Powerpoint: Color and Design issues to consider

If you are color illiterate like me, you need all the help you can get when choosing colors - and it IS important which colors you use in a presentation. Design of the slides are also important, as we will see in class. Below are links to some information, how-tos, and discussion on using Powerpoint.


START WITH THESE
Good overall design advice - http://ecglink.com/library/ps/powerpoint.html
Something else to read before you get started - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html


COLOR

1. The Color Wheel - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010120721033.aspx
2. Effect of colors in a presentation - www.medianet-ny.com/BigScreen.pdf
3. Choosing colors for your presentation slides -http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/articles/choosing_colors_for_slides.htm


4. The effect of Color - http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/books/htdepowerpoint.html

DESIGN ISSUES

1. Precision Layout tools - http://www.presentations.com/presentations/creation/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1871209
2. Don't use bullet points! - http://sooper.org/misc/ppt/

3. Best quote: PowerPoint has affected business, substituting real thought with animations and bullet points.

GRAPHICS STUFF

1. Special Effects with Pictures - http://www.presentationpictures.com/powerpoint-wow.htm
2. More graphics tricks - http://www.infocomm.org/index.cfm?oID=4C6EE11F-30FA-4FA0-83F6CA611123E124
3. Misc Tips - especially check out the one about compressing graphics - http://www.microsoft.com/office/previous/xp/tips/powerpoint.asp

Excellent general presenting resource
....especially the columns where a powerpoint design specialist takes a company's presentation and redoes it - think Extreme Makeover for powerpoint. - www.presentations.com
Presentation Zen is also an excellent resource - http://www.presentationzen.com/


....and finally, reasons why you should care about what you learn in English class:

Suddenly, business executives, for example, are handling their own correspondence. There is no secretary or administrative assistant reviewing the content, context, spelling, grammar and punctuation. And the results are positively embarrassing. It numbs the mind to realize how many senior executives can't spell or don't have a clue what it means to have the verb and the subject in agreement. ("What the hell! Let 'em negotiate!")

Interestingly enough, I detect a couple of trends here. Clearly, more and more of our business and personal communications will move via e-mail or its next generation equivalent. But, if you read the work of today's high school students, you have to fear for the language. They can barely communicate with themselves, much less anyone above the age of 20.

Now, the upside to all of this is that someone like me who writes for a living is never going to be out of work. The downside is that, sooner or later, the writers are all going to go to that great writers' block in the sky. And then where will the rest of you be?

from Academic Leadership - http://www.academicleadership.org/volume1/issue4/articles/skipboyer.html

Additional quotes from this article:

PowerPoint® is right up there on my list of the World's Most Dangerous Electrically Powered Tools, a notch or so below the power saw and just above desktop publishing.

Any tool, when used properly, can benefit the user. Power saws and drills just beat their manual counterparts all to hell, although I think the jury is still out on power toothbrushes. It's when tools are used improperly, usually by well-intentioned amateurs, that they can wreak havoc.

Electronic communications, publishing and graphics programs put the most sophisticated communications tools in the history of the species in our hands. As a professional communicator who clearly remembers hot type and carbon paper, it's a joy to have them. However (and this is the scary part), those same tools are also in the hands of your church secretary and the entertainment chairman of the local Rotary club.

If you doubt the dangers here, take a good look at your next church bulletin or club newsletter. Three different column widths, eight different type fonts, six different type sizes and nine unrelated bits of artwork. And that's just on page one.

One of the distinctive marks of a professional is restraint. Just because you have 200 fonts available doesn't mean you have to use all of them. A professional communicator understands that PowerPoint® graphics are called "speech support" for a reason. Use them with restraint.