the projects
Feature Presentation
How to deliver a slide show—without putting
your audience to sleep.
by Ellen Lupton | Illustration by Ellen Lupton
PowerPoint has long been the butt of cruel humor, mostly on
account of the ugly and inane stuff people do with their presentations—slapping on huge logos and toxic gradients; cheesy transitions and stale clip art; and text, lots and lots of text, arranged in
endless lists of bullet points, signaling that I’m in for a very, very
long afternoon. Shoot me now.
But the software and its more elegant sister, Keynote (for Apple
operating systems), are not inherently evil, and are actually undergoing a bit of a renaissance. The musician and artist David Byrne has
turned the program into an experimental medium, and the Pecha
Kucha (pronounced “pet-shah coot-shah”) style—in which each
speaker shows 20 slides for 20 seconds each, yielding about six and
a half minutes onstage—has spread throughout the world. Pecha
Kucha, devised by a pair of Tokyo-based architects to encourage
dialogue in the design world, keeps lectures moving along briskly.
But if producing another PowerPoint slide show—no matter how
brief—makes your head hurt, there are other options. Here we present you with a few alternatives, as well as some tips for bringing good
taste to your next sales pitch, public address, or presidential bid.
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EIGHT TIPS FOR A
ROUSING PRESENTATION
1. Use a black background if your
show will be viewed mostly on-screen—your text and images
should appear to “float.” If your
audience is going to print out the
slides, use a white background to
waste less toner.
2. Don’t display your entire speech
on-screen. Instead, anchor your
thoughts with short, provocative
chunks of text. Use key words or
phrases to prompt you to address
your next topic and keep the audience intrigued.
3. If using bullets, don’t run more
than three points on a single slide.
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4. Choose a readable font and
deploy it in consistent sizes, large
enough to be read from a distance.
5. Use images to augment your
ideas. Add “show” to your “tell.”
6. Branding elements such as logos
or title bars that appear on every
slide should be minimal.
7. Go easy on annoying sounds
and other special-effect bells
and whistles.
8. When you’re almost done, let
your audience know. (“I’m going to
wrap up with this final anecdote…”)
No matter how great your speech
is, everyone will be glad when it’s
time to clap.
