The making of a presentation (part 5)
Challenging words
One of the challenges of making a slide-presentation that has to work on its own, is to find the right balance between text and imagery.
The complete slide-deck in all its «glory»
As I've mentioned on several occasions, I believe slide-presentations should be predominantly visual and compliment the information given orally. When making this presentation however, speech was not an option. Needless to say, text would have to do some of the job. This was probably the hardest part for me. If I were to give the presentation live I would have lots to say. I would talk about how inspiration might elude you when you desperately need it. How that great idea might appear just as you were about to fall asleep. I would also augment the key-slides with additional information e.g. Read: Novels, newspapers, magazines, blogs, cereal packages - anything.
Now,
I could just have delivered all this information
in text-form, but it would dull down the
presentation. I figured the best way to solve it
was to make the viewers fill in most of the
blanks themselves. I'd only use a few
key-sentences highlighting the message of how it
is impossible to force creativity. I repeated
the key sentence 'you cannot force creativity'
to make sure it registered with the viewer. I am
still not 100% sure I pulled off the balance
between simplicity and information but hopefully
I wasn't too far off.
Finishing touches
And that was it. I read through the whole thing a couple of times, made some small changes to the font-sizes etc. but as there was no way to make advanced transitions and the timing was up to the viewer, there was little else I could do. As presentations go I think it works out reasonably well. It does not overload the viewer with information and [hopefully] the key-message should be easily grasped. I am also quite pleased with the fact that I manage to keep it as short as I did. As this is the final part of this informal 'making of' I would just like to say that I hope you found some part of it interesting. If nothing else it should serve as a glimpse into one person’s creative process.
The making of a presentation (part 4)
Graphical refinements
As I had already went through several version of the presentation in my mind things were starting to click. A short doodling session gave birth to a whimsical looking character I decided to use instead of the generic 'loose appendixes' one.
Some of the different stages on the way to a finished slide
Quick drafts of the different slides came about within minutes and could begin to consider the finer points. One of these finer points was to refine the earlier idea of somehow separating the two main-segments. I decided to make the 'feed'-slides with a strong line and strong colours as they referred to the more active side of my inspiration-recipe. In contrast, the 'rest'-slides should have a calmer, softer more organic look. Water colours seemed to fit the bill and even the fonts were either painted or traced by hand to make them more humane in appearance.
Know
your audience is another mantra that it is wise
to adhere to. Unfortunately I had no way of
finding the key-demographics among
slideshare-users. I did however know a little
about the judges of the competition. I even
recalled reading Guy Kawasaki praising the 'art
of sucking up'. I decided to give it a shot. As
all the judges are also authors, I decided to
include imagery of these in the 'Read'-slide.
The judges should recognize their own work, but
it should not distract from the presentation as
a whole. Certainly too good an opportunity to be
missed. As I finished my illustrations I scanned
them into my Mac and combined them with the text
in Photoshop where I also performed some
additional touch-up. The hard (but fun) part was
over...
The making of a presentation (part 3)
Going graphic
While the text-problem needed fixing I was also working on the graphic elements. My initial idea was to use a character where the head and hands floated freely in the air.
Original doodles in the background, first serious draft in the front
The head would be as generic as possible to avoid provoking anyone. (Similar to what I used in my Electing #44 video). Unfortunately, just like with my initial text-experiments I found the design didn't work particularly well. It just seemed too bland and didn't deliver anything the viewer would be bothered to spend time on. Needless to say it wound up in the giant archive beneath my desk.
These
early problems got me to rethink the whole
presentation. While I was stilled convinced the
basic idea was sound it clearly needed some
fine-tuning to reach its full potential. My
first step was to cut down on the number of
slides, particularly for the "feed"-segment. I
decided to use the five strongest words and
leave it at that. I'm a huge follower of the
short-is-sweet-school (although reading this
blog you might find that hard to believe).
Keeping it short would also increase my chances
of getting people to read through the whole
deck. To further streamline my presentation for
the purpose of the competition, I decided to
combine the large words and artwork in the same
slide. (If this was to be a live presentation I
probably wouldn't have done this). Next step:
Designing the slides.
The making of a presentation (part 2)
Finding a form
OK, so now I had a plan for my presentation. Not only that, but I already had a fairly clear idea about the look of the piece. As this would be designed exclusively for the Slideshare-contest it had to work without sound an the text would have to be legible even in a small embedded flash-player. The idea was to use huge type in a one-word-per-slide layout emphasizing the do's and do's. I planned to display each word followed by a similar slide where an illustration was composited on top of the former slide.
As
the two big-word parts of the presentation were
to deal with different tasks I figured I'd
better find some clever means to separate them
visually as well. For the "feed your brain"-part
I decided to go for an 'active' colour like
green, while I reserved a nice pale blue for the
more passive "rest your brain"-segment. I
immediately fired up Photoshop and after
experimenting I decided on the font
Hattenschweiler.
To
make the text a little less boring I gave them a
slight gradient. I still wasn't 100% satisfied
with the look, but finished the first iteration
of these slides to see how it played. Oh, what a
snooze-fest. While there was nothing wrong per
se with the slides I found it impossible to
concentrate while watching through them. If I
couldn't entertain myself, how could I expect to
keep the anyone else's attention!? Back to the
drawing board then...
The making of a presentation (part 1)
Finding creativity
For those of you who have yet to see the ‘Cultivating Creativity’ presentation, just scroll down to my last post. As a huge part of my blog-posts have been about Slideware Presentations I figured I had to participate. And if I was to participate, I wanted to do it right, meaning: adhering to my own ideas and philosophies about what makes a great presentation. As an oral presentation wouldn’t be possible I would have to use more text than I would normally do, but it had to be strong visually. First thing’s first though and the first challenge was to decide upon a topic for the presentation.
The very first physical piece of the presentation-puzzle
Some of the topics I considered were myself, Norway (my country), Visual Storytelling (surprise) and anything else that popped into my mind. In the end though I decided to go for a shallow but entertaining meta-presentation. (A presentation about itself.)
So
with this in mind I began doodling and
brainstorming on paper. While doing so however I
felt that the topic was perhaps too shallow.
While I felt fairly comfortable that I could
make a presentation interesting to watch, it
might be a hard sell to actually get anyone to
watch it in the first place. Yet, I didn’t have
any better idea, so I pushed on. When it
suddenly hit me: My search for creativity was
the answer. How often hadn’t I found myself in
search for the creative spark? How often hadn’t
I experienced the creative part of my brain
firing on all cylinders when laying in bed
waiting for Mr. Sandman to arrive? And even
better: I knew how to treat my brain to spark
the creative process in the first
place!
World's Best Presentation Contest
-Cultivating Creativity
No reason to elaborate I guess. I have entered the following presentation in Slideshare’s World’s Best Presentation Contest. Looking at the competition it’s unlikely it’ll win any prices, but I had some fun creating this and succeeded fairly well in what I set forth to do.
I’m planning to run a series of posts about the creative process behind the presentation. Anyone interested in learning how I attack the creative process should look in over the next few weeks. Cheers!
Edit: as the version on slideshare is lagging quite heavily I’ve included my own Flash-file here.
Edit2: After a less than perfect experience it now seems everything is in order over at the Slideshare-site, so I’ve put that version back up...
Stuff of interest
Quick links to interesting stuff found the last few days
Thought I’d just share a couple of finds from the web that some of you might find interesting. First out is Slideshare’s: World’s Best Presentation Contest. It should be interesting to anyone looking for inspiration on how to improve their presentation slides.
The other link I'd like to share is from Karen J. Lloyd's always interesting Storyboard Blog. Obviously geared towards making great storyboards her latest post deals with the fact that Animation Storyboards should «act out» any dialogue so that the animators have a picture of what the characters are saying even without the actual dialogue. If you’re not sure what I’m on about you only need to watch La Linea (again?).
JFK vs PP III
Good Things Come In Threes
Despite the fact that part 2 of my JFK vs. PowerPoint project was something of a flop compared to the original I've decided to finish the trilogy. (New readers should probably look through part 1 and part 2 before the read on). This time I have not limited myself to the use of Slide Ware (PowerPoint/Keynote). I've made a dynamic presentation based on the same audio-clip as I've used in the previous examples.
Seductive Visuals
Hopefully you'll find that this version commands attention and is actually quite interesting to watch. And I really hope it serves to demonstrate a point. That point being that despite this latest iteration probably being the most visually pleasing, it is no more effective in presenting the message than the original 'boring PowerPoint'.
While the two version differs a lot in quality and dynamics they have at least one problem in common: When you force the audience to read they cannot give their full attention to the spoken word. This means that no matter how beautiful the text is displayed on your PowerPoint-slides they will harm your presentation if delivered at the same time as you speak. If you look at the second example however you'll find that the imagery is designed to augment the speech. The images should work either to make the message clearer or to strengthen your audience's emotional connection to the material.
The first rule towards better PowerPoint presentations is in my mind so simple it's almost ridiculous. Text = Bad. Imagery = Good.
As always there is also a higher quality QT version available.
The Empire Strikes Back
-Seduced By The Dark Side Of The Force
In hindsight I’ve become increasingly aware of some shortcomings in my last post about technical presentations:
Returning to the master slide after each and every detail seems redundant in my presentation example. The Star Destroyer Blueprint is easily recognizable even in its miniature form and the viewers should have few problems recognizing the different parts based on the highlighting of the miniature model.
Return of The Jedi
Keep in mind that more complex blueprints could demand going into more detail. If this is the case the technique is an easy way to assure your audience is focusing where you want them to. When you’ve performed the return-to-master-trick a few times the audience should have familiarized themselves enough with the layout so that you can skip this interim step.
If nothing else I hope my slip-up has served as a reminder to the fact that no two presentations should be treated the same. Every case must be true to itself and follow its own dynamics.
PowerPoint Jedi
-Improving Technical Presentations
Strong visuals, less text, no bullet points and a clear story-like structure are some of the steps on the journey to become a PowerPoint Jedi. I recently watched a Q&A session with Garr Reynolds where he was asked how best to give a technical presentation. His answer was something like "Give the audience a copy of the printout". (Due to the low image resolution of PP-slides). I agree that this is a good idea but don't think it should be the final word.
Heart of Darkness
It is not uncommon that a detailed technical printout is at the heart of the presentation. Normally this would mean an audience familiar with most of the technical terms. If you're giving a presentation of this nature it still needs to be as effective as possible. It is important that you lead the audience so that you all focus on the same details at the same time. This is where the Rebel Alliance can help!
Attacking the Death Star
When attacking the Death Star, rebel leaders had to communicate the technical details to a crowd of pilots. They could have just handed out printouts of the thing and given a standard PowerPoint presentation. Luckily they didn't. If they did, the emperor would already have won. Instead they split the information into smaller chunks, focusing on one piece of the puzzle at the time. I suggest you do the same.
Death[star] By PowerPoint
Use the Force
By all means, let the audience have a printout of
the technical information and begin the
presentation-segment with the same image. Then you
can start focusing on the details. I reckon you don't
have an R2-unit to help you, but you might
should have some sort of image-processing program and
a high-resolution scan of the information you want to
share. Create separate images from parts of the
high-resolution image, detailing different parts. It
is easier to show and tell, than just tell, so I've
tried to give an example below.
A quick and dirty Keynote example
I've borrowed the blueprints from
The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels (Star
Wars)
Update: When exporting to flash a lot of the transitions etc. was lost on the way. I have therefore included a Quicktime-version where everything should look as planned. Macusers can also download the original Keynote-file, if they're interested(?)
The 10th Anniversary Of The iMac
Sweet As Candy And The Birth Of i...
That's
right. 10 years ago Apple released the first
iMac. It was in its time a revolutionary product
on many levels and can in many ways be
considered the first big step in the
resurrection of Apple.
The most obvious differentiation from its peers was the way that it looked. The all-in-one-enclosure was a friendly looking egg-shaped machine in a blueish hue. The material had reportedly been created in cooperation with a candy-factory and I think it is safe to call the machine a genuine design-classic. It was by and large the first computer made where the manufacturer really considered the esthetics to be as important as the technical specifications. As Steve Jobs (Apple's CO) said: "...the back of this thing looks better than the front of the other guys'...".
It also gave birth to a new naming convention, starting the name with a lower-case "i". Today, using a lowercase first letter is fairly common, but back in its day it was another thing that told the audience that the iMac was something special.
Apple is today one of the strongest, most popular companies in technology. This is of course largely down to the fact that they release high quality products. But, it is also because Apple honors the fact that the "story" matters...
First iMpressions (ooh, that's clever)
As I've been mentioning going on and on
about in my last posts, the first impression is
incredibly important. Apple's focus seems to be on
delivering the best possible user experience and they
obviously understand the importance of a good first
impression.
That's why they spend money on stuff like packaging. Where most PC-manufacturers will send out their machines in a brown cardboard-box, Apple will pack their machines in specially designed cartons with 4-color printing and often creatively designed styrofoam designed to make the unpacking easy but also to create an experience in its own right.
Ad for the original iMac
Telling A Story
Some will shrug at this and say that it doesn't matter. Well, it doesn't matter if your product doesn't live up to the experience, but it certainly puts the receiver in a mood where he or she is ready to be further impressed by the hardware. When people spend hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars they want to feel well catered for. The same feeling of quality and attention to detail seeps through from Apple's advertising all the way to the finished product. It tells a story. The story of a company that cares about their products, not just about cutting costs to improve the bottom line.
Above you'll find a video from the release of the birthday-kid. It's also a nice example of how to give an effective presentation.
Presenting Presentation
Repeating myself
This post is a straight follow up to my last one.
After writing
Setting the Mood the subject has lingered with
me. Looking through my bookshelf I couldn't help but
being struck by the difference in presentation from
one book to another. I was particularly taken by the
difference between Cliff Atkinson's
Beyond Bullet Points
Both books tackle PowerPoint/slideware
Presentations and set forth to make the reader a
better, more efficient presenter. I've
praised Presentation Zen earlier, so I
won't go any further than saying
buy it
Judging two books by their covers
Where the book really fails however is in its presentation. This is bad for any book but could be disastrous for a book about presentations. How many people have seen that cover and decided that whoever's behind it clearly don't know anything about presentations. The book has done very well, despite this shortcoming though. (Mostly due to strong word-of-mouth I believe).
Imagine coming into the bookstore looking for a book on presentations. Just look at those two covers, which book would you choose? I don't think they even compete in the same division...
Setting the mood
How your story might start sooner than you think
May the 22nd Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull opens in theaters worldwide. Probably the most eagerly awaited film of the year thanks to the huge following of the franchise and the time passed since the last one was released. I am part of the fold and have huge expectations for the next Indy-installment. I have a fairly clear idea about what I am going to get. Any fear of Lucas and Spielberg messing with the formula has been removed by the marketing material. As soon as the first teaser-poster was released I was convinced this film will deliver. "The Man With the Hat" is really back.
The poster was, of course, created by one of my heroes, Drew Struzan. He has become the semi-official Indy-illustrator and his work immediately puts you in the right frame of mind: This is Indiana Jones done the way it has always been done. This is Indiana Jones done right!
Only 3 more weeks left to wait!
A Lesson To Be Learned
I am not suggesting that you hire Mr. Struzan for all your projects (but if you have the means, feel free). It is however important to acknowledge that the presentation of your "story" starts earlier than you might think. If your "story" is a PowerPoint Presentation then what do you put up on the screen before you start the show? A blank slide? A Windows desktop? The latter will hardly put anyone in a mindset ready to be inspired. Is your story a DVD you've made or a book? Then what does the cover look like? Does it look good? Or more importantly, does it look right? If you've written your doctorate thesis on the use of nano-technology in cancer-treatment please tell me you didn't use the dreadful comic sans-font!
Of course the quality of your work might
win your audience over, but why make it more
challenging to begin with? Always think about your
audience's first impression of your work. As the
saying goes: "You only get one chance to make a
good first impression". I'll leave you with this
YouTube Classic. Robert
Ryang made an "alternative" trailer for
Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining".
JFK vs PP II
Time for a sequel
Some
of you might remember my post
Killer Looks where I sought to illustrate how
bad visuals, or more specifically bad Power Point,
can destroy even the greatest of speeches. My
example seemed to work quite well and I received a
fair amount of positive feedback. As the post was
also one of the most popular posts I've made, a
sequel was inevitable. The thing that irked me
about the original was that while it demonstrated
the point I was trying to make it was also rather
contrived. The Power Point Presentation was
designed to be bad and while I've
experienced similar examples in real life it did
tickle the "do-better"-itch.
The original "Boring Powerpoint" clip
The where- and whats
What if I tried to make a proper presentation to
go with the same speech? Would it still detract
from JFK's dynamic delivery? To make the experiment
more comparable to presentations in the wild I
decided not to pull out the big motion-graphics
guns. Everything was created in Apple's Keynote
which is part of the excellent
iWork
The Result
I find it hard to distance myself from my own work and the legendary status of President Kennedy's Inaugural Speech makes it even harder. I am confident that it works okay but Kennedy's charisma is so strong it will always be dificult to improve upon. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this presentation detracts or ads to the speech...
Not So Common Craft
This
is what I love about the web. On one of my
many random search safaris through the maze
that makes up what we all know as the
internet, I came across the site
ICT Inspirations. This is in itself an
interesting blog (and I've bookmarked it), but
what was really great was how the blog revealed
to me the brilliance of The Common
Craft Show, something I had never heard
about before.
The Common Craft Show is made by Lee and Sachi LeFever and consists of small videos explaining complex ideas in a straightforward manner. They refer to themselves as interpreters which seems fairly accurate. Their simply brilliant (or brilliantly simple) style consists of well prepared cutouts, an equally well prepared voice over all put together by manipulating the cutouts physically in front of the camera and some really tight editing. The final product almost seems like a high-tech animated scrapbook and the effect is quite mesmerizing. Have a look at the below clip and see for yourself:
Common Craft's take on Google Docs
The first time I watched one of the clips I was hit by a hard spell of why-didn't-I-think-of-this-ulosis.
This is truly a brilliant example of visual storytelling if I ever saw one.
Democratization of media, part deux
After finishing the "Uncle George and I"-piece I came across this somewhat related blog-post over at Agile Filmmaking. It's a speech by J. J. Abrams of Lost, Alias and Mission: Impossible III fame and it touches so many of the topics I've blogged about so far that I would be crazy not to present it here.
Mr. Abrams is something of a Hollywood wunderkind and I find it incredibly generous of him to share his thoughts with the world for free.
The message
The majority of the speech, or at least the most interesting part in my mind, is about how his grandfather helped him get the tools necessary to fulfill his creative ambitions. He goes on and points to the fact that today pro-tools are readily available for just about anyone. "Go make your movie, there's nothing stopping you!" he says. A statement that might seem oversimplified but for the most part it rings true as long as you are willing to put some effort into it.*One of several highly
interesting speeches to be found at TED
The delivery
I've never seen a public appearance by Abrams. I knew about him from his film- and television-work but knew little about what to expect. Being a truly talented visual storyteller I expected him to make a presentation with a lot of visual flare. He didn't. For the most part he simply presented his message by sharing personal experiences with the audience. He used a few physical props but only used the gigantic screen behind him for a few film-clips. When running the clips he simply stepped back and let them work their charms without interuptions.I found this very interesting and highly effective. The visuals and his oral presentation never had to compete for the audience's attention. Now this is certainly not the only way to do a presentation and on the surface it might even sound boring. If you watch the clip you'll find that it is anything but though. Abrams heartfelt enthusiasm carries through even on a small flash-clip on my computer-screen.
None of this is exactly rocket-science as any communication-expert worth his money will tell you that enthusiasm is contagious. It does show though that with the right delivery you don't need fancy visuals. This might seem an odd statement to make on a blog about visual storytelling but the visuals should always be there to strengthen the core-message not because they look "cool".
*As long as you're not struck with poverty.
"Presentation Zen"
Really it's as simple as that. If you ever do slideshow presentations (Powerpoint, Keynote etc.) this book will help you communicate your message in the most effective manner. It doesn't matter if you're a pro or amateur this is the book that will help you fulfill your potential as a presenter.
The look of required reading
Now personally I never have to do presentations. I am however quite interested in them as I am nearly in all visual forms of communication. Unfortunately I am occasionally subjected to presentations and find that they differ from the rare good to the all-too-common terrible. A few are even help-get-me-out-of-here-my-brain-is-melting horrible but I've yet to witness (live) a single presentation that deserves the great-stamp. OK, I'm probably quite stingy when it comes to my great-stamps, but needless to say the Powerpoint-presentation-genre is in dire need of improvement.
Based on Garr
Reynolds blog of the same name,
Presentation Zen
If you run a business where a lot of the communication is carried out through powerpoint you should buy a copy for each and everyone of your employees. I wouldn't be surprised if this modest investment would actually improve your productivity.
So, this is it. After all the false prophets among books on presentations this is the Jesus-book. It will save us all, make you a better person and make the world a better place for all of us. (OK, maybe not, but it will make you a better presenter and give the audience a better experience).
Killer looks
One of the ideas I was experimenting with in my recent superman-film was the attempt of making the visuals entertaining enough to overcome the world's least passionate voice-over. Based on the feedback I received it seems I had a certain degree of success. I'm sure you'll also agree that well delivered speeches can work brilliantly on their own. I therefore started to ponder the thought: "can a brilliant speech be ruined by poor visuals?"
Powerpoint-presentations are today's most used form of oral-visual presentations. It is also the most loathed one. The last few years have spurred a lot of articles about how Powerpoint is often used in a way that actually lessens the impact of a message, so the answer to my question should be fairly obvious. But how far can you push it? I chose a few seconds from President Kennedy's inaugural address as this is one of the most inspirational speeches made in the last century. Below you can see how it comes across when I've "complimented" the speech with slides from a standard Powerpoint-template.
Edit: I've replaced the original quicktime-file with the YouTube clip
To me the effect is almost unbelievable. I find the 40 seconds or so to be mind shattering dull. Now here's the trick: Try playing the clip again, but with your eyes closed. It's better isn't it? So, if poor visuals can lessen the power of JFK in his prime, then just think what they could do to your average presenter. Does this mean you should just skip the visuals the next time you're making a presentation. Not necessarily. The right visuals can improve the audience's experience and their emotional connection with the material. However, if you're not willing to invest the time and resources to get the visuals right, you're probably better off leaving Powerpoint at home...