Non-Designer's Presentation Book, The: Principles for effective presentation design

by Robin Williams

Overview

Robin Williams, teacher and designer, knows what it takes to give a good presentation. In this revised and updated book, Robin makes it easy for even first-time presenters to get past their fears of creating a presentation. She expands upon the four fundamental principles of good design and typography introduced in her award-winning Non-Designer’s series and adds four more principles specific to achieving clear communication with slides.

Let Robin guide you in her signature light-hearted style through the entire process of creating a presentation—from planning and organizing your ideas to designing effective, beautiful slides that won’t put your audience to sleep.

In this essential guide to presentation design, you’ll learn:

•    What makes a good presentation—or a bad one

•    How to plan, organize, and outline your presentation

•    Four principles for developing effective presentations

•    Four principles for designing beautiful slides that communicate clearly

•    Specific tips for using animation and transitions that aren’t annoying

•    A list of timeless presentation rules . . .  that you should totally ignore

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780134685984
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	07/10/2017
Series:	Non-Designer's
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	54 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robin Williams is the author of dozens of best-selling and award-winning books, including The Non-Designer’s Design Book, The Little Mac Book, and so many more. Through her writing, teaching, and workshops, Robin has educated and influenced an entire generation of computer users in the areas of design, typography, desktop publishing, the Mac, and the web.

Table of Contents

Foreword viii

Before you Design

1 Where to begin? 3

What's a presentation? 4

Does it need to be digital? 4

My personal experience 6

Yes, it needs to be digital 7

What's a bad presentation? 10

The structure 10

The presenter 10

The digital presentation itself 10

What's a good presentation? 11

Put it in words 11

Software options 12

Apple Keynote 13

Microsoft PowerPoint 14

Google Presently 15

Open Office Impress 16

2 Get yourself organized 17

Plan, organize, outline 18

Old technology Post-it Notes 19

Outline features in presentation software 20

Mind maps and idea clouds 21

Slide sorter or light table view in software 22

Optimize the Content

Four principles of conceptual presentation design 24

3 Clarity 25

Edit the text! 26

Avoid lengthy complete sentences 28

Don't present your notes 29

Write in the active voice 30

Avoid the 'ings 32

Experiment with editing the text 33

Sometimes you need the text 35

Spread out the text! 56

Use all the slides you need 38

How many slides in a presentation? 41

But use one slide when appropriate! 42

Sometimes you need a lot on one slide 43

Clarity in the design 44

4 Relevance 45

Get rid of superfluous stuff 46

That includes the logo on every page 47

Backgrounds 48

The more complex the information, the simpler the background 51

When is a busy background okay? 51

Don't use dorky clip art 52

Use relevant photos 54

Video and animated clips 54

5 Animation 55

Animation creates a focus 56

Transitions and animations as complements 58

Clearly transition between major topics 60

Use transitions to keep your audience on track 61

Use animation to illustrate and clarify62

Animate a chart for clarity 63

The facts about animation 64

6 Plot 65

Make a beginning 66

Tell us where you're going 67

Text vs. Images 67

Find the humans in the story 68

Find the humans in the audience 68

Tell relevant stories 69

Vary the pace 70

Make an end 72

And leave time for questions 73

Design the Slides

Four principles of visual presentation design 76

7 Contrast 77

Contrast with typeface 78

Contrast with color 80

Contrast provides substance 82

Use contrast to organize 83

Contrast demands attention 84

8 Repetition 35

Repetition creates a consistent look 86

Repeat a style 88

Repeat the image, but differently 90

Unity with variety 91

Find repetitive elements and design them 92

Repetition doesn't mean sameness 94

9 Alignment 95

Alignment cleans up individual slides 96

Alignment cleans up your deck of slides 98

Alignment unifies your deck 99

Alignment makes you look smarter 100

Alignment is a great organizer 101

Break the alignment-intentionally 102

10 Proximity 103

Create relationships 104

White space is okay 105

But avoid trapped white space 106

Proximity cleans and organizes 107

Proximity is a starting point 108

11 Put it all together 109

Name the principles used 110

Beyond the Principles

12 Learn your Software

Turn your Autofit 118

Align text at the top 119

Adjust the spacing 120

Adjust the space between lines 120

Adjust the space between paragraphs 121

Adjust the space from the bullet to the text 122

Hang the bullets; align the text 123

Don't squish the images 124

13 Handouts 125

The truth about handouts 126

It's a permanent record 127

Post your speaker notes 128

14 Ignore these Rules 129

Never read a slide aloud 130

Never use serif typefaces 132

Never use animation 133

Never use more than one background 134

Never make a slide without a graphic on it 135

Never use more than five bullet points per slide 136

Never use more than two or three words per bullet point 137

Never use PowerPoint 138

Never turn the lights off. Never turn the lights on 138

Never provide handouts before your talk 139

Never use pie charts 139

Never use Arial or Helvetica 140

15 Listen to your Eyes 141

Quiz: Listen to your eyes 142

Checklist for info 152

Checklist for slides 153

Sources for fonts/images/video/sound 154

Index 155