The non-designer's presentation book : principles for effective presentation design

These days, it's not just corporate marketing directors tasked with giving computer-based presentations--anyone forced to stand in front of a crowd and talk for more than three minutes had better know how to put together a slide presentation. You're not a professional designer, but you want your slides to look professional. What do you do?
 
Enter Robin Williams , the beloved, best-selling non-designer's designer (with over 850,000 copies of The Non-Designer's Design Book in print!) who has taught an entire generation the basics of design and typography. In The Non-Designer's Presentation Book, Robin expands upon the design principles introduced in her award-winning Non-Designer's series. She explains four fundamental principles of good design as applied to digital presentations, and adds four more principles specific to clear communication with slides.

Whether you work with a Mac or PC, PowerPoint or Keynote, let Robin guide you, in her signature, light-hearted style, through the entire process of creating a presentation--from using the right software to 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 of designing effective presentations Four principles for designing beautiful slides that communicate clearly An exhaustive list of timeless presentation rules...that you should totally ignore

• Foreword p. viii
• Before you Design
• 1 Where to begin? p. 3
• What's a presentation? p. 4
• Does it need to be digital? p. 4
• My personal experience p. 6
• Yes, it needs to be digital p. 7
• What's a bad presentation? p. 10
• The structure p. 10
• The presenter p. 10
• The digital presentation itself p. 10
• What's a good presentation? p. 11
• Put it in words p. 11
• Software options p. 12
• Apple Keynote p. 13
• Microsoft PowerPoint p. 14
• Google Presently p. 15
• Open Office Impress p. 16
• 2 Get yourself organized p. 17
• Plan, organize, outline p. 18
• Old technology Post-it Notes p. 19
• Outline features in presentation software p. 20
• Mind maps and idea clouds p. 21
• Slide sorter or light table view in software p. 22
• Optimize the Content
• Four principles of conceptual presentation design p. 24
• 3 Clarity p. 25
• Edit the text! p. 26
• Avoid lengthy complete sentences p. 28
• Don't present your notes p. 29
• Write in the active voice p. 30
• Avoid the 'ings p. 32
• Experiment with editing the text p. 33
• Sometimes you need the text p. 35
• Spread out the text! p. 56
• Use all the slides you need p. 38
• How many slides in a presentation? p. 41
• But use one slide when appropriate! p. 42
• Sometimes you need a lot on one slide p. 43
• Clarity in the design p. 44
• 4 Relevance p. 45
• Get rid of superfluous stuff p. 46
• That includes the logo on every page p. 47
• Backgrounds p. 48
• The more complex the information, the simpler the background p. 51
• When is a busy background okay? p. 51
• Don't use dorky clip art p. 52
• Use relevant photos p. 54
• Video and animated clips p. 54
• 5 Animation p. 55
• Animation creates a focus p. 56
• Transitions and animations as complements p. 58
• Clearly transition between major topics p. 60
• Use transitions to keep your audience on track p. 61
• Use animation to illustrate and clarify p. 62
• Animate a chart for clarity p. 63
• The facts about animation p. 64
• 6 Plot p. 65
• Make a beginning p. 66
• Tell us where you're going p. 67
• Text vs. Images p. 67
• Find the humans in the story p. 68
• Find the humans in the audience p. 68
• Tell relevant stories p. 69
• Vary the pace p. 70
• Make an end p. 72
• And leave time for questions p. 73
• Design the Slides
• Four principles of visual presentation design p. 76
• 7 Contrast p. 77
• Contrast with typeface p. 78
• Contrast with color p. 80
• Contrast provides substance p. 82
• Use contrast to organize p. 83
• Contrast demands attention p. 84
• 8 Repetition p. 35
• Repetition creates a consistent look p. 86
• Repeat a style p. 88
• Repeat the image, but differently p. 90
• Unity with variety p. 91
• Find repetitive elements and design them p. 92
• Repetition doesn't mean sameness p. 94
• 9 Alignment p. 95
• Alignment cleans up individual slides p. 96
• Alignment cleans up your deck of slides p. 98
• Alignment unifies your deck p. 99
• Alignment makes you look smarter p. 100
• Alignment is a great organizer p. 101
• Break the alignment-intentionally p. 102
• 10 Proximity p. 103
• Create relationships p. 104
• White space is okay p. 105
• But avoid trapped white space p. 106
• Proximity cleans and organizes p. 107
• Proximity is a starting point p. 108
• 11 Put it all together p. 109
• Name the principles used p. 110
• Beyond the Principles
• 12 Learn your Software
• Turn your Autofit p. 118
• Align text at the top p. 119
• Adjust the spacing p. 120
• Adjust the space between lines p. 120
• Adjust the space between paragraphs p. 121
• Adjust the space from the bullet to the text p. 122
• Hang the bullets; align the text p. 123
• Don't squish the images p. 124
• 13 Handouts p. 125
• The truth about handouts p. 126
• It's a permanent record p. 127
• Post your speaker notes p. 128
• 14 Ignore these Rules p. 129
• Never read a slide aloud p. 130
• Never use serif typefaces p. 132
• Never use animation p. 133
• Never use more than one background p. 134
• Never make a slide without a graphic on it p. 135
• Never use more than five bullet points per slide p. 136
• Never use more than two or three words per bullet point p. 137
• Never use PowerPoint p. 138
• Never turn the lights off. Never turn the lights on p. 138
• Never provide handouts before your talk p. 139
• Never use pie charts p. 139
• Never use Arial or Helvetica p. 140
• 15 Listen to your Eyes p. 141
• Quiz: Listen to your eyes p. 142
• Checklist for info p. 152
• Checklist for slides p. 153
• Sources for fonts/images/video/sound p. 154
• Index p. 155