Color hierarchy

Over the past few years, more and more people started to understand that as a presentation designer, it is important to have a look at the style, brand, color guide of the organisation you are working for. Program the prescribed colours into your PowerPoint or Keynote template, and your slides are instantly recognisable with the right look and feel, without having to remind the audience by putting a big logo on every slide.

But these brand guidelines often contain more than just the RGB codes for the corporate color. Color hierarchy is as important. Which color should you be using more often than others? Which color is background, which color is accent?

Randomly applying (the allowed) colours to slide objects can create clutter, especially for large shapes on your slides. Think about color hierarchy when designing your next presentation.

High-Low-High

This describes my usual creative process. You start off with digesting a story at a high level, and things seem clear - although most of the times presented wrong. Then you dig in, start asking questions, go all the way to the very bottom of detail, and things are confusing, ambiguous and not clear. After this stage it is time to rise up again to come to a new high level story. And that high level story is most of the times a completely different one from the first version that we started off with.

A parallel can be drawn to financial analysis: you start with a napkin, build a very detailed spreadsheet, and end with an extremely simplified chart (that looks different from the napkin you started off with).

Unraveling

Technical (process flow) diagrams can be mess with intersecting and overlapping arrows. The challenge of the presentation designer is to unravel them. I usually decide between 2 possible solutions:

1. Minimal clutter. Like unraveling physical wires, I re-draw and re-draw the diagram again until I have it in such a configuration that none of the connectors overlap (or with the minimal overlap). Then I resize boxes to the same size, align and distribute so that the whole thing lines up nicely in a grid. The result is pleasing for the eye.
2. Maximum logic. I take the big steps in the process and line them up in the logical sequence. Other intermediary steps get organised around this. Use differentiating color for the main big steps in the diagram. The result is pleasing for the brain.

Then decide whether to please the eye or the brain.

The print out

Some executives still have their assistants print out emails and/or presentations. Recently, I saw a proposal for a major project sitting on a desk for review, printed in black and white. Colours that looked bright on screen were translated into depressing dark grey and black shades. Big captions in light colours were faded and hardly readable. Photos enhanced with artistic filters looked distorted.

Lesson: try out how your document looks when printed. You can even do that using a print preview, no need to waste trees here. This is especially important if your document contains a lot of text, the temptation to print it is bigger.

Just make me a set up

“Oh, just make a set up, and I will fill stuff in later.” This approach does rarely work for presentation design. A framework is good to guide data collection, but when it comes to creating a slide to communicate your data and conclusions, you need the actual data.

I did not do anything today...

I sometimes have these days where I sit at my desk thinking, sketching, being distracted, and some more pondering. It feels like nothing happened that day, until I sit down the next morning after a good night sleep I crank out the entire slide deck in under 2 hours...

On gradients

In the spirit of flat design, I am not a big user of gradients in my presentations. It is one of those features: the fact that PowerPoint/Keynote supports them, does not mean you have to use them. Some observations.

Not all gradients work. A background gradient that goes from white to a touch of grey as your PowerPoint canvas often looks “dirty” on the presentation screen. Especially on antique VGA meeting room projectors. The inverse (pitch black to a dark grey) can actually look good. There is another challenge though with a gradient slide background: it is harder to work with shapes and images that have a non-gradient background that is close to the canvas color.

Watch out with gradients that run between clashing colours. If the colours do not go well together (for example green and red) then the resulting gradient is probably not going to be good either. Complex gradients can work though, have a look at the book cover of “Pitch it!” on the blog cover page. You could construct a nice gradient with reds, oranges, blues, and purples.

There is one area where I often use gradients: visualising transitions from one state to another. Even if the colour clash, I would still add that colour transition on a big horizontal arrow.

But still, we have to admit modern display technology falls short in places where ancient artists thrived...

New audience, new message?

Some clients say that they have a different message for different audiences and therefore need presentations that are heavily tailored to those segments. In some instances, that is correct. Investors probably are not as excited by hard core scientific data as doctors are. But still, sometimes an ambiguity in strategy might be the reason for the deviating messages. If that is the case, it is better to iron out this first and return to the beauty of one strategy, one story, one corporate presentation.

10 years of independence

As of this month, I  have worked longer as my own boss than as an employee of my (only) employer McKinsey, and it feels great. All around me, I see more and more people taking the plunge and starting a freelance business, including in the world of presentation design. Some thoughts at the 10 year point.

1. The decision to go freelance is not a permanent or an irreversible one. If you pick the wrong employer, you have something to explain on your CV (why did you leave after 3 months), if you are dipping your toes into the world of freelance, you start with just one project, and if things go well, you do another one.
2. There is no need to define 100% what you do, in which category you fit in. Job descriptions are very tight and precise, a freelance role is not. You do the project you like, and the projects people want to pay you for. The challenge is to find the overlap between the 2. I started as an independent strategy consultant, and ended up designing presentations. Early on, I was obsessed with what to call myself (for example, what do you put in your LinkedIn profile). Not anymore. Self-selection (picking of clients, projects) will lead you to your preferred work, and it is highly likely that there is no role description for it.
3. As a freelancer, you will not get instant status that comes with a regular job, company car, and big office. “I design PowerPoint slides” is not instantly greeted at a dinner party with respect. It takes 5 minutes of explanation for people to get the full picture, and then they usually approve. But most importantly, I have stopped caring about that.
4. Niche design businesses do not scale very well. Super-bespoke presentations are tricky to design and adding a bunch of designers to a team will not recreate the magic with a factor 10. Most bigger presentation design operations fill capacity by slide make-over work that can be scaled up relatively easily.
5. Niche is the way to differentiatie yourself. Presentation design is broad. Business presentations are still broad. Within that, I have carved out an even smaller niche of the type of projects that work for me and for which there are very few people in the world that can do it. Super specialisation is a great strategy to build a global personal brand.
6. Once you have worked for a couple of months, a year, you will notice that the combination of new and existing clients will give you a business flow that is actually reasonably recession proof, and a lot more stable than your friends who are subject to continued corporate downsizings and restructuring.
7. Get a good sense of your pricing potential both from what the value of your services is (usually a lot higher than you think) and what the true costs of running a freelance business is (including office space, hardware, software, holidays, health insurance, pension, lunch breaks, etc.)
8. You will spend a lot of time working on your own. Personally, I love that quiet and productive time, but there are many people for whom this would be social torture. You know yourself best.

Good luck to everyone pondering this route!

Screenshot = picture export

Exporting things as a picture can be cumbersome. File types, resolutions (PowerPoint for Mac is horrible), finding where the file was saved, etc. More and more, I use simple screenshots to the desktop as my picture exporting tool. With the added benefit that I can make find compositions in PowerPoint which I often find easier than booting up Photoshop.

Seinfeld: "The Pitch"

Reading this column about Story tellers have more fun led me to an old Seinfeld episode where he is pitching a new TV show to NBV about, well, nothing.

Office for iOS - yawn

The column by David Pogue in the NYT says it all: the long-expected launch of Microsoft Office for iOS is a non-event.

As I am slowly progressing with the design of my own PowerPoint alternative, I start to realize that phones and tablets require a fundamental rethink of what a user actually wants to do in a presentation design/delivery context. I have not cracked it yet myself either but am trying hard to solve the problem by trying to disconnect my thinking completely from how desktop presentation design applications have been set up over the past 30 years.

Slide make over emergency surgery

Sometimes a horrible-looking deck lands in your inbox that needs to be presented in a couple of hours. What can you do in the last minute? Here are some rescue tools, with specific instructions for PowerPoint 2011 running on a Mac.

1. Squeeze all slides into the same slide template so that titles are all lined up across pages. Select a slide and go to the layout button at the top left of the PowerPoint ribbon. Strip the template of background watermarks
2. Pick 1-2 colours that fit the graphical language of the organisation that is delivering the presentation and use them to replace all standard Microsoft Office colours across the deck
3. On each slide, select everything/every object and set the font consistently to a decent sans-serif
4. Take out excessive drop shadows, gradients, reflections, rounded edges if you can
5. Un-stretch images by selecting them, right-clicking, go to the format picture dialogue, select size, and make sure that the height and width percentages are the same to recover the original aspect ratio. Re-crop if necessary.
6. Cut text, change prose-style text into headline style text. Remove exclamation marks, italics, and underlining. Remove excessive use of bold type.
7. Align and distribute objects as much as possible to get some order back into the slide
8. If you have time, start breaking up busy slides into multiple slides
9. Fix data charts: remove ticks marks, gap width to 50%, replace the Microsoft Office standard colours, round up numbers, put in the consistent font, scale up the chart to fit the biggest area possible.

The importance of starting

You have that big presentation coming up in a few weeks from now and you are a bit scared. It is easy to put off working on it, forgetting it, until a few days before the event. Wrong strategy.

Start the design process early on even if the brilliant ideas do not flow, then put it away for a while. Your subconscious mind will continue to grind on the presentation and you will be surprised what you can come up with later. If you start this process 48 hours before the event, this creative energy will never be released.

Stage fright: tips from TV

The first ever guest post on my blog! The contribution below is by Roger Kethcart,  a writer for Cable.tv who “fell in love with public speaking watching courtroom dramas as a boy”.

Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking: Tips from TV

Public speaking is perhaps one of the scariest, most frightening things that one can experience in their lifetime. Sweaty palms, shaking hands, stuttering, queasiness- all unfortunate symptoms that public speaking can have on you.

Whether you are a seasoned public speaker who still gets the occasional jitters, or an amateur seeking a way to stay calm through the storm, taking cues from beloved shows may be just the tranquilizer you need.

Go Slow

One of the reasons people suffer from public speaking is the feeling that they need to speak quickly to get the speech over with. In reality, however, the faster you speak, the more likely you are to mess up, stumble over your words, or skip parts of your speech. By simply slowing down, breathing and relaxing, as best you can, you will greatly enhance your speech. The King's Speech was a great example of what slowing down can do for one's public speaking. He's a clip of the original speech by King George VI, where you can see his pauses when a stutter would have incurred.

Tip: If using note cards for reference, write "BREATHE" and "SLOW DOWN" at places where you find yourself speeding up. The written note will help you relax and focus on what you are saying and your speed.

Practice

There is no way anyone can become great at anything without practice. Practicing not only makes you more confident in what you are saying and doing, but it also helps you get a natural rhythm you otherwise wouldn't have. This can be seen over and over again on cable TV, especially from news anchors and other public speakers like pastors. The repetition they endure is what truly makes them great public speakers. You will never get anywhere with your speech if you do not practice.

Tip: Practice in front of the mirror or for family and friends. You may still be nervous, but practicing in front of those you love will only help your speech in the end.

Appreciate your audience

In public speaking situations, many people fear that they will have to speak in front of, and for, people they do not know. Your mind may become flooded with ideas that these people are judging you, not paying attention to what you are saying, noticing your flaws or other negative thoughts. Ignore them all. You are your own worst critic, but you don't need to be. Look at the audience as your friends, colleagues and people who are interested in what you have to say, because they are. Realizing that everyone is interested in what you are saying will help you relax and be more confident in your speech.

Tip: If you are still nervous at the thought of speaking in front of a crowd, ask a good friend to sit in the middle for you. Make eye contact with them periodically, and scan the room the rest of the time. You'll seem like you're engaging everyone, while keeping your composure.

A great public speaker is not born overnight. Public speaking is a learned skill that requires practice and patience. By slowing down your speed and focusing on your words, you will succeed in your next public speaking engagement.

Flickr image search

Hey, Compfight is a neat Flickr image search engine.

Humanising the story

I discussed a presentation with a company the other day that was in the field of measuring and analysing human behaviour in companies. My main recommendation for their sales presentation: humanise your story and translate the pages and pages of cold statistics about people into case example and organisational behaviour situations that anyone can relate to. Because that is how people will use the tool in the end.

iPad without the new car smell

Immediately after the iPad launch, doing a presentation on the device was cool and innovative. Now that the new car smell has worn off, the iPad has become another common device in our IT setup (light, small, touch, crappy file system). What are the implications for presentation design?

• More people do not carry their lap tops everywhere anymore. As a result, you might find yourself running a presentation from an iPad in a 1-on-1 meeting. Not because of it is cool, but because it is the only screen around.
• Increasingly, people open email on mobile devices. Remember that a PPT file does not look great when opened on an iPad without the right apps. And it is unlikely that your boss, or potential customer, or potential investor has this software installed. 

So what I end up doing is saving a animation-free PDF version of my important presentations (no font rendering issues) and keep them in Dropbox alongside the PPT master file. The iPad has become a workhorse.

"I get it"

Yesterday, Seth Godin posted about us thinking that we can absorb anything in 140 characters. Part of it is true, but part of it is that we fail to fully immerse into something.

Busy venture capitalists often show this behaviour. In the first few seconds they try to put your idea inside the framework of other similar ideas in your field of business and they get it, they think.

Think about this when you prepare your investor presentation and put emphasis on those aspects that are different, not that obvious. Even to the point where you make it extremely explicit: “I see what you are thinking, but no, this is not the [FILL BLANK] for [FILL BLANK]. Let me explain why.”

The 5 minute meeting

Some venture capitalists might invite you for a “5 minute meeting”. The idea is not to conduct a full formal pitch, but rather have a casual get together to get to know you and start a longer-term relationship that could end up in funding later on in time.

Of course the meeting will be a bit longer than 5 minutes, the time limit is just a deterrent for your to craft a huge 1 hour pitch deck. Also, the 5 minute meeting enables to VC to interrupt and question more without coming across as rude by cutting you off all the time. This dialogue is a quick way for her to zoom in on issues.

How to prepare?

1. Prepare a very short verbal pitch: cover yourself, and cover the idea. 
2. Cover the idea. Make sure that the VC actually can understand what it is your doing (I have seen many pitches in pitch competitions where the presenter failed on this very basic requirement). This means, using normal buzzword-free language, and cutting content that is not yet relevant in this stage of the fund raising process (detailed financials, system architectures, etc. etc.) 
3. Present yourself in an interesting way. There is all the professional stuff, but maybe add a bit of unusualness, so the VC will remember you as the guy who likes to monocycle (for example). And do not forget that the main way you present yourself is in between the lines, how you come across in the meeting.
4. Only prepare slides when your really cannot describe things with words: a 2x2 matrix of all the competitors in the field for example, which takes 30 seconds to describe but can be communicated in 2 seconds with a drawing. Have these slides in your back pocket: either on an iPad, or - yes - as a paper print out.
5. When the VC is not deciding whether to invest right now at this moment, it is actually OK to show some uncertainty and vulnerability and ask advice about how to build your business. 
6. Listen. Pay attention to what feedback you get, answer the questions you get asked rather than pressing play on your standard pitch. This is a dialogue and a test case for what it is like to work with you in the longer term