May
8
To fully understand the rules that govern just how much information you can include in your presentation slides, you need to appreciate a fundamental of human nature - namely, that we have an innate desire to be The First to Know.
Unfortunately, most of the presentation visuals that we see are designed with the mistaken belief that audiences will actually wait for the presenter to walk them through them. Wrong.
When the technology of communications was slower, we took a more historical approach to news - news was about what happened. We were accustomed to waiting for the news, and news had a time: Did you see the morning paper? Did you hear the evening news?
But with electronic advancements, we came to think of news more in terms of what is happening at the moment. Film brought us motion, but video feeds brought us there. Screens eclipsed paper as the preferred venue for getting the latest. Newspapers folded, first afternoon editions and then even icons of Americana - think Herald Tribune. Instead of being the first source of news in the world, to survive newspapers became more feature oriented - providing value only for less perishable and less immediate content.
Cable News Network took a huge gamble that people all over the world would watch news twenty-four hours a day - news on the people’s timetable, not the providers. News on demand. Fulfillment for those with the desire to be “the first to know.”
What does all this have to do with presentation design? You don’t need to be a news junkie to share a basic trait of humans and other intelligent animals - curiosity. Curiosity is basic to survival, and we have evolved as creatures who need to learn what we can quickly. So this same desire that humans have to be the first to know translates to every event that involves new information uptake. During a presentation, audience members want the same control, and are basically unwilling to wait for you, the presenter, to help them be the first to know.
Once the curiosity about a slide has been satisfied, audience members usually will give the presenter their attention.
But when a new slide first appears on the screen, all eyes, like moths to the flame, tune to the new image, and immediately begin the race to be the first to know what the slide is all about. It’s not their fault! They’re human!
Only when every member of the audience is thoroughly convinced that they know exactly what the slide means will they lend their attention back to what you are saying.
And until this point you realistically might as well not be there. Oh, sure, you can act as most do and begin to describe the elements in the slide, but for all intents and purposes, it matters little what you do. You could drop your pants. You could leave the room. You could tell off-color jokes. But until the audience has determined for themselves exactly what all the data and word tracks on the screen mean to them, you have approximately 0% of their attention.
With most of the slides we see in business presentations today, this is where the disaster begins. You see, the typical slide contains so much information that a typical audience member would need more than 30 seconds just to read the material, much less absorb it. The reading process is delayed, though, because first the viewer tries to decide for herself where to begin, and which piece of information is most important. Clues to the relative value of the information are often erroneous, however, as audiences base them on such things as the size of the type or placement on the screen.
For this reason, you must ask yourself how long it will take the average person to discover for themselves all the information you have in your slide. The more time it takes the average person to absorb and assimilate the information they see, the greater the chance you have to lose your audience.
So what does this tell us? Of course, there is only one truly viable solution, and that is to limit, by all means possible, the amount of information that is released with each click of your mouse.
The less time it takes the audience to discern the new information, the sooner they’ll get back to you and start to listen to what you really mean to “say” on the slide.
J. Douglas Jefferys brings twenty-five years of corporate training experience to his role as a principal of PublicSpeakingSkills.com [http://www.publicspeakingskills.com]. His firm changes presenters lives forever with their unique apporach to training presentation design and delivery skills. Discover how to design and deliver presentations that audiences actually listen to by visiting their website now.
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May
7
How many of you are always looking for new ways to use your embroidery designs - always, or never? If never, you are overlooking wonderful opportunities! Do you optimize the use of every design? Do you routinely review your library of designs to see if you can combine motifs from one set with another? Have you noticed how embroidery design styles have changed over the past few years? Give those old motifs a new look by using the designs that you got way back when, again! Add new motifs under, or around, them to create a whole new look! My last big project, a wind jacket back, is a good example of what anyone can do with a little time and imagination!
With fall already upon us, I wanted something tropical in my
wardrobe as it’s still every where in ready-to-wear & home dec. The colors are just as exciting as leaves turning colors. With the tropical look continuing into fall, I remembered a wind jacket, with a hole that needed covering, in my closet. The fabric is an aqua, “falling leaf” jacquard that would be perfect in both style & color!
I began with the 168-169 Tropical scene components but wanted
to add other motifs to cover the entire jacket back. Next I added a colorful bird from set 166 Flights of Fancy.
Although larger, these birds were simply wonderful as forefront
motifs with the smaller tropical plants as background! When I
went back through my sets, up to 2 years old, I found 117 Japanese Botanicals with several motifs that worked into what I had already stitched to make a spectacular finished look. The scene had motifs from 4 entirely different themes that I had never thought about putting together before.
When planning a large area you want to give the effect of being
almost covered, yet leave an open effect. You want most motifs to appear as just an illusion, with only a few focus pieces to be in full fill. Often this can achieve this by using muted colors that almost blend into the fabric color & brighter colors for the key pieces which you want to draw the real attention.
TIP: A great way to visualize how the whole “picture” will look, print out 1:1 size templates of the motifs, cut them out & move like puzzle pieces until it’s pleasing to you.
The main things to watch when creating a large area or scene are:
1. Don’t overdo it! Don’t try to fill every single inch of the large area making the scene too busy.
2. Don’t worry about exact placement - a random look is much more attractive, especially on all 4 sides. Place motifs in an uneven fashion.
3. Don’t limit yourself to motifs from one set - you might wind up with something less than spectacular!
4. Think outside the box! You may be surprised at the sets you pull motifs from to create a whole new theme! Example: try roosters with florals or veggies or create a theme of fruit & flowers.
5. Don’t let the design colors keep you from considering them for the project. Very often a few color changes will give a whole new look to a motif making it work with something else you would never have considered before.
If you don’t “think outside the box”, you are missing out on
the real enjoyment & ability to expand your creativity to optimize the use of your designs! To see what I mean, take a look at the photo of my finished wind jacket that is post on our web site!
Thread Artist has the superior designs & supplies you need to make all your creations as spectacular as you imagine them. You’ve invested a lot in your equipment; don’t compromise the projects you create with your equipment by using less than the very best supplies & embroidery designs available anywhere!
Sandy Carter is the author of embroidery articles at embroidery
designs by Thread Artist. She has an article about embroidery software for digitizing and lettering fonts at
embroidery software. There is free embroidery digitizing Tutorial at
this web address - embroidery by Thread Artists.
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May
6
Visual processing is the most important way for gathering information for all human beings. A good design or graphics work is remembered for ages and that is what drives the multinational companies to spend millions of dollars on developing their logo and other branding material. They would go to any extent to create a solid visual impact and leave a permanent impression on their customer’s mind.
While designing your logo and providing the necessary details to your designer you need to always keep in mind what you want your customers to feel about your company when the see your logo. A logo design can actually be a compressed story for your business and tell your customers about the nature and attitude of your business.
“Logo Design” Begins at Home
Yes, your home is the place where you take the first step of your logo design process. Look at the different bottles and pouches you are using everyday in the kitchen, look at the logos they have, look at the logos on your electronic equipments, check the logo on the bag that you got from the shopping mall yesterday. Everyday we come across 1000s of logos but we remember just a few, if we look around, we can find different types of logos around us. Also, visit the local supermarket to check the logos on the array of products they have. It is always better to check out the logos of your competitors who are in the same industry. While doing this, you are sure to find some logos that stand out from the others and this is going to help you conceptualize your logo design.
Once you have made up your mind on how you want your logo to be, its time you write them down clearly demarcated into small objective points which can work as instructions for your logo designer.
One thing you should be careful, while going through different logos of other companies you must not be so influenced by any of them so that your logo becomes a replica or modified version of another logo that you saw. A good design often affects our sub conscious mind and we unknowingly duplicate certain parts of it. It is extremely important that your logo design is unique. A unique logo design increases the likelihood for getting a trademark protection. It is advisable that you take the assistance of a trademark lawyer for your trademark search and to ensure that you do not run into the risk of infringing some other companies trademark symbol or logo.
Using ClipArt
If you area small local business or a mom-n-pop shop you might not be that keen in investing towards a logo and establishing your brand (though I sincerely believe that’s very wrong). In such situation, you can try using some high quality royalty free clip art combining it with a suitable typeface to put your company name. You can also use more than one clip arts to create the total graphics for your logo.
However, you should keep in mind that clip arts would never give you the effect of a custom logo and they can be easily duplicated or stolen. Even if you are modifying a clip art, it is almost impossible to get a trademark on that. In future, once your business grows to the level when you need to have trademarked logo you will have to get a total new logo (may be something closer to the one you have) and start with your branding efforts once again to establish that new logo.
To avoid all this problems it is advisable that you get a unique custom logo and it is not always that you need to spend a lot on your logos. There are companies on the web that offers custom logo design at reasonable price.
Some More Logo Design Tips
1)Keep it simple: Remember, simplicity is the key. Most of the great logos are absolutely simple and it is always easier for us to remember and recognize a simple design than to identify a complicated artwork. If you want to have some complex illustration for your logo, try to minimize the number of lines and make it as simple as possible keeping in mind that the viewer should be able to understand what has been drawn.
2)Typography: You should be careful while deciding on the typeface that you intend to use for your logo. Choosing the correct typeface can make a lot of difference. For example, a finance company depicting strength and stability would like to use some bold, thick font. Also, the letters can be twisted to create simple yet nice logos. Some ideal examples of logo that contains only letters are “SONY” and Dell - remember the twisted “e”?
3)Always Use Vector Graphics: Always ask your designer to provide you the logo as vector graphics. The advantage is, vector graphics can be resized without any loss of details and image quality. You can resize it as per your requirement. In addition, vector graphics take lesser memory capacity in your computer.
4)Choice of Color: You should be careful while deciding on your logo colors. It is advisable to restrict yourself to RGB or CMYK colors so that your logo looks equally good in print as it looks on web. Also, ensure that your logo looks good in black and white as well, mind it, you will also have to use your logo on while faxing any of your marketing material or corporate documents.
Finally, it is always better if you are employing any specialized logo design firm to create your logo design than doing it yourself. It is their profession so they would know it much better than you do and neither is logo design always very costly. Definitely, there are companies that charge you $500 for a logo, however there are also companies that offers equally good services with very much affordable pricing (Corporate Logo Design). It is just a matter of locating that designer and you can be on your way to having a wonderful custom logo design.
Ray Smith is a marketing Expert with years of experience in different industries and specialized knowledge on branding and Internet marketing.
corporate logo design
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