide
here, so I'm just going to go to the Home
| | 02:28 |
screen and then I'm just going to to hit
New slide.
| | 02:31 |
And, then we're going to insert another
chart here, so I'm just going to go to
| | 02:34 |
Charts and, let's just do a regular old
bar chart.
| | 02:37 |
And we'll do a clustered bar chart, that's
going to open up a new data set in Excel,
| | 02:41 |
again giving me categories, series and
information.
| | 02:45 |
If I go back over into PowerPoint, you'll
see everything is linked in there, same
| | 02:48 |
basic thing applies here.
You just find the set that you want, and
| | 02:52 |
again you could customize this, based on
your theme that you've done.
| | 02:56 |
You could also create different styles and
things like that and save your own, inside
| | 02:59 |
of PowerPoint as well, which makes it even
more powerful.
| | 03:02 |
And once you find the one that you want,
then you can also play around with
| | 03:05 |
different ways to display the data as
well.
| | 03:08 |
And once you find exactly what you're
looking for, just click away to see the
| | 03:11 |
full on ensemble of what you've created.
If you need to re-adjust that, just click
| | 03:16 |
on it again, you can actually re-size the
chart area to make it larger if you need
| | 03:20 |
to and it just flows just like that.
So, hopefully by now you have a better
| | 03:25 |
understanding of how to create your own,
sort of chart system here inside of
| | 03:29 |
Microsoft PowerPoint.
if you need more help on this, be sure to
| | 03:33 |
check out PowerPoint 2013 Essential
Training.
| | 03:36 |
And if you're using an older version of
PowerPoint, you may also want to check out
| | 03:39 |
our Essential Training courses on those
versions as well.
| | 03:43 |
They're also available in the lynda.com
online training library.
| | 03:46 |
But, again, using PowerPoint I think is
one of the better ways to visualize data
| | 03:49 |
in a presentation.
Simply because they have more controls,
| | 03:53 |
more options and better customization than
any other application that's out there.
| | 03:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating charts and graphs: Keynote| 00:00 |
When it comes to displaying data in
Keynote, there are several different ways
| | 00:03 |
that you can do so.
And in this movie I'm going to show you
| | 00:06 |
how to create a quick chart inside of
Keynote.
| | 00:08 |
So, I'm just going to create a brand new
document, brand new blank document here.
| | 00:11 |
It doesn't matter what size or what theme
you use.
| | 00:14 |
And in this case, I'm just going to shrink
this down to about 50%, so we have a
| | 00:16 |
chance to see everything that's going on.
And then I'm just going to switch over to
| | 00:20 |
a blank template.
So, once I switch over to the blank
| | 00:23 |
template what I'm going to do, is I'm just
going to come right here and click on Charts.
| | 00:27 |
And inside of the charts, you have the
ability to pick several different types of charts.
| | 00:31 |
You have like bar charts, 3D, you have
different types of data points.
| | 00:35 |
You have pie charts etcetera.
So, if I wanted something like a 3D pie
| | 00:39 |
chart, I could just click on that and it's
going to automatically put that out into
| | 00:42 |
my document.
I can also control what this looks like,
| | 00:46 |
in terms of perspective by dragging around
this little 3D compass right here.
| | 00:53 |
So, I can just make changes just like so.
Now, if you actually want to make changes
| | 00:58 |
to the data points, you just use this
chart data editor here.
| | 01:01 |
So, like I could change the years on this
or whatever I want to do, I could also
| | 01:04 |
change the numbers, so let's change this
to something like 30%.
| | 01:08 |
This one right here is going to be let's
say, 60%.
| | 01:13 |
This one here let's say is 5, this one
here is 5.
| | 01:19 |
And this one here, let's do 10.
And this one here 10, something like that.
| | 01:27 |
So, now we've got all these different data
points explained and once I have
| | 01:30 |
everything in place, I can now go in here
and start making changes to the pie chart itself.
| | 01:36 |
In order to make changes to this, you just
select individual pieces by clicking on
| | 01:39 |
them, and then you go into the inspector,
t0 the graphic section.
| | 01:43 |
And you can change what they look like.
So, in this case, I can fill that with a color.
| | 01:47 |
You want to make sure that the colors that
you use inside of your charts or graphs or
| | 01:50 |
whatever, correspond to the color pallet,
that you selected in your theme.
| | 01:54 |
That way every thing looks unified and it
doesn't look out of place.
| | 01:58 |
So, you could actually just sample the
color from your theme that you've
| | 02:00 |
developed or you could just come in here
and you can make changes like this as well.
| | 02:04 |
So, I could say, okay we want red.
This one right here.
| | 02:07 |
We want this to be a color fill.
And we want that to be orange.
| | 02:11 |
And we want this one to be a color.
And we want that one to be yellow.
| | 02:15 |
And we just make changes, just by clicking
on each one of these data points and
| | 02:18 |
making the changes.
Notice that Keynote is smart enough, here
| | 02:22 |
in the background actually to be changing
these data points to correspond to the
| | 02:25 |
colors that you are selecting.
Now, another great thing is that you can,
| | 02:29 |
click away from it and then click on it
again and that way you can select the
| | 02:31 |
whole thing and you can make it larger or
smaller.
| | 02:35 |
You can also select the data information
and move that around anywhere you want in
| | 02:38 |
the slide itself, so you could have that
(INAUDIBLE) on the side.
| | 02:42 |
And along the bottom wherever you want.
You could also change the background of
| | 02:46 |
the slide to suite your needs and all that
different kind of stuff as well.
| | 02:50 |
But, I just wanted to show you just how
quickly and easy it is, to create a chart
| | 02:53 |
inside of Keynote.
Let's create another example here, and
| | 02:56 |
just to show you one more time.
Let's create a bar chart in this case.
| | 02:59 |
And this is just going to create a basic
bar chart like this.
| | 03:02 |
You could add data points to this, simply
by coming down and adding a row to this or
| | 03:06 |
something like, Region 3 or whatever you
wanted to call this, as just an example.
| | 03:13 |
Once we have that in place we can start
plugging in numbers.
| | 03:16 |
So, we could do something like 40.
And then you just press tab to go across here.
| | 03:20 |
So, 25 and then 65 and then we'll do 70.
Like that so, we see all those and then
| | 03:26 |
again its the same basic principle as you
had before.
| | 03:29 |
You click on one of the data points or all
of them in this case when they are
| | 03:31 |
selected or you can click on individual
ones.
| | 03:34 |
This case I'll select all the red ones, go
over here to the appearance, I'll choose
| | 03:38 |
Color Fill, and you see that it
automatically switched the color, we can
| | 03:40 |
change the color.
And we could go through and change all of
| | 03:45 |
these relatively quickly, changing the
look and feel of our entire chart just by
| | 03:49 |
doing that right here.
So, we'll select that, color fill.
| | 03:54 |
Select there and let's do kind of a blue.
There we go.
| | 03:57 |
So, there we go.
And so, it's very easy to make changes to
| | 04:01 |
your charts and graphs inside of Keynote.
You could also create your own customized
| | 04:07 |
graphics in other applications like
Illustrator or Photoshop, to sort of go
| | 04:10 |
along the lines of that info-graphic like
style.
| | 04:14 |
I actually highly recommend doing that,
versus just via the standard charts and
| | 04:17 |
graphs, because you're going to have data
visualization that nobody else has.
| | 04:22 |
Everybody has the ability to create things
like this.
| | 04:24 |
But if you take it one step further in
going to programs like illustrator or
| | 04:27 |
Photoshop, you get one step above the
competition.
| | 04:31 |
But in any case, if you just are
comfortable using Keynote, this is the
| | 04:34 |
best, fastest and easiest way to create
visual data using charts and graphs.
| | 04:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating charts and graphs: Illustrator| 00:00 |
All right.
So we've seen how to create basic charts
| | 00:02 |
and graphs inside of applications like
PowerPoint and Keynote.
| | 00:07 |
And those are great for creating graphs
that you can easily just pop into a
| | 00:11 |
presentation and use.
However, I actually prefer to do most of
| | 00:15 |
my data visualization inside of an
application like Adobe Illustrator.
| | 00:18 |
And that is because Illustrator is a
vector drawing program that allows me to
| | 00:22 |
get really super creative with the data I
create.
| | 00:25 |
Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't do
your initial data sets inside of something
| | 00:29 |
like PowerPoint or Keynote.
Because those are handy ways of creating
| | 00:32 |
those graphs.
But then take those, export them out as
| | 00:35 |
maybe a jpeg or something like that so
that you have a good representation of
| | 00:38 |
what the data looks like in scale.
And then bring it over into illustrator
| | 00:42 |
and create some really crazy stuff with
it.
| | 00:45 |
That's what I'm trying to get you to
understand.
| | 00:47 |
You could also just create a chart inside
of Illustrator and then use that chart to
| | 00:50 |
actually create some really awesome
looking data as well.
| | 00:54 |
Lets go to the file menu and choose new,
hit OK.
| | 00:58 |
And I'm just working with 1024 by 768, and
I'm going to switch the column graph tool
| | 01:01 |
by pressing the letter J on my keyboard.
And then I can just come out here and I
| | 01:05 |
can Click and Drag to draw a graph.
And inside of here I can import data, I
| | 01:10 |
can also transpose columns and rows,
switch x and y, change the cell style,
| | 01:14 |
revert and apply changes.
So let's say that I wanted to make some
| | 01:19 |
changes in here.
All I just have to do is type, so in this
| | 01:23 |
case we'll just type out something like
Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 and I'm just pressing tab
| | 01:28 |
after each one of those.
Then, we'll type out 100, 200, 300, 400,
| | 01:37 |
just like that.
Just going to show a gradual rise, and
| | 01:41 |
then I'll hit the check mark.
And there is my chart, and now I could use
| | 01:45 |
this as a basics to show me the spatial
relationships between all of these.
| | 01:50 |
And I could actually put in my graphics
for each one of these.
| | 01:53 |
So let's say I wanted each one of these to
be like a stack of dollars or I wanted
| | 01:57 |
each one to be a set of coins or something
like that.
| | 02:01 |
Just to visually represent each one of
these quarters going up in terms of
| | 02:04 |
revenue, lets say.
So I actually like using Illustrator for
| | 02:07 |
this purpose, because I can easily create
these and then I can expand these artwork
| | 02:10 |
out into shapes.
And then fill those shapes with patterns
| | 02:14 |
or colors or images, or whatever the case
may be.
| | 02:16 |
Now lets say that you wanted to change the
type of chart you've created here.
| | 02:20 |
I'm just going to close this up, and then
I'm going to go to the Object menu, choose
| | 02:23 |
Graph and select Type.
And I can actually go in here and just
| | 02:26 |
change to something like a pie chart, and
hit OK, and Illustrator automatically
| | 02:30 |
converts it over to a pie chart for me.
If I want to re-edit the data, I just go
| | 02:35 |
into the Object menu > Graph > Data, and I
can change it.
| | 02:39 |
So I can say okay, Q1, that's actually
150.
| | 02:42 |
And Q2 that's 225, Q3 275 and Q4 was 355.
Just like that and then if I wanted to
| | 02:51 |
commit to that all I have to do is hit the
check mark and all my data points adjust
| | 02:54 |
accordingly inside of the object.
Now this is just how to create a basic
| | 03:00 |
chart inside of Adobe Illustrator if you
want to get down to the nitty gritty of
| | 03:03 |
how to work with this type of data.
And how to really create some stunningly
| | 03:08 |
awesome visuals using Adobe Illustrator.
My recommendation is to check out Mordy
| | 03:13 |
Golding's Infographics course inside of
the lynda.com online training library.
| | 03:18 |
Mordy shows you how to create some really
cool visuals with your data, how to
| | 03:21 |
visualize things differently in
Illustrator using the Standard Graph Tool.
| | 03:25 |
But then turning it into something even
more compelling than just regular old pie
| | 03:28 |
charts and bar charts and things like
that.
| | 03:31 |
So check out that course, play around with
the graph tools inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:35 |
I think you'll be really glad that you
did, because the tools that you have
| | 03:38 |
available to you in here are so powerful.
And so flexible because of the vector
| | 03:41 |
nature, that it's really going to blow you
away in terms of what you're able to do.
| | 03:45 |
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7. Controlling Focal PointsWhat are focal points?| 00:00 |
I think one of the most important pieces
of presentation design is controlling
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something that I call focal points.
And focal points is what I refer to, how
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you divert the audience's attention to
certain places on screen or how you
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control what they're looking at and what
they're perceiving to be the main point of
| | 00:14 |
each slide.
And so in this movie I'm going to explain
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to you exactly what I think focal points
are and what they should do.
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First and foremost, focal point should
drop the audiences attention into a
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specific area of the screen.
You need to make sure that you are
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directing them on where to go, you are
sort of conductor in all of this and you
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are conducting the symphony of this
presentation.
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And you want to make sure you are
controlling exactly which message is being
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conveyed and how that message is being
conveyed as well.
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You also want to make sure that is causing
them to focus on a specific word.
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Or an image, or a portion of an image,
that drives home a point.
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There should always be a purpose behind
these focal points, using images or text,
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or whatever the case may be, there always
needs to be a purpose behind them.
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Otherwise you run the risk of confusing
the audience member.
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And finally, they should bring meaning to
slide.
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They should sort of tie it all together.
The focal point of a slide should really
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be the defining characteristic of the
small story that is that one single slide
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that you're designing for somebody.
Now, what should focal points not be?
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Well, they should not divert attention
from important information.
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I'm going to show you an example of that
in just a moment.
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Focal points should not cause confusion
and they should not happen by accident.
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They should be planned out specifically to
control what the audience sees and why
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they're seeing it.
And finally they should never ever, ever
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change the meaning of a slide.
Alright, so let's take a look at an
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example of a focal point.
So here is what I consider to be a good
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focal point.
I've used an image of a tunnel here.
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It's going right down into this.
You're focused right on the horizon line.
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Immediately your eyes are drawn to that
and that's where I've placed the text.
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And I've also used a focal point of a
bolder font to say there is light at the
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end of out tunnel.
So maybe this is the end of a presentation
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where maybe the quarterly sales numbers
weren't so hot, but hey, there is light at
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the end of our tunnel indicating you know
what not all of our news is bad in this case.
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So the eyes are drawn in because of the
tunnel that we're looking down.
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We're also focusing on that word light,
meaning that hey there is something good
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coming out all of this.
And so that is one way to control the
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focal point.
Now, what if I had done something like
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this, where the text is way off to the
left hand side.
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Immediately my eyes are drawn into the
tunnel, but then I have to look up to the
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left to read the text.
That is not controlling the focal point well.
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That's actually causing two focal points.
And if you had done this, you would
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actually be causing some serious
confusion.
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And thus defeating the purpose of actually
having a focal point image in this slide
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at all.
Now here's another example, let's say that
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I have three data points that I'm trying
to show case here.
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But I'm only focusing on the best one, the
tall one.
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In order to make this the focal point of
the slide, maybe I reduce the opacity of
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the other two.
And create some sort of pointing mechanism
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to say, you know what this is what we're
going to be focusing on in this line".
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Again I'm controlling the focus of the
audience.
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They're not worried about those two other
bullet points, they're just worried about
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this one big pillar of data.
What does it mean?
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What kind of things lead to the data being
so high in this category?
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That kind of thing.
They're not worried about why the data was
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so low and the other points.
So you're controlling the message.
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You're controlling the story.
All by changing the focal point of the slide.
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This definitely puts you in the driver's
seat of your presentation.
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And it also allows you to reinforce
specific points that you want to get
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across to your audience members.
And it allows you to control the message
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in full, from what people read and what
they take away from your presentation.
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So, spend some time working on the focal
points.
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I'm going to discuss that throughout this
chapter, here, how to control focal points
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with both images, and text, and hopefully
by the end of it you'll have a better idea
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how you can sort of pull the puppet
strings on your own presentation.
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| Creating image focal points| 00:00 |
One of the easiest ways to control a focal
point and divert the audience's attention
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where you want it to go is to use an
image.
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And so in this movie, we're going to be
exploring how to use Image Focal Points in
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your presentation designs.
There are three basic ways to control
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Image Focal Points and presentation design
as I see it.
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There are lead-in lines, frames, and
placeholder slides.
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So let's take a look at all three, the
first of which is going to be a lead-in line.
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So this example here, the lines of the
fingers are actually pointing upwards to
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the text, and the butterfly is actually
just sort of like the exclamation point.
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Like hey, you should be looking here for
this particular slide.
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Doesn't necessarily matter what is being
said right there.
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My eyes automatically they just drift
right up there to that text.
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They follow the lines of the fingers and
they end up riught there on that text.
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So no matter what is being said there,
that's where I'm going to be paying attention.
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And so, these are just we call, lead-in
lines.
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It's sort of like in photography, you
want to draw your viewers' eye in with
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some sort of line, some sort of area that
they can follow easily to find the main
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focal point of the image.
And in this case, your slide is your image.
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Example number two is a frame, this is
where there is some sort of frame around
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the area that you want to showcase.
So in this case let's say that this is a
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preroll ad for a movie and it's trying to
tell people no talking or texting during
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the movie.
Well I've framed it inside of this cell
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phone, and so automatically when I look at
this I'm thinking, oh okay somebody's got
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a cell phone, let me read what's on their
screen.
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Because if you've ever seen someone with
their phone out and they've got it and
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it's, y'know, really bright and you're
looking, you're, you want to see what's on
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that screen.
The same principle applies here, and I'm
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just automatically drawn in to see exactly
what's happening on that screen.
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I read that text right off the bat.
None of the rest of this image matters, necessarily.
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I'm not distracted by the fingers.
I'm not distracted by the buttons on the phone.
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I'm just drawn in automatically to that
one single focal point In the image.
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And that's why we try to keep it very
simple as well.
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Notice there's nothing around the outside.
It's all white around the outside.
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We've just got that one bit of text and
we've got the frame around it and that's
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what draws our eyes in.
Alright, let's move on to the third
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example which is placeholder slots.
These are images that are specifically
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designed for this application wherein,
they're looking for you to put your mark
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on the image in some way, shape or form.
You would put whatever you want on this
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piece of paper.
Maybe it's a blank sign, maybe it's
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somebody holding up a business card.
Whatever the case may be, the image offers
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you some sort of placeholder area to put
your messaging on it.
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That way, the image itself is already set
up.
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Because the fingers aren't distracting.
You're looking right there in that big
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single piece right in the middle right
where it says look here.
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And that's exactly what you do
automatically, whether there's text there
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or not, you're going to look right there,
because you expect something to be on that
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placeholder area.
And so, that's why these images are so
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powerful, because they can direct the
focus of your slide, directly where you
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want the audiance to look.
Now that being said, there are a couple of
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rules that we need to follow when it comes
to focal images, and so focal images
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definitely need to provide a lead in for
the eye.
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There should be some way that it leads you
in, either by the lines, like we saw on
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the fingers or a frame, that we saw on the
cell phone.
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Or just by having a gigantic plackard or
something that people are sticking text
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on, that is the main focal point of the
image.
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It needs to be some sort of lead in some
sort of direction for you to focus on that
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one specific area of the image.
It needs to offer space for text because
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we're not just using images in our slides
we are using text that's how we get our
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messaging across.
So, the frame of the cell phone needs to
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be big enough for text.
The butterfly needs to be out of the way
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enough so that I could still put that text
over on the left-side.
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Then finally, that big placard thing, the
big business card-looking thing at the
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end, that had a gigantic space for text.
That's a perfect example of offering that
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space for the text.
They should also grab attention, but not
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distract away from the slide itself.
Remember we're trying to showcase
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information, get a point across here.
It's not just about pretty pictures.
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It's about actually delivering some form
of information.
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So we don't want to distract away from
that information; we want to complement
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that information.
But it also helps if the image is eye-catching.
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Most of those images I just showed you
were.
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The nice bright blue of the sky.
The big giant cell phone.
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The bright colors around the outside of
that little piece of cardboard that the
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hand was holding.
All of those things complement it and
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allow it to draw your attention right
where it needs to be.
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So, focal images, like I said, are
probably the easiest way to control where
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the audience looks in a photo.
You just have to find the right image.
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And if you really want to find the right
image, you should refer back to chapter 2.
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Where we talk about how to find images for
your presentation, and then I give you
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several examples of different online sites
you can visit to find just the right image
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for your presentation.
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| Creating text focal points| 00:00 |
In addition to using images we can also
control the audience's attention by using
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text focal points as well.
In this movie we'll explore text focal
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points and how you can use them in your
presentation designs.
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What you need to understand, though, is
that text is more difficult than images to
| | 00:14 |
control the audience's attention.
For instance, looking at this sentence
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right now, at first glance you might not
see that I'm trying to avert your
| | 00:21 |
attention to a specific area of the text.
Upon closer inspection though you might
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see that the word more is actually a
little bit more bold and italicized versus
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the rest of the text.
So therefore, after looking at it for a
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few moments my eyes are drawn into the
word 'more', but I just haven't done a
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good enough job of differentiating it from
the background and the text.
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So, what's the point to using these text
focal points?
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Well, let's say that we're working on this
slide here and we really want to emphasize
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one certain piece of the text that we're
looking at.
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In order to do that, we could do something
like this.
| | 00:51 |
Wherein we actually tell the audience
using this bolder font, that this is what
| | 00:55 |
I want you to look at, this is what I want
you to focus on, this is the main point of
| | 00:58 |
this sentence.
This is how we control the messaging and
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ultimately control the look and feel of
our presentation.
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Is by controlling these focal points and
one way of doing so is just like that.
| | 01:10 |
Now there are several different ways that
we can do that, the easiest one of course,
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is to use our accent color.
If you refer back to the earlier chapters
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where we talked about developing a color
palette for our presentation, I talked
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about accent colors, how they should be
the more bold choice of any of the colors
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in your palette.
And you should use those to call things
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out and put emphasis on things and text,
for instance.
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So, using accent colors is a great way to
automatically tell the audience, look
| | 01:33 |
right here and pay attention.
You should also be able to mix serif and
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sans-serif fonts together.
When I look at this sentence, I'm
| | 01:40 |
immediately drawn towards the word serif
because it is different than the rest.
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It's italicized.
It has the serifs.
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It's not like the rest of the fonts.
I'm instantly drawn there but at the same
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time I can still read this as a whole
statement so I don't have to worry about
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the readability of the text either.
You should also use bold when and if
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possible to drive the attention to a
specific area of text.
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Bold is pretty much part of any font that
you have these days.
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Some don't but most of them do.
And it's the easiest way to just say, Hey!
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This is exactly what I'm trying to get
across to you.
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So pay attention to this one piece.
So text focal points should provide a
| | 02:15 |
clear instruction on where to look on the
slide.
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They should also appear different than the
surrounding elements, like the serif font
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mixed with the sans-serif fonts.
And they should not disrupt the flow of reading.
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You wouldn't want something like Helvetica
mixed with Edwardian script, for instance.
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They should also have meaning behind them.
You're diverting the audience's attention
| | 02:34 |
to this one specific area for a reason.
Hopefully it's to get some sort of point
| | 02:38 |
across or to emphasize a point of data.
Whatever the case may be, have a meaning
| | 02:41 |
for drawing their eyes to that one
particular location.
| | 02:45 |
Now if you need help with fonts, and you
can't really figure out which ones to use,
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or you don't really have any resources on
where to find new fonts for your
| | 02:51 |
presentations, here are some areas that I
find online all the time to help me with
| | 02:54 |
finding the right font, especially when it
comes to Emphasis fonts.
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So I go number one to the lost type Co-Op.
It's at losttype.com, they have a wide
| | 03:04 |
variety of really, really great, well
constructed fonts that I use all the time
| | 03:08 |
in my presentations.
Number two is dafont, D-A-F-O-N-T,
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dafont.com, another great resource, all of
which are free.
| | 03:18 |
Urbanfonts is another free resource which
is really great, it's sort of on par with dafont.
| | 03:23 |
And then finally myfonts.com is where I go
to purchase all of my commercial fonts,
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just because it's the easiest one and it
also provides me with a web based font as
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well that I can use on my web pages as
well.
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So, these are the resources I go to, and I
hope that you check some of those out as
| | 03:37 |
well and I'm sure that they will help you
on your quest to find the right font for
| | 03:40 |
your presentation.
Now, what you do have to understand is
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that font focus can be tricky.
But at the end of the day, if done
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correctly, it can also be the most
effective way of diverting the audience's
| | 03:52 |
attention to a specific area on a slide.
You don't have to worry about images.
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You don't have to worry about purchasing
stock photos, or anything else.
| | 04:00 |
You're just controlling where they look by
changing color, or capitalization, or even
| | 04:04 |
just adding a bold effect, it's a very
effective way to do it, as long as you do
| | 04:08 |
it correctly.
| | 04:10 |
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8. Working with MotionHow much is too much?| 00:00 |
Alright, it's time (LAUGH) to talk about
motion in slides.
| | 00:04 |
Now, this means the animative properties
that you give to things like text and
| | 00:07 |
images, and all that kind of stuff as you
introduce them to your slides.
| | 00:12 |
And this is something that I find most
people sort of go overboard on, and so
| | 00:15 |
we're going to talk a little about how
much is too much?
| | 00:19 |
And unfortunately this is the syndrome
that a lot of people suffer from, is too
| | 00:22 |
much animation syndrome.
And so what we are going to talk about is
| | 00:27 |
why that's a bad thing.
So, here is the things to consider.
| | 00:30 |
When you use too much animation or too
much motion in your slides you're taking
| | 00:33 |
the focus away from the content.
People are focusing on, okay how is this
| | 00:37 |
thing going to drop in.
Is it going to spiral in, is it going to
| | 00:40 |
catch on fire?
What's going to happen with this bit of text?
| | 00:43 |
They're not focusing on actually what it's
saying.
| | 00:45 |
They don't care that you've used a great
visual.
| | 00:47 |
They care that it slid in at 2.5 seconds
and then exploded or something like that.
| | 00:52 |
You have to be considerate of that.
You also need to understand that you're
| | 00:55 |
not being innovative by using these
motions and transitions and things like that.
| | 01:00 |
You're actually just using prebuilt things
that everybody has access to in that piece
| | 01:04 |
of software.
So, in PowerPoint there's the same transitions.
| | 01:08 |
In Keynote there's the same effects, same
builds, same everything.
| | 01:12 |
So, you're just using the same thing that
everybody else has.
| | 01:14 |
Chances are everybody's seen it before.
They're not going to be impressed.
| | 01:17 |
And finally, I believe that it truly
cheapens the look of a presentation when
| | 01:21 |
you have all this different type of motion
happening on screen.
| | 01:25 |
You want a presentation to be well thought
out, well rehearsed and well delivered.
| | 01:30 |
You don't want it to look like some kid
just threw it together five minutes before
| | 01:33 |
a paper was due and then showed it to the
class.
| | 01:36 |
You want this thing to be really sharp.
Alright.
| | 01:39 |
So, let's take a look at an example of why
too much motion is a bad thing.
| | 01:45 |
Alright, so we are going to go into a dark
template now and just watch what happens
| | 01:48 |
here as I bring in the title and just
realize that I don't need to do that.
| | 01:53 |
I don't need an (INAUDIBLE) dropping on me
to understand what the title is.
| | 01:58 |
I don't need to see each word is being
typed because I can, I can read love to
| | 02:00 |
write with no problem.
And a, yeah, flames they really went out
| | 02:05 |
of style in 1995 with GeoCities and all
those web apps that were around.
| | 02:12 |
Again, sparkles okay lens flare perhaps
we're a popular movie director that over
| | 02:17 |
uses those.
And then finally yeah, that's enough.
| | 02:22 |
Oh look, a puppy.
And so, you see there?
| | 02:24 |
Did you really understand any of the words
that I brought in as I was showing you this?
| | 02:28 |
No, you didn't.
You weren't focused on the words themselves.
| | 02:31 |
You weren't focused on the content or the
picture that I showed you.
| | 02:34 |
You were worried about where was the next
thing coming from?
| | 02:36 |
How is it going to be dropping in?
It really distracted you from the overall
| | 02:39 |
message that I was trying to convey.
And so, what we want to do is eliminate that.
| | 02:45 |
We want to make sure that it's easy for
the audience to understand you.
| | 02:48 |
We want them to easily take away whatever
bullet points you want them to take away
| | 02:51 |
from your presentation.
We don't want them to be preoccupied with
| | 02:55 |
things moving around on screen.
As a general rule, the population today
| | 02:59 |
has a very limited attention span.
And so, all these things popping in and
| | 03:03 |
out at them is really going to cause them
to not exactly pay attention to where you
| | 03:08 |
want them to pay attention.
So, when it comes to animation just
| | 03:14 |
remember this one simple phrase, less is
more.
| | 03:19 |
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| Effectively using animations| 00:00 |
Alright.
We spent a lot of time talking about
| | 00:02 |
ineffective motion and ways that you
shouldn't use transitions and animations.
| | 00:06 |
Now, let's talk about how we can
effectively use motion and animation in
| | 00:09 |
our presentations.
Here are some things that I believe motion
| | 00:12 |
should do in a presentation.
It should determine the order of
| | 00:15 |
information, first and foremost.
As you see here on this slide, each and
| | 00:18 |
every time I advance the slide, it's
actually bringing up a different point
| | 00:21 |
that you need to pay attention to.
That's exactly what motion is designed to do.
| | 00:26 |
It should bring order to the information,
and it should distinguish one point from another.
| | 00:30 |
It should also complement the look and
feel of a slide.
| | 00:34 |
This slide, although sort of plain and
basic, is very business oriented.
| | 00:38 |
Therefore, the motion should be just as so
as well.
| | 00:41 |
The motion is subtle, slow and easily
distinguishable.
| | 00:45 |
Motion should not distract the audience in
any way.
| | 00:48 |
They should be focused on the information
you're presenting and not where the next
| | 00:51 |
bullet point is coming from.
They should also not confuse the audience.
| | 00:56 |
You want to make sure the audience can
read and understand everything that
| | 00:58 |
they're seeing on your screen.
And it should not cause dizziness or any
| | 01:01 |
other (LAUGH) symptoms.
I know a lot of people go over the top
| | 01:04 |
with spinning things, and things that
whirl around the screen.
| | 01:07 |
And that's really not something you want
in your presentation.
| | 01:11 |
Alright.
So, let's talk about effective ways to
| | 01:13 |
bring things onto a slide.
You've seen me do it throughout this
| | 01:17 |
presentation already these slow dissolves
that you've seen so far.
| | 01:20 |
But there are also three basic ways that I
do things for intro moves as I call them.
| | 01:25 |
Ways to bring things on screen.
You have first and foremost.
| | 01:28 |
The Appear property, where something just
pops up onscreen.
| | 01:31 |
This is the most basic form.
It just sort of pops in.
| | 01:33 |
There's no transition.
It's just boom, it's there.
| | 01:36 |
You also have a Dissolve, something that
just sort of generally fades.
| | 01:38 |
And then finally, a subtle Move, is
perfectly fine.
| | 01:43 |
Having something suddenly move in onscreen
is absolutely fine and just make sure that
| | 01:47 |
it is easily seen.
It's slow enough so the audience knows
| | 01:51 |
what's happening.
And when it gets to wherever it's going,
| | 01:54 |
it stops.
Now you also have different callouts that
| | 01:57 |
you can use as well.
The callouts are ways to change emphasis
| | 02:00 |
on a slide.
So, for instance, you could scale
| | 02:03 |
something up.
You could change the opacity of other objects.
| | 02:07 |
Or you can do a combination of the two,
where you scale and move something across
| | 02:10 |
the screen.
So, these are three ways that you can
| | 02:14 |
change the emphasis of something onscreen
or control the focus of something onscreen
| | 02:17 |
as well.
Let's talk about motions rules here for a second.
| | 02:22 |
Every one of the motions that you have on
your slide should mean something.
| | 02:27 |
So, something comes into the frame,
something exits the frame, that's its
| | 02:30 |
beginning and its end.
Something is being pointed to, that means
| | 02:33 |
you're talking about it.
Something fades off the screen, that means
| | 02:37 |
you're no longer talking about it.
Make them mean something, don't just make
| | 02:40 |
them arbitrary.
You should also keep the duration of the
| | 02:43 |
transition down.
So, if you're fading something in, try to
| | 02:47 |
keep that between half a second and one
second in duration.
| | 02:50 |
Don't draw it out really long and make it
boring.
| | 02:52 |
You should also limit the color slash
appearance changes that you have in your
| | 02:56 |
slide and on the object on your slide
because this can confuse people as to what
| | 02:59 |
they're looking at.
You don't want an arrow changing from red
| | 03:04 |
to green or from blue to yellow.
Or something like that.
| | 03:07 |
Just keep it limited in the way you change
the color and appearance of objects.
| | 03:11 |
And also, avoid complicated animations
when all possible.
| | 03:15 |
You don't want something to slide in and
then jump off to the right and then change
| | 03:19 |
opacity and rotate around.
All that kind of stuff just causes
| | 03:24 |
confusion for your audience.
You want to make it just plain, simple,
| | 03:28 |
easy to understand.
This is why I'm doing this, this is where
| | 03:32 |
it's going, what it represents.
Again, it goes back to that making it mean
| | 03:36 |
something principle.
At the end of the day, useful motion is
| | 03:40 |
completely subjective.
You may think that for whatever reason you
| | 03:44 |
need to rotate something 500 degrees, and
you need to have it spin across the canvas
| | 03:47 |
or whatever.
And that's perfectly fine if that's what
| | 03:51 |
you think you need to do.
If it's a presentation that needs that
| | 03:54 |
type of animation, that's fine.
Useful motion is like I said subjective.
| | 03:59 |
These are just my general rules of thumb
when I'm creating business oriented
| | 04:03 |
presentations that need to look their best
in front of a given audience.
| | 04:07 |
But you also need to understand that
you're designing for your audience and
| | 04:11 |
designing for your data.
The motions and animations and transitions
| | 04:16 |
you use should flow with your data and
with your presentation, and should be
| | 04:20 |
appropriate for your audience.
If you are doing a presentation for kids,
| | 04:25 |
flames and sparkles and things like that
perfectly fine.
| | 04:29 |
If you are delivering the quarterly sales
data, probably not the best idea to show
| | 04:32 |
that data going up in flames, if you know
what I mean.
| | 04:37 |
What it comes down to is for you to use
your best judgement when it comes to animation.
| | 04:42 |
I've given you some guidelines here but
these are by no means set in stone.
| | 04:45 |
So, use your best judgement.
Develop your own style, and your own rules
| | 04:49 |
of animation and use those in your
presentations.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Effectively using slide transitions| 00:00 |
Alright, so we've talked about transitions
between objects using animation and motion
| | 00:03 |
on your slides.
Now let's talk about actually how to go
| | 00:06 |
from one slide to another using slide
transitions.
| | 00:09 |
When we talk about slide transitions, here
are some things that I believe transitions
| | 00:12 |
should do.
They should denote a clear beginning and
| | 00:15 |
end point of a certain slide.
They should also provide a visual break
| | 00:18 |
for the user between segments of
information.
| | 00:21 |
And they should complement the look and
feel of a slide completely.
| | 00:25 |
Transitions should not disrupt the order
of information, cause audience confusion
| | 00:30 |
or look like a strobe light.
So here are some good examples of slide transitions.
| | 00:38 |
First would be a simple dissolve, which
looks just like this.
| | 00:41 |
Second would be a color fade, where it
just fades in to one color and fades right
| | 00:45 |
back to the slide.
So, in this case, it'll fade to black, and
| | 00:48 |
then fade back in.
You also have something known as a reveal,
| | 00:53 |
where it just simply pushes one out and
brings in the other one.
| | 00:57 |
Then you have subtle 3D effects, where it
will just sort of go away, like so.
| | 01:03 |
Now let's take a look at some of the bad
examples.
| | 01:07 |
First up, a mosaic.
Yeah, you've all seen it before, not the
| | 01:12 |
best transition.
Sparkles.
| | 01:16 |
Again, not exactly what we're looking for.
One of my personal favorites that's really
| | 01:21 |
overused, the barn door.
Then we also have a page curl, and then
| | 01:27 |
finally a twist.
Now why are all those bad?
| | 01:32 |
Well, they're not necessarily all bad;
they just don't fit a lot of the
| | 01:35 |
presentation styles that many people have.
And also, they're distracting; they take a
| | 01:41 |
long time.
And they're just generally not
| | 01:43 |
professional looking.
So here are some rules that we need to
| | 01:46 |
follow for transitions.
We need to make them mean something, we
| | 01:49 |
need to keep the duration down, we also
need to limit the color and appearance
| | 01:53 |
changes that happen on them.
As you can see these are the same rules
| | 01:57 |
that I have for my motion principles in my
previous movie.
| | 02:00 |
And also, you should avoid complicated
animations, like barn doors, and twists,
| | 02:04 |
and curls, and things like that, at all
costs.
| | 02:07 |
Remember, when it comes to slide
transitions, it's okay to have some, it's
| | 02:10 |
not a big deal.
But you can also get by with having none.
| | 02:14 |
It's like chocolate.
It's okay to have some, but you can also
| | 02:16 |
get by with having none.
Really and truly, it comes down to using
| | 02:20 |
your best judgement and finding what works
for you and what's best for your
| | 02:23 |
presentation and your audience.
| | 02:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 |
Well, that about wraps up our course on
designing presentations.
| | 00:03 |
I hope this course has given you a little
insight into my personal workflow and
| | 00:06 |
thought process when designing a
presentation.
| | 00:09 |
And I hope it gave you some good ideas on
how to optimize your workflow as well.
| | 00:12 |
Remember, there is no right or wrong way
to design something.
| | 00:15 |
There's only what works for you and what
makes for an eye catching and functional
| | 00:18 |
finished product.
Before I let you go, here are some other
| | 00:22 |
great courses in the Lynda.com online
training library that might benefit.
| | 00:25 |
You are in your quest for building a
better presentation.
| | 00:27 |
First up, if you're a Windows user, you
might want to check out PowerPoint 2013
| | 00:30 |
Essential Training with Jess Stratton.
This is a great introduction to PowerPoint
| | 00:34 |
and it's going to give you all of the nuts
and bolts that you need to get up and
| | 00:36 |
running fast with this new app.
If you're on the Mac, you might want to
| | 00:41 |
check out PowerPoint for Mac Essential
Training by David Rivers.
| | 00:44 |
This is a great overview of the PowerPoint
application for Mac, and gives you a great
| | 00:47 |
idea on how to develop presentations using
the application.
| | 00:51 |
Another great Macintosh app is Keynote, of
course.
| | 00:53 |
We used it several times throughout this
course, so you might want to check out
| | 00:56 |
Keynote '09 Essential Training with Craig
Syverson.
| | 00:59 |
And this is another great course that
covers soup to nuts, all you need to know
| | 01:01 |
about working inside that app.
If you're trying to branch out and try new
| | 01:05 |
things in your presentations, you might
want to check out Up and Running with
| | 01:08 |
Prezi with Lisa Larson-Kelley.
It's one of the up and coming presentation
| | 01:12 |
software packages on the web today.
So, you might want to check that out.
| | 01:16 |
And, if you're looking for some
inspiration for your presentations, I
| | 01:19 |
definitely recommend checking out Duarte
Design, Presentation Design Studio with
| | 01:22 |
Nancy Duarte.
It's a really cool short documentary-like
| | 01:26 |
course that takes you through the power of
presentations.
| | 01:30 |
How to tell a story, slideology, which is
one of the phrases that she coined in her
| | 01:34 |
developmental process of presentations.
It's a really, really cool course, I
| | 01:39 |
highly recommend it.
You might also want to check out creating
| | 01:42 |
info graphics with illustrator by Mordy
Golding.
| | 01:44 |
This is a great way to showcase data by
using info graphics and by using info
| | 01:48 |
graphics in presentations can be a very
powerful resource.
| | 01:53 |
Finally, you may also want to check out
delivering key note presentation with
| | 01:56 |
Richard Harrington.
Its a great overview on how to have a key
| | 01:59 |
not deck that is really good and also how
to deliver it effectively to your audience.
| | 02:05 |
Alright, I know that we've covered a lot
of things and your brain is probably
| | 02:08 |
swelled with all this information you're
trying to digest.
| | 02:12 |
So, I want to thank you very much for
joining me in this course, I hope to see
| | 02:14 |
you again real soon.
Again, my name is Justin Seeley, thanks
| | 02:18 |
for checking out this course.
| | 02:19 |
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