More and more, people are seeing the beauty in a widescreen presentation. If you’re presenting on a plasma or LCD TV, it makes perfect sense. But even projected, a widescreen presentation can really sing. How do you set it up? First you have to determine the resolution of whatev

I encounter busy slides from time to time (often a lot of them in the same presentation), and the one thing they all have in common is that they represent the knowledge and research of the person that put them together. The presenter/author really knows their stuff. They could talk yo

Picture the scene: a presenter standing in front of their audience, reading from a list of bullets on the screen. Even if the audience was interested initially, they’re tuning the presenter out before long. The most frequent critique of this approach to presenting is to point out that

I have heard lots of theories about how many words (ideally) should be on a slide. It seems to me that the question isn’t entirely the point. There are different types of slide presentations, and different “rules” for each. Beyond that, the expectations of the audience and the n

Here’s an equation I spout all the time: A complicated idea + Design = A better looking complicated idea. The key to better slides is to look first at the story. Once the story works, the slides design themselves. Here’s a quick case study with lots of screen grabs. First

Designing a presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote is an exercise in swimming upstream. The first thing the program gives you is a title and a page of bullets. Bullets are often the wrong tool for the job, and if your content is well thought out, do you even need a title? I was having

We’ve all been on one side or the other. If you’re in the audience, you’re trying not to yawn – and trying not to make it look like you’re trying not to yawn. If you’re presenting, it’s clear they are not engaged. You’ve created a beautiful presentation, and want them to know why your