PowerPoint — the right way

Posted on January 1, 2011 by dharder

I have to create more presentations than I ever expected to. I have had to do them for CEOs. And coworkers. For myself. And clients… And made templates… I didn’t go to school for it. Nor did I plan to.

But the reality is it works well for what we need. But when presentations go horribly wrong, PowerPoint seems to get the brunt of blame for the source of the problem. That’s like blaming a Hummer for all the environmental problems.

A great article from Slate talks about what needs to be done. What it comes down to (for me at least) is know your audience and prepare. Presentations are intended to be presented by you the presenter. Otherwise it would be a report. And just because a report in Word has many words that folks don’t like to read doesn’t mean it’s not the way to deliver the info. When you are putting six, 50-word sentences on a slide… Use Word.

Oh. And another thing: PowerPoint can do just about everything Apple Keynote can do. Just need to take the time.

Picturing the Past 10 Years from NYT

Posted on October 1, 2010 by dharder

Love these charts! Here is a great example of info graphic charting the decade. Thanks to the New York Times. Visualizing information is excellent, especially done well.

Beautiful storage infographic

Posted on December 3, 2009 by dharder

Gorgeous infographic shows how much we have access to and how much we depend on media to keep entertained. Egads! Thanks, Gizmodo.

Photo: Curtiss Spontelli

Movie Info Graphics

Posted on November 5, 2009 by dharder

Well, so to speak. There are many ways to show off information. This is… Well… One of the more confusing versions.

Image: XKCD

IDEO Labs

Posted on November 4, 2009 by dharder

Great ideas are made of these
Who am I to disagree!

Not quite the lyrics, but since school I’ve been a huge fan of IDEO. They have a labs section, which begs the question: why doesn’t everyone who’s a creative have a labs section? Check out their work and enjoy! Do you have a creative playground on the Interwebs?

Image: IDEO Labs

Cell Size and Scale

Posted on October 28, 2009 by dharder

2009_cell_size

One of my co-workers sent this along to me. It’s a simple Flash piece from the University of Utah to show the scale of a coffee bean (and Times Regular 12 point) all the way down to a Carbon atom. Reminds me of the Power of Ten movie from the late 70s.

Mission to Mars graphic [Info Graphics]

Posted on October 23, 2009 by dharder

This is a GORGEOUS example of information graphics. Very easy to read, but it’s important also to sort out exactly what you’re trying to say. In this case the author (in my opinion) is trying to tell us the rate of success and the type of mission, not necessarily the name (as that’s secondary but also present). Beautiful work, guys! Check out the full-size version on the Gizmodo site.

TWIMCIA

Category Archives: Info Graphics