Portfolio

77. Always a challenge to convince clients. I seem to be repeating myself quite a bit these days. My unending challenge is to convince clients that images are more powerful than words. And printed text that the presentation viewer has to actually read. Of course, if it’s a slidedoc we’re talking about, a bit of text is totally acceptable, as long as it is not overwhelming.

Twitter’s success = few words.

Instagram’s success = big images.

Facebook’s success = both of the above.

Youtube = video.

For an event in front of an audience, stick to the highway billboard style and put all of your text in the “notes view” section of your PowerPoint file. You can still make all available to your audience, after the fact, by emailing them a PDF in notes view, with your pertinent images and short text, and all the extra details in the notes.

From this:

To this:

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And still, there is hesitation in taking a leap.

76. Tom Peters was never a client: Unfortunately. After having read Tom Peters’ superb book on self branding (The Brand You 50) and surfed his website, I was curious at seeing what he would do with a PowerPoint presentation. I was astounded. Why, why, why. Why did he not apply his own ideas to his own product. Baffled. I made a few suggestions and emailed him a sample of possibilities. Made a few points as follows, but his assistants assured me that they had already tried to get him to jump to the next level, unsuccessfully unfortunately:

• Too many great ideas on one slide – all is lost in the jumble, none are remembered
• At least use a well designed template as a base
• With a customized color palette
• Abstain from using centre justified lists
• Use bold sparingly
• Empty space = breathing space
• Lime green and red vibrate annoyingly together
• Use your branding – you already have it!
• Nothing happened

The first two slides in the gallery below show Tom’s originals. The following nine slides are the ones I suggested he upgrade to in style.

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75. Office Poilitics: Simple slide to emphasize the need to keep your personal computer free of dog hair (poil en français). It seems to gravitate to that spinning fan inside the chassis (even though it might be liquid cooled). It is quite a simple procedure, explained visually, quickly. A few details in the text below, if, you need them. Bright colour palette, slightly textured background, minimalist icons, including the dust bunnies, Arial Rounded and Marydale fonts.

74. Women in Woodcarving: Slide illustrating the most commonly used tools in the West Coast carving style. These tools can carve from one end of the pole, totems, through masks and down to plaques. All these tools can be hand shaped and heated within a few hours, honed and attached to their handles. Ready to use.

73. Seven Generations: When you need to highlight a specific statistic, what works well (no pun intended) is to place it on a separate slide, in huge numbers, with a short blurb, over a photo with good copy space. It is good practice to vary the pace of your slides, vary their look while still staying consistent in your look and feel.

72. Central Okanagan Foundation, 40 Year Celebration: A wonderful series of slides. High visual content with a few short text boxes and one video. Zooming out in slide sorter view gives you a good idea of the quality of your slide series. Is the text legible to audience members in the back row? Is it a coherent look and feel with branded fonts and colours? Does it follow a consistent layout? Is the imagery pertinent to the topic?

71. WHMIS Training Series: An extensive series of slides for Danatec’s Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System workshops. The complex information is divided into slides and printed matter – not too overwhelmingly dense on the slides, some animation, some video, interactive menu bar for the instructor, excellent illustrations from Guy Parsons.

70. Calgary Stampede Super Slide: Great photo, short text, branded colours and fonts, quick read, instant understanding. Lets the audience members concentrate on what you are saying.

69. Sticks + Stones Design Group: Design and program a PowerPoint template; format the content, photos, text, animation… 

68. Motive Action: Design and program a PowerPoint template; format the content, photos, text, animation…

67. Pembina Pipelines: Showcasing animation for the speaker