April 20, 2006, 3:06 pm
The PowerPoint Minimalist
By Henry Woodbury
We recently came across Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen, a superb blog on presentation design. With entries like “Learning from the World of Judo” and “2-D or not 2-D? (That is the question)”, Reynolds offers a wealth of quirky but eminently usable advice.
As his blog title suggests, Reynolds is an advocate of clarity and restraint. In one of his popular posts, “What is good PowerPoint design?” he examines how simplicity in design must be driven by context, not formula:
Simplicity is often used as a means to greater clarity. However, simplicity can also be viewed as a consequence. A consequence, that is, of our careful efforts to craft a story and create supporting visuals that focus on our audience’s needs in a clear and meaningful way.
In another post, Reynolds contrasts the presentation styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, in amusing form:
Mr. Gates needs to read Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points, ironically published by Microsoft Press…
Comments
[...] I doubt Edward Tufte is going to change his mind, but if Wolff ever watches Steve Jobs at work he might acknowledge that elegantly effortless performance with presentation software is possible. [...]
Posted by Information Design Watch » What we’ve got here is failure to communicate… on March 7, 2007 at 8:49 pm