A few weeks ago I had a non-designer colleague dismiss a well-designed slide I used in a seminar saying, “That’s fine, but I could never do that—I don’t have Photoshop.”

The fact is that while Photoshop is indispensable for graphic designers, you can use PowerPoint’s increasingly sophisticated features to edit imagery and make more dynamic slides.

Here are some of my favorite techniques… 

Remove Background

Introduced in PPT 2010, this is one of the most impressive single features I’ve seen come out of Redmond in a while. You may have used the old “make color transparent” tool (which is still available in 2010), but that’s kids’ play in comparison. In fact, I think it even competes with Keynote’s similar Instant Alpha mask tool.

To use the feature, select the image and under the Format tab, click the Remove Background controls. PowerPoint will make an initial best guess at what to remove, but usually you’ll have to further tweak things by marking what to keep and what to remove. 

Here’s an example of an image with a fairly complex background that I was able to remove in a matter of minutes, using only PowerPoint.

To read more about this technique, head over to the Microsoft Office blog.

Note that there have been reports of areas suddenly reappearing at inopportune moments, but I haven’t experienced any glitches myself yet. If you’re worried, you can always cut and paste-special as a .png (see below).  

 

Semi-Transparent Boxes 

If a background image is too busy, you won’t be able to read text on top of it. So instead of cropping your image or putting your text in a clunky colored box, leave the image full screen and make use of a black or colored box with a gradient transparency applied. You’ll need to fiddle with the transparency settings and the size of the box a bit depending on your layout, but the effect will be to cause your image to fade to black, or darken just enough so text placed on top of it is readable. 

Sometimes, I’ll use 3 or even 4 of these gradient boxes on the edges of a picture to give it a feathered look.

An advantage to doing this sort of image “editing” in PowerPoint, as opposed to Photoshop, is that you can easily adjust the gradient boxes to keep up with changing text and content.

 

Picture Color & Corrections

The Format Picture function in PPT 2010 gives you a host of image correction and editing options including Color Tone, Sharpen/Soften, Brightness/Contrast and other artistic effects.

The tools that get the most workout on my computer are the Saturation and Recolor tools that allow me to quickly turn a photo black & white or create a duotone effect. When faced with a collection of imagery from many sources either on one page or in a whole presentation, changing the coloring of all images is a great way to bring consistency to your presentation.

Below is a before and after slide where I think the change to black and white helps create a more cohesive slide.

Combine Shapes

Microsoft chose to hide this new 2010 feature because, as one former Microsoft employee told me, it wasn’t quite perfected at the time of release. You won’t find this in any default ribbon, but you can easily add it to one of your ribbon tabs or to your Quick Access Toolbar. Go to…

File > Options > Customize Ribbon (or Quick Access Toolbar) > Commands Not in the Ribbon  > Combine Shapes

Once you’ve added it to your ribbon or QAT, you’re ready to roll.

This tool is very similar to Adobe Illustrator’s pathfinder tool which designers have been using for years to easily create unique and complex shapes by combining smaller, simpler ones. The possibilities are truly endless as you are no longer limited to PowerPoint’s default set of shapes. Now, you can combine any of those default shapes into whatever your mind can think up. I have used the tool to create exploded venn diagrams, for example.

The tool gives you 4 options: Union, Combine, Intersect, Subtract; you will get different results depending on which tool you choose and which shapes are on top of others, so the best thing to do is simply play around and experiment. Sometimes it takes a little trial and error. Here’s a quick example of how you might combine shapes to create a human icon.

Once you combine shapes, you can add transparency, gradients, 3D effects and shadows—all things that might not work with multiple overlayed shapes.

If you’d like a more complete tutorial, you can find one at Indezine.com, a great site for all things PowerPoint.

 

Transparent Imagery

While you can adjust the transparency of any imported image in PPT on the Mac, you have to fall back to a workaround on the PC: Create a shape box and then fill it with an image selected from you computer. You can then apply a transparency to this box. 

Making an image transparent is another way of fading an image in the background underneath text. (You can also play with the adjustment controls under Format Picture or place a semi-transparent box on top of an image.)

 

Logo Manipulation

I’ve been using PowerPoint’s Brightness & Contrast controls for years to change the color of logos on the fly. Got a black logo and need it to be white to work over a dark background? No problem, just slide the brightness slider under Format Picture > Picture Corrections… and you’ve got yourself a white logo. Obviously, you can also change a white logo to black. Below is an example of how I changed a black logo to white to work over a background.

Really Advanced Cropping and Stretching

The humble Crop tool can actually be quite powerful if you’re in a bind without access to Photoshop (as I have been on occasion.) Here’s a technique to expand a portion of the negative space of a photo to allow for text.

A. Import and size the photo to the page

B. Duplicate the photo, layer the two images on top of each other, and crop the top image in from the right to the point where the balloons end.

C. Move both images to the right on the page (crop the bottom image to the edge of the page if you like), then stretch the top image horizontally over to the left.

D. The eye won’t notice that the clouds and sky have been horizontally stretched, and now you have much more space to place your text.

This technique obviously works with only certain images, but it’s cool when it does.

 

Words of Warning

Doing your image editing in PPT comes with some caveats.

Because many of these techniques are non-destructive, and the unaltered image remains in the file, you may find on occasion that the effects do not show up when presentations are previewed on a mobile phone (“the photos are still in color on my BlackBerry!”) or when opened on older versions of PPT. Additionally, not all printers or PDF writers love transparency, so you may get some interesting results here.

If you want to be sure that your image edits are permanent in your presentation, consider…

 

Creating an Image with Paste-Special

Usually I recommend keeping everything you can in PPT as editable vectors—for example, it’s much better to use PowerPoint’s line and shape tools to create a graphic if you can, rather than importing the same design from Photoshop.

But occasionally, turning things into an image not only allows you to be 100% certain that your image effect will appear as intended, but you can also do some cool stuff to text, even if it just means using a non-standard font that others may not have installed on their system. 

To turn PPT items into an image, select your element or elements, Copy (cntrl-c) and then Paste Special (cntrl-alt-v) and select either JPG or PNG. Use a PNG if you want your items to be transparent (such as text.)

You can also compose a graphic or table in PPT and convert it to an image to be used as a small thumbnail in other presentations.

 

Other Photo Editing Options

If PPT still isn’t cutting it for you as an image editor, and you feel like you can’t justify purchasing the pricey Photoshop, here are a few other options: 

• Photoshop Elements – $70
• Google’s Picassa – Free
• Photoscape – Free
• Picnik – Free

 

I recently got turned on to the hysterical Alex Blagg and BajillionHitz.biz.

I may be late to the party, but I love this guy’s presentations and interviews. 

And his slides are really good. My favorite below…

 

For a few years now, I have been writing a subscription-only newsletter on better presentation techniques called “Present Your Story.“

If you’re not a subscriber and are wondering what I’m talking about, then you’re probably getting this email because we’re friends or we’ve talked presentation in the past and I think you might like the newsletter. (In any case, sign up here!)

I never wanted it to be, nor has it been, simply a newsletter on PowerPoint or creating better slides. “Presentation” casts a much wider net these days in the worlds of business, government, education and media to name just a few arenas. Today, we communicate through visuals more and more, and “presentation” has simply become the method by which many of us do our most important communicating:

It was a presentation by Colin Powell at the UN that convinced many to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Al Gore’s presentation on global warming brought attention to the issue like little before had. Today’s most influential consumer electronic and computer equipment is introduced in much anticipated presentations by Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. And the TED Conference has succeeded famously in creating forums that bring to the public’s attention through presentation the world’s greatest thought leaders and influencers. (I even had the pleasure of designing a Ted Talk last year.)

It’s Personal

At it’s heart, “Presentation” has always been for me about simply telling stories, something I’ve been doing since I was a kid.

I was actually a professional magician, juggler and circus performer throughout my teens, even performing with the Moscow Circus in the former Soviet Union when I was 14. I got a degree in dramatic writing and theatre, and then spent the next decade writing and directing stories on stages in New York and across the country. And then I found myself creating high-end business presentations for media companies, major television networks, leading foundations and Fortune 500 CEOs.

Today I make my living helping people tell their stories better visually and through presentation. As Director of Presentation for the Public Relations firm, Edelman in New York City, I’m proud to work for one of the most successful and recognized communicators in the business world. 

PresentYourStory.com

Present Your Story no longer lives only in your email inbox. Welcome to PresentYourStory.com, a place for strategies, tips and advice on presenting information on screen. Every newsletter has been archived to the website which is searchable. If you’ve enjoyed the newsletters, you’ll enjoy the site which will have a lot more original content, resources and links about the world of presentation and information design and visual communications.

“So, if there’s a website, should I still subscribe to the newsletter?”

Yes!

I will continue to send out the newsletter with what I consider the most useful information and tips. All newsletter content will also be posted to the site, but as a subscriber, you’ll get it first and delivered right to your inbox. Additionally, I hope to be able to make some special offers and invites available only to subscribers. I know it’s hard to regularly check in with a website, so I encourage you to stay subscribed and, as always, to tell you friends. 

Also, you can visit me on Facebook and on Twitter. I’ll be posting some slightly different and more frequent content here. (Of course, there’s also an RSS feed.)

Any Questions?

If you’ve got any questions about anything, including topics you’d like me write about (“What is this thing called ‘Prezi’ I keep hearing about?”), general frustrations (“How do I convince my client to use fewer words…?”) or technical questions (“How do I animate this in PowerPoint…?”), please email me at nolan@presentyourstory.com. I’ll be more than happy to help in any way I can.

Here’s to better presentation!

 

My friends over at Eyeful Presentations have a great story up about Kulula airlines and standing out from the crowd.

Picasso is famously to have once said that “good artists borrow, but great artists steal.”

Not that I’m a Picasso of presentation, but stealing is exactly how I create many, many presentations.

For years now I have maintained a digital file of good and interesting presentations and graphic design that I come across. And often when I feel the need for inspiration, I’ll browse through my collection for an idea.

I should clarify that I don’t actually steal other designs, but rather I look for interesting elements, colors and use of typography or images that provide a spark for working with my own presentation’s content. I would find it difficult to truly copy another’s presentation design completely, as my approach is always to design content itself, not just graphics around content. And since my content will always be different from my design inspiration, so will my design. (I should point out too that my collection contains some of my own work as it never hurts to be reminded of something that worked well in the past.)

These are slides from 2 presentations I designed. The one on the left had its genesis in a small 2″ web ad. All I remember of the ad was that it used a blue/white gradient that I liked. I copied the gradient, darkened it to allow for white text headers, then started playing with contrasting colors and glossy effects. Eventually, my own design emerged once I began working with content. The one on the right was inspired by a presentation I saw that used red type on a white background. Years of designing financial presentations has made me cautious of the color red for numbers, but I liked the boldness of it for my client’s story, and before long I had a design that “stole” the colors white and red. (Sue me..)

People make bad presentation because they see bad presentations. If you see well-designed, effective presentations regularly, you can’t help but be inspired and follow suit. And you shouldn’t feel bad about appropriating some of those design elements and principles.

There is, of course, a line between inspiration and design theft. But if you are genuinely designing your content, I think you’ll find that even if you start off wholesale copying someone else’s design, you’ll quickly find that you will make it your own as your presentation develops. And just as art students are taught to literally copy master paintings, making an initial copy of another’s effective presentation can teach you how to effectively display information on a screen.

And here are some places where you can find well-designed presentations to serve as inspiration…

SURF
Note and Point — a great new site that showcases well-designed presentations
Slideshare‘s featured and top presentations
Slideshare’s Best Presentation Contest 2010
Duarte Design’s portfolio – The leader in presentation design (and not a bad company to hire if you’re in the market…)

WATCH
TED Talks — Simply the most riveting presenters in the world. And nothing more than 18 minutes long
Steve Jobs keynotes on YouTube

READ
Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
Presentation Design Zen by Garr Reynolds
Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

Take a look at the whole pres here.

 

What the American public remembers of Obama’s SOTU… 

Can a restaurant’s menu present a visual story?

The signage, the decor, the level of service, the napkins even the lighting all contribute to an overall story being told by a restaurant to its diners. But the menu, I would argue, is a prime vehicle for that telling. And some restaurants are using their menus in new ways to communicate.

Recently, I had dinner at Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns, an astonishing restaurant at the forefront of the farm-to-table food movement. Blue Hill’s acknowledged story is one of natural, local and sustainable foods. I’m not sure I’ve eaten anywhere else where the ingredients mattered more than the food—as odd as that might sound. 

And perhaps because of that dynamic, the menu contained not a single of those standard overwritten course descriptions filled with endless adjectives and place names (as mouth-watering as those things sometimes sound.) The right side of the menu contained only the two price-fixe options, an additional cheese course option and a great deal of white space. But the left side was filled with a simple listing of every fresh ingredient that would be part of the evening’s dinner. Blue Hill’s story is their collection of daily-changing ingredients, and it couldn’t have been more clearly told.

Another restaurant that has recently reimagined the restaurant menu by focusing on ingredients is the newly-redesigned Eleven Madison Park. Here, from what I have read, the restaurant wants to establish trust with their diners and “take them for a ride.” Though I have not been to Eleven Madison Park since the relaunch, I imagine the restaurant’s story to be more of an intimate conservation between the kitchen and the table, facilitated by the staff. And the minimalist menu, intended to be read left to right with each line constituting a course, seems to open up that conversation. Or maybe I’m wrong? Is this menu the opposite of a clear story?

A menu, almost by definition, has traditionally been a choose-your-own-adventure situation for the diner, so it’s interesting to see restaurants using their menus to tell their own narrative. 

In other food presentation news, I was just turned on to this fantastic talk by food guru Michael Pollan. There are many things to note in Pollan’s presentation, which was designed by Duarte Design including simple visuals, limited text, making it personal, video, large-full screen images, and “sticky” stories, but my favorite technique he makes use of is that of props. Take a look at the 5:00 mark where Pollan shows how much oil goes into the making of a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. This is a technique Nancy Duarte calls a “S.T.A.R. Moment” (Something They’ll Always Remember) and Carmine Gallo calls a “Holy Shit Moment.” Whatever you call it, it’s far, far more effective than a series of bullets, and will most likely be the one thing I remember from Pollan’s talk 5 days and 5 years from now.

I recently discussed the importance of identifying the bumper sticker of your presentation and not burying the lead. This is crucial for your presentation as a whole, but this thinking can also be applied to individual slides and messages.

I often see buried leads on slides in the form of numbers, and sometimes I find it far more effective to not just highlight the number in the text or in the chart, but to make the slide all about the number.

Here are a couple of examples…

You’ll realize that these slides also hold to a killer (and more disciplined) presentation style of having no meaning absent the speaker’s involvement and explanation. These slides essentially pose a question, and the audience must engage with and listen to the speaker to hear the answer. How great is that? Additionally, you can be sure this will not be a “see-say” presentation.

Keep in mind that slides like this provide no visual context for the numbers themselves. And if your takeaway is that sales increased month over month to a yearly increase of 150%, it might be more appropriate to your story to show a steep line chart that tracks that increase.

When I had to design a presentation on philanthropic giving, I immediately thought of this technique. I was given a very well-written prose outline of the presentation, and the very first sentence was, “We believe that we can guide $10 billion a year in charitable giving to greater impact.” It was such a strong, clear and direct message, that I saw no better solution than to hit the audience over the head right from the start. $10 Billion Dollars was, after all, the bumper sticker of this presentation.

As it happens, however, the presentation went through multiple revisions and for many reasons, my opening slide found itself on the cutting room floor. Before that happened though, this was a subsequent revision that while missing the boldness of design and placement of the first one, now required speaker explanation—something I was very pleased about.