Visual Literacy Basics

What is a PowerPoint
good for?

If it's not adding
value,
it's subtracting value.

Visual artists -- photographers and painters and graphic designers, will tell you that a focus point should fall where the lines cross. Try it, and you'll be
pleasantly surprised.

Here I explain what the audience will see next:

An obvious way to use the picture is like this -- blow it up a bit and try to
centre it.
But the person's face is looking out of the picture. And the rule of thirds
isn't being applied

Instead I took the slide background and made it black.
I blew up the pic as much as I could without it pixellating.
I then placed the man on the left hand side, looking into the slide.
The message: sometimes you don't need powerpoint or any visual aids.
This man obviously didn't see the need for them.

Just for comparison.
Another way to use the shot is like the next slide

A true
artist
doesn't
need the
props
Not as dramatic, perhaps, but it depends on the rest of the slide presentation.

A true
artist
doesn't
need the
props
Rule of thirds, again.

Sometimes the subject cries out to be in the centre, rather than on a "third"

This is a landscape I have.
The sun is not in the centre.
Why did the photographer choose this composition?
He wanted the horizon to bisect the photo, giving equal prominence to water and sky.
And s/he liked the sun's reﬂection on the water coming towards him/her.

Bad composition. Not in thirds or centred.

Better: the horizon is now about a third of the way up from the bottom. the sun is in the middle.

The original picture for comparison

Try with the rule of thirds. Doesnt' really work. The sun really should be dominating the centre of this picture.

Here, the sun is in the middle of the slide.
The horizon bisects the slide.
But the photo was badly composed to begin with. We will have to crop the photo

There's the rule of thirds for guidance

Here's the ﬁnal photo. We've cropped a bit off the bottom and the side, and the photo is now centred. A much more dramatci photo than the original.

1. Don't pixellate
2. Don't distort
3. Rule of thirds

Read this excellent book, and apply its lessons.
You will be amazed at how quicky and how radically your designs change for the better.

Serif,
sans serif,
slab serif,
humanist,
script,
fancy

Times
Book Antiqua
Palatino
Garamond
Bookman
Souvenir

Sans
This is the French word for "without". In this case, without serifs.
(pronounced SAIR riff.)

Gill Sans
Helvetica
Abadi Condensed
Futura
Impact

Rockwell
American Typewriter
HVD Comic serif
Wellrock Slab

Optima
Candara
Lucida Grande
And avoid Lucida Grand as well.
I like Optima -- its the default font used by Scrivener for the Mac, an unbelievably good application for writers. www.literatureandlatte.com . No, I don't get
any royalties from them.

Lucida
Handwriting,
Bradley's hand,
Saginaw
Snell Roundhand

Ahnberg,
Bgsjdbn-!
Braggadocio,
Fakerfriends,
Das reicht gut.

Gill Sans Regular,
Gill Sans Light,
Gill Sans Bold,
Gill Sans Italic,
Gill Sans Light Italic,
Gill Sans Bold Italic

Gill Sans MT Condensed,
Gill Sans Ultra
Bold
Gill Sans Ultra Bold
Condensed

Please avoid
Arial,
Calibri
and
Segoe
These are the standard fonts that everybody sees.
They give your presentation the impression of Sameness.
Mac users should avoid Gill Sans for the same reason.
I often watch a TED talk and there's a slide with one word on it.
I know immediately it's a Mac and the speaker is using Keynote because the word is instantly recognisable as being in the Gill Sans font.

Says it all, doesn't it.
Except the 0% Arial looks a bit like 0% anal, doesn't it?

Contrast Sans Serif
and Serif fonts

Contrast Bold
and regular (of the
same font)

This doesn't look too bad
because of the
contrast
between types of font

But this looks
like a dog's
breakfast
How many fonts can you spot?

1. Don't pixellate
2. Don't distort
3. Rule of thirds
4. Contrast

Sans for Headlines
And use serif for text. And
use serif for text. And use serif
for text. And use serif for text.
And use serif for text. And
use serif for text. And use serif
for text.

Give your slides
boundaries
• A slide with edges makes it easier to align
elements on the slide
Acme Widgets

Leave space to breathe
Slides that don't have space to breathe start to look crowded
Acme Widgets
There's practically no information on this slide, and it's still really crowded

Leave space to breathe
Slides that don't have space to breathe start to look
crowded
Acme Widgets
I've moved the logo off the bottom and given everything else space to breathe.
The words should be a LOT bigger for a presentation, but you get the idea.

Use the same palette
of colours

Use colour well
Know the colour wheel.
Blue and Yellow go well together.
The best is Black on a kind of Post-It Note Yellow or on white.
Avoid red for backgrounds or for type.
Avoid orange and blue, or red and green -- they are opposites on the colour wheel.
Use purple (move the blue reddinh towards purple) and yellow, or green and pink (move the red over towards pink and you can keep the green).
You can't beat black and white for my money, though.

Use dark grey
instead of black
This is because TVs in particular struggle with very very high contrasting colours like white white and black black. I've used the lightest of greys here for
the background and the darkest of greys for the text and there's no discernible difference.
The word "black" is actually in black here.
Another advantage of using very dark grey for a background is that the pictures stand out more, especially if they have white in them.
See slide Three (3) where the person's shirt stands out from the background because the shirt is white and the background isn't.

Use off-white instead
of white

Be unexpected!
This is the key to the content of a presentation.
But it goes for the look / feel of a presentation as well.
Everything should communicate the same message.

1. Don't pixellate
2. Don't distort
3. Rule of thirds
4. Contrast
5. Repeat
6. Line things up

How can we improve
the way this slide
looks?

DesktopVirtualisation
Introduction

Introduction
Good use
of colour

Introduction
Good use
of colour
Default background

Introduction
Good use
of colour
Segoe font
Default background

Desktop Virtualisation
Introduction
Fonts much bigger.
Helvetica for the headline
Garamond for the text.

Introduction
Different background

Introduction
Different background.
Can we use the rope as a metaphor -- you are currently "tied" to your desktop?

Introduction

Introduction
Don't be obvious. This is the ﬁrst slide. of COURSE it's the introduction!

Sunny with a chance
of clouds
IT in the next five years
Much better!
Unexpected. Witty. Makes the audience want to give the speaker a chance.

Introduction
By contrast, even this slide -- which looked so revolutionary a few slides ago -- looks tame.

Culture Change
Presentation skills training
Spokesperson training
TV training (with cameras)
Radio Readiness
Crisis management
Crisis communication plans
+27 74-1-VIEDGE
+27 74-1-843343
erich@pepper.co.za
On twitter
@erichv
Slideshare.net erich viedge or Pepper Press
Linked In: Erich Viedge
Notice how the photo "pops out" of the frame.
Experiment with breaking the rules, now that you know some of them.
And read Robin Williams' Book -- it's excellent!

Visual Literacy Basics

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