Slide Design 101: Introduction

Over the years, I have presented numerous slide decks and I still cringe when I think of the times when I was stuck in the BC era as opposed to AD, where I “think” I am now (To me, BC: Before Creativity. AD: After Discernment). My slides have gone through a transformational leap and I am now proud to show them off at conferences. Let me state upfront that slides represent one part of the equation, whereas the entire delivery process makes up the rest.

I give total credit to a book and accompanying DVD by Garr Reynolds entitled Presentation Zen that gave me the means to realise my shortcomings and improve. Sometimes, we just need to reach the “enlightenment” stage before we can progress, and my sharing some of my slides with you in this series hopes to achieve just that. My goal is to share with you a slide or a tip a fortnight on how to better yourself at presentations. If we could only improve one thing every month, we would have 12 improvements after a year!

Before we begin, let me share with you two very, very embarrassing slides that I created back in the year 2000 BC, when I probably thought they were the coolest designs ever.