Presentation Graphics

When a graphic design student is in school, s/he is usually trained in all of the Adobe Creative Suite applications (like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver and a handful of others) when dealing with digital media. Various schools go in o varying depths when teaching these tools. Underlying all of this are classes on 2D design, drawing, painting, sculpture and a few other fine arts.

Though I have had jobs that followed a more traditional path of what that training leads to, I am currently work as a graphic designer who’s primary job is developing presentation graphics. That may just seem like a fancy way to say that I make PowerPoint decks, but I would candidly say that what I help develop is at a level that is higher than the standard. Understanding how PowerPoint has historically been mis-used, measuring oneself as “higher than the standard” doesn’t really say a whole lot.

It is funny to think that, prior to working for my current company, I had NEVER opened up MS PowerPoint. Even when I took a required class in MS Office, we used Word, Excel, (and even Access), but no PPT - I have no idea why it was like this - it just was. As I had mentioned earlier, the graphic design / art curriculum doesn’t see PPT as a design tool, so I had no exposure there. Jobs prior to this one didn’t even have MS Office installed on the computers I work on. So it was a bit of a shock to move to a position where such a huge quantity of work is communicated through PPT slides. Daily / weekly / monthly meetings, org charts, office communications and protocol, were all passed around in PPT files. In this corporate world, I stepped in as a “graphics guy” and this meant something completely different to everyone there than it did to me. I needed to get spun up quickly, and in hindsight it wasn’t too difficult. Graphics tools are similar enough that one who is well-verse in one, can quickly see the similarities and work out the differences. But the use of these tools was different enough that it became the focus of my adaptation.

At the core of all of this, I came to the realization of something that gave me a completely new perspective on where my career could lead. I realized that designers are either not acclimated to applications like PPT or Keynote as foundational training or just look at this type of work to be “beneath them.“ The people that use PPT on a daily basis - salespeople, marketers, the military, etc. usually don’t have training in design. Bringing a designer’s perspective to the use of PPT (visual communications) allows this medium to be taken to a higher level. This is not rocket science here, nor is this brand new information. I am just explaining my observations - it was one of those things that, at the time, ”I didn’t know what I didn’t know.“ I have since found an incredible community that is made up of people like Nancy Duarte, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Garr Reynolds, Dave Gray, Dan Pink and others (many of who’s blogs are located in my ”Current Favorite Blogs“ over there on the right.)

I highly suggest that people take a look at what these communicators have to say. If you are a designer, you will find new ways of communicating. If you are not a designer, you will get an inside look at how some incredibly creative communicators come up with the stuff that they do. No matter who you are, if you look around enough you will be inspired either by the processes that these people use as well the content that they present.

Here is a cool example of something I found inspiring. It is not PPT or Keynote, but it is definitely clearly communicated information. The visualization came after the spoken content, but it adds value in my opinion.