In this issue
Latest Slide Makeover
Creating Visuals Training Videos
Confirming your colors have enough contrast
Book Dave for a workshop
From the blog
One
of the
Top 10 Business Books of 2008
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Book Dave to do a live program
for your group:
1) Transforming Text Slides into Persuasive Visuals
2) Hands-on Creating Persuasive PowerPoint Visuals
3) Cutting Presentation Preparation Time by Using Content Templates and
Creating a Slide Library
4) Creating and Delivering Effective Web Presentations
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Dave's Travel Schedule
August 21
- Toronto, ON (MBA Students)
September 21
- Toronto, ON (Purchasing Managers)
September 23 - Toronto, ON (MBA Students)
October 13-14
- Atlanta, GA (PowerPoint Live conference)
October 15 - Norcross, GA (Business Development team of an Engineering Firm)
October 17
- Edmonton, AB (CAPS Chapter)
October/November
- Orangeville, ON (Utility company trainers)
November 25
- Toronto, ON (CSAE National Convention workshop)
December 6-9
- Calgary, AB (CAPS Convention)
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Latest Slide Makeover Video
When you want to show numeric values that have moved between two tests
or time periods, don't use a copied Excel table on your slide.
This makeover shows how to use a visual with appropriate movement
animation to illustrate the results. Click
on the
video below to play it in your browser via YouTube (or click
here to watch it on my web site in QuickTime format at
www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/podcasts).
Training Videos on Creating
Visuals
Improve the effectiveness of your slides with step-by-step training on
how to:
- create calendar visuals that visually show date
based information clearly
- work with screen capture images to show the
audience exactly what they need to look for and where they need to click
- break up a single graphic you have been
supplied with so you can build it on your slide piece by piece
- find great photos in the PowerPoint library or
on stock photography sites like istockphoto
- integrate content from Word, Excel, PDF files
or the Web seamlessly into your presentation
Click here
to learn more at www.CreatingVisuals.com
PowerPoint
Tip: Confirming your colors have enough contrast Recently
I commented on a blog post regarding colors that are used on
slides. The writer had made some suggestions on colors to use or
avoid based on the color wheel used by graphics professionals.
While this is a good first level approach, we have all seen slides that
are unreadable due to the choice of colors. I don’t have a design
background, and I am guessing you are probably like me. How can
we make sure that the colors we choose will be seen easily?
The
most important factor in making slides readable from a color
perspective is not whether you choose a light or dark background.
It is whether the colors you choose have enough contrast with each
other. You can choose a white background and if you use light
pink letters, your audience won’t see the text. Similarly, you
can choose a navy blue background and if you use dark green text, it’s
as good as not even there.
In many workshops, people often point
out that they can’t select the background color because their
organization mandates a certain template or look. This is not a
problem. Contrast is still important and the choice of color for
text or shapes is still within your control. So how can you be
certain that the colors you choose will work? Don’t rely on
looking at them on your computer screen. Laptop and flat screen
monitors are far brighter than projectors and give you a distorted
perception of how much contrast two colors have. Instead, be sure
by using the international standard tests for color contrast.
A
number of years ago, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created a
standard that tests the contrast between two colors. They
developed it to help web developers create easily readable web
sites. We can use these two tests to make our slides
readable. Both tests are calculations that use the Red, Green and
Blue (RGB) attributes of the two colors to determine if there is enough
difference between the two colors.
I’ve made this easy for
presenters by creating an online Color Contrast Calculator that allows
you to test the difference between two colors you are considering for
your slides. Just go to http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/colorcontrast.htm
to use this tool. The page also contains detailed instructions on
how to find the RGB attributes of a color and some ideas on what you
can do to improve the contrast of two colors if they don't pass the
tests. You can also use this tool as an objective viewpoint when
discussing color choice with colleagues.
Now you can make sure
that when you are choosing colors for text, shapes, callouts or graph
elements, your audience will be able to see them easily.
Book
Dave for a workshop and your staff will have
comments like these recent attendees
"I have now learned ways to keep information concise and use visual
aids to |