Squarespace versus wix

There are two popular web site template providers: squarespace and wix. I like to think of presentation design software SlideMagic as "squarespace for presentations". Many other PowerPoint alternatives (such as prezi) are "wix for presentations". What is the difference?

• Wix offers a lot of features, colours, fonts, pre-programmed templates for specific sectors (vets and pets for example)
• Squarespace is muted, has far fewer choices, fewer colours, bells & whistles.

The great thing is that the design restrictions of squarespace actually result in better web designs. People have to think how (whether) to put that content on the page. A professional designer will pick a style and restrict herself to stay in that framework. That is why it looks so good. The layman designer cannot resist to add more stuff. Squarespace and SlideMagic protect the non-designer from herself.

P.S. Squarespace powers the SlideMagic landing pages and blog.

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Art: The Stadhuis under construction, by Johannes Lingelbach, 1656
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The catch up slide

Here is a concept that you can use in many investor and/or sales pitches for technology:

While [a] and [b] have moved on, [c] is still pretty much stuck in the 1950s despite a lot of technological development. Our company is going to fix that.

I have added a slide to the SlideMagic startup pitch template library that reflects this idea, Two "arrows" moving to the right, and a third one which is catching up. Look at the simplicity of the graphics which exactly fits the philosophy of SlideMagic. It looks pretty, it gets the message across, is easy to design. A new business language that does not need arrows, drop shadows, and gradients. It is almost a Lego-like abstractification (is that a word?) of a complex visual.

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Art: Le derby d'Epsom, painting by Théodore Géricault, 1821
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Learning from Swiss graphic designers

Most presentation design software today is the result of someone in the 1980s thinking: "hey, this mouse is cool, you can use it to draw things!". We can move, drag, stretch, place things freely across our drawing canvas.

Presentation software SlideMagic aims to close this tangent and go back 20 years earlier to the 1960s when graphics designers in Switzerland developed a clean and crisp style of communication and design that does in many cases the exact opposite of the freedom the mouse offers: tight grids, limited font choices, limited colours. simple shapes.

Eyeball the posters on this Pinterest board by Misswyss and see what you can learn form them for your own designs. Which one do you like? Which one does a better job at communicating than others? Why is it that some of these very simple designs look very pretty?

Examples of posters designed in the Swiss style

Some of the features they have in common:

• Limited number of colours
• Sans serif font (only one)
• A strict grid alignment throughout the page
• Relatively small headlines
• De-emphasising (making things grey) rather than emphasising (making things bold) text
• Flat shapes, no gradients, drop shadows, textures
• Big silhouettes, simple shapes

Why not steal some of these ideas in your slide designs?

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Art: Albert Anker, The walk to school, 1872, 90 x 150 cm
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The cover image that needs to say it all

The cover page of a presentation is an important page. It sits on the projector as the audience walks in the room. It is featured in the thumbnail of an email attachment. It sets the look and feel of your presentation.

Many clients want to have a cover page that says it all. A perfect image that reflects the entire story. In the absence of this image (99% of the cases), they want to do the next best thing: make a collage of smaller images that together tell the story.

I think it is better to pick just one, imperfect, image as a cover page. A collage of tiny images without explanation does not mean anything to the audience, and looks very cluttered. If people could get your message by just looking at a picture collage for 15 seconds, there would be no need for your presentation? 

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Art: David Teniers, The art collection of Leopold, 1651

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Design is detail

In management, being detail-oriented is not the behaviour that is considered good. Detail-oriented people get lost in tangents, loose track of the big picture, cannot focus to make decisions. Saying that you are not afraid of detail in a job interview will cost you points.

I think it all depends. Yes, staying stuck in unimportant tangents is not helpful, but when it comes to design, it is all about the detail.

You see this now best in mobile application user interface design. The screen is so small that you need to worry about every button or item you put in front of the user. I personally went through this experience when designing SlideMagic.

But slide design is the same. It is actually helpful to think of your slide as a visual on the screen of a mobile phone. This is sort of the perspective of an audience member who sits in the back row. Everything you put on the slide, everything, should be thought through:

• What words to use in the text box, can you cut more without losing the meaning, do you need to add more because it is too vague?
• The rounding of the data
• The order of the bars in the bar chart
• The order of the columns and rows in a table
• Are there duplicate messages? Does a text box say the same thing as the title?
• Do we need icons, or shall we call customers, well, customers?

All the detail will add up to a great slide that gives the big picture.

In case you wonder about the close up of Vermeer's painting "The Music Lesson", find out more here about Tim Jenison's attempt to recreate the Vermeer master piece using a lens, "accusing" Vermeer of being a very early photographer, rather than a painter.

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