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PART I1I SHARING YOUR WORK
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text-driven slide shows
A text-driven slide show is a series of slides that delivers infor- mation in a carefully structured, discursive sequence. Individu- al slides often combine titles, body text, and imagery.
In the business world, Microsoft PowerPoint is an essential tool.
Large companies maintain design- ers who specialize in making slick presentations, decked out with logos, custom-designed palettes, music, and animation.
themes
This book is about personal media, not business media. But it’s quite common to find situations in which you will want—or will be asked—to make an information-oriented presentation.
Themes are sets of font choices, backgrounds, color palettes, and other design options available with PowerPoint. For many people, the look and feel of PowerPoint’s themes are compel- ling features of the presentation software. With a single click you can apply a coordinated set of visual treatments to your entire slide show.
These are three PowerPoint themes applied to the same title, line of text, and image. These examples were made with an older version of PowerPoint (2004 for Mac, version 11.3.5) that has no less than 110 theme choices.
information architecture
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CHAPTER 5: SLIDE SHOWS
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You must organize and streamline the ideas and data you want to present. Bullet points and other organizational shorthand are often used to keep data trim.
With PowerPoint, you want to
keep people from actually having to read your slides. Instead structure your information so it can be easily skimmed. PowerPoint 2007 version offers a function called SmartArt. This tool lets you choose from a series of lists, diagrams, and charts to help you present easily consumed information.
movement
The thumbnails are surprisingly clear in suggesting how information can be chunked and sequenced. SmartArt dialog boxes let you customize the graphic forms.
There are menus and a formatting palette that let you add animated movement to your PowerPoint slide show. The gen- eral design strategy is to take direct control over the viewer’s eyeballs. Animated movement helps to keep the viewer’s eye engaged without upstaging the “points” being presented. In addition, a little showmanship is always appreciated: humor, surprise, a visual joke, or sound effects.
PowerPoint presentations work best when information is staged a little loudly. Here the color palette is limited to red, black, white, and yellow. The backgrounds sample a solid color and two variations of gradients. Other design elements: different fonts, drop shadow, and rotating text at an angle. All three by Elizabeth Ellsworth, Jamie Kruse, and author.
Preconfigured themes are great if you need to work fast. But you can also customize text; effects; color schemes; backgrounds; layout; multimedia content.