Presentation Zen

10 non-PowerPoint books that can help you create better presentations

To learn how to design and deliver better presentations, we need to pull from many educational sources. Books are good, but which ones? I don't usually suggest PowerPoint or Keynote "how-to" books, but instead recommend reading books from various design and communication fields to stretch your knowledge and perspective. Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte is great, of course, and there are many others that I've suggested over the years. Below are ten additional books I can highly recommend; three of them I have recommended before.

PRESENTATIONS & SPEAKING

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo.
Since I began this website in 2005, I've talked about the presentation style of Steve Jobs ad nauseam (for example: here, here, here, here, here, and many more). Carmine Gallo does a great job of summarizing all the many good things that Jobs does in his famous Apple keynotes, and he provides concrete takeaways. The point is not to present like Steve Jobs — each case after all is very different — but there are many lessons to be learned by careful observation of the Steve Jobs keynote. A very nice read that just may change the way you present. (Amazon link.)

Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun.
I met Scott Berkun in Sweden this year and spent some time with him in Denmark discussing public speaking and what it takes to be an effective presenter. Scott, a former Microsoft manager, is a great guy and he's a very experienced presenter. If you do a lot of public speaking, you'll get a kick out of Scott's stories. And if you are thinking about starting a speaking career, Scott provides a lot of interesting tips and lessons. Teachers — who speak in front of people every day — may also find the book useful. (Amazon link.)


PHOTOGRAPHY

Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Boxed Set (Volumes 1, 2, and 3) by Scott Kelby.
I have almost all of Scott Kelby's photography books. He writes in a very informal, engaging style and there's a reason he's the #1 computer book author for five straight years: his books help people learn. I love Scott's work so much, I asked him to contribute tips for the Presentation Zen Design book (he offers 10 tips for taking better photos). These Digital Photography books are colorful, instructive, and aimed at the novice photographer who wants to get a lot better. I found them very useful (especially for the price). You can buy the books individually or as a set. (Amazon link.)

VISUALIZATION OF DATA

Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis by Stephen Few.
I have all of Stephen Few's books — he's the Zen Master of presenting data as far as I am concerned. I saw Stephen present in Seattle this summer at the Tableau Conference and we had a chance to spend some time together before the event. He's a fantastic presenter on stage and he's a very down-to-earth guy who knows how to visualize data and how to help others get better at displaying quantitative information more clearly. This is a big hardcover book with some really good lessons. (Amazon link.)

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Visual Language for Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics that People Understand by Connie Malamed.
This is a really large book that begins with a section on how we process visual information and then goes on to introduce principles and techniques that help you understand how to organize for perception, how to direct the eye, clarify complexity, and simplify visuals. This hardcover book has many excellent examples. Beginners will benefit tremendously from the book, but I think many designers will also find the book a good addition to their library. Connie Malamed's website.  (Amazon link.)

Before & After: How to Design Cool Stuff by John McWade.
John McWade — known to many as "the world’s first desktop publisher" — is the founder and creative director of Before & After and the author of numerous books on graphic design (this is his latest). John was kind enough to contribute his tips for making better slides for the PZD book. I've been a big fan of John's for a long time and this latest book is his best one yet. Loads of simple, practical, visual lessons. Check out the Before & After website. (Amazon link.)

Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual by Timothy Samara.
This is a really good book that I have mentioned before which both beginners and experienced designers may enjoy. The book does an excellent job at covering the fundamentals but also goes into some depth with many good examples. I like how Samara starts out the book by discussing just what graphic design is and what designers do. I especially like his "20 Basic Rules of Good Design." (Amazon link.)

A  Field Guide to Digital Color by Maureen Stone.
There are many books on color, but this one focuses on digital color and provides a great deal of depth. This is not really a book for novices, but it's an excellent book for designers of all types. I met Maureen Stone in Seattle this summer and saw one of her presentations. She's an excellent presenter and teacher. Maureen spent twenty years working at Xerox PARC on color printing, digital color, interactive computer graphics, illustration and design systems. She knows her stuff. (She was also kind enough to contribute a nice callout section for the color chapter in the PZD book.) This is an excellent book. (Amazon link.)

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition) by Steve Krug.
You might think a book on web usability design has little to do with presentations, but the lessons in this simple book have applications beyond the web. If you have even just a small interest in how to design websites that minimizes cognitive strain and make information clearer, you may find this book helpful. This classic is only about 200 pages and is a quick read with many good lessons that will make you a better judge of what works and what doesn't in a website. Steve Krug's website. (Amazon link.)

CREATIVITY

If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Breda Ueland.
I have mentioned this book before, but it's a must-read. This is not only a book about writing. In fact, it's much more a book about the imagination, spirit, and creativity. We need more art and creativity in our personal and professional lives; this book gets you thinking. A lot of people, including myself, have found this simple book to be quite inspirational. It was first published in 1938 and it's still a very relevant book today. (Amazon link.)

Presentation at Apple Store Ginza (Tokyo) Dec 15, 7:00 pm

On Tuesday (December 15), I will be presenting (in English) in the theatre at the Apple Store Ginza beginning at 7:00 pm. I'll be sharing some simple visual principles and design lessons from the world around us that can be applied to presentation design and beyond. I'll talk a bit about the contents of the new book — presentation zen design — which went to press last week and we'll have some copies of the first book in English and Japanese to give away (PZD will not be available until about Dec 27). If you are in Tokyo this Tuesday, it would be great to meet you at the Apple Store. If you can't be there, I hope you will pass on this announcement to your friends in Tokyo. 本当にありがとう！

Update
About 130 people showed up in Ginza for the presentation. There are only 84 seats in the theatre so many sat on the floor or stood in the back. Great audience. We gave away a lot of books and loads of iStockphoto image credits. Presentation was done in about an hour and we took another hour meeting people and signing books, etc. Alex Fung from Hong Kong took some snaps here. Hiroaki Yamane took this photo of me taking a photo of him in Ginza. A big ありがとう！ to everyone who attended. Fantastic group!

Hans Rosling & the art of storytelling with statistics

Hans Rosling is the Zen Master of presenting statistics. He's brilliant. Hans proves what we all know, even if our teachers from yesteryear did not: Statistics are not boring. Statistics tell a story. Hans gave this talk at TEDIndia a couple of weeks ago. (I heard from friends who attended TEDIndia that the entire event was incredible; I must get there next year.) This may be the best Hans Rosling TED talk yet (all his talks are fantastic). He's natural, funny, passionate, and he knows his points and where he's going with them—and he's very, very visual. And what a great stage—that's the best TED stage atmosphere I've seen yet. Do yourself a favor and set aside 15 minutes to watch this informative talk. Better yet, share it with others.

Gapminder World
Gapminder World is a web service that displays time series of development statistics for all countries (Google acquired Trendalyzer from the Gapminder Foundation in 2006). Gapminder World is a powerful (free) tool. Increasingly, we're running out of excuses to be dull. Remember: Do not simply display data—present the data so that its story is revealed to all.


Gapminder World is loaded with over 200 indicators displaying trends in some cases back as far as the year 1800. Gapminder World is an amazing tool that is especially useful for educators or anyone else who is interested in "unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view."

Using Kuler to create color themes

Although scores of good books on color theory have been written — many even for non-designers — most working professionals just do not have the time to delve deeply into a study of the complexities of using color. The good news is that there are online resources that can help you create harmonious color themes without requiring advance knowledge in color theory. There are a few really good online resources such as ColorSchemer and Colourlovers, but my personal favorite is Kuler. Kuler is a web-based color tool from Adobe that has thousands of community-generated color themes from which you can search, but the best thing about Kuler is that you can easily make your own themes. Once you register with Kuler (it's very quick), you can begin to create your own color themes or palettes and store, view, and retrieve all your saved themes in your personal Mykuler space. There are two ways to create unique color themes: either by selecting a single color on the color wheel as your base color and building off of that, or by importing an image from Flickr or your hard disk and extracting harmonious combinations from the image.

Extract colors from an image
One of the coolest ways to assemble a unique color theme for a presentation is to create a simple palette by extracting colors from a key image that you think represents the appropriate colors for your talk. You can do something similar to this within your slideware application, of course, but Kuler can do it automatically and give you some additional options for tweaking the colors. After you upload an image, Kuler automatically uses its color extraction tool to generate a theme of five colors from the image. You can then adjust the entire theme by changing what Kuler calls the "mood" of the theme. You can select from Colorful, Bright, Muted, Deep, and Dark moods which are based on the colors extracted from your image. After you decide which mood is the best fit, you can then save it to your account, share it with the community if you like, and even download it as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file. To get the theme into your slideware, you may have to take a screen shot of the theme and then use your slideware's color picker to save the colors into a new theme for your presentation.

Sample: Image from nature
In Wabi Sabi Style, James and Sandra Crowley say "Nature is a master colorist. Anything and everything one could possibly want to learn about creating color schemes, color contrasting, and coordination can be gleaned straight from nature itself." So why not try making a unique color theme from a photo of a nature scene.


Above: I used an image not from a photo but from a video clip taken during a trip to the beach last summer in the USA. The sandy, brownish-grays and blues of a (sunny) summer day in Cannon Beach, Oregon create a simple, refreshing palette.


Above: After I saved the original color theme, I chose the "make changes/view color values" option which presents you with many options for adjusting your theme. Here I select a new base color on the far right.


Above: Then I chose "Monochromatic" which adjusts the four other colors in terms of value and saturation — but the hue stays the same (as you can see in the color wheel). The base color of "gray" had a bit of yellow/brown from the rock.

 
Above: The sample slides use colors from the two themes created in Kuler shown above (plus white for the labels). More black was added to the background color in the second slide to increase contrast with the foreground.

Create theme from a color
Any introduction to color theory includes a discussion on the different rules for combining colors. For most people, however, the terms found in color theory are rather abstract; people just want a way to choose and mix colors that form a harmonious relationship. The Kuler website allows you to select a color of your choice and then apply harmony rules such as Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, and Shades that are based on some of the basic tried-and-true principles from color theory. All you have to do, then, is select a base color and a color rule to quickly create harmonious themes, or use the Custom rule to select colors individually. You can use one of your own themes — or one of the public themes — to create a new theme starting from the selection of a single color. After you decide on a theme, you may want to adjust the relative value of some of the colors — that is, make them lighter or darker — to make sure you have good contrast.

 
Above: Using three colors from a theme called "organic" plus white to create this slide. Not crazy about it, but perhaps it could be used in a presentation on organic farming, etc.

Experiment and play with the tool
You can spend hours playing around with Kuler, but this is not wasted time if it helps you see how color harmonies can be created by adjusting hue, value, and saturation. For actual presentation themes, you'll want to keep the number of different hues to a minimum. The mantra is always to use color for a reason and with restraint, but for the purposes of teaching yourself more about how colors can work together, it's OK to go a little wild sometimes. I'm certain many of you already know about Kuler, but for those of you who do not, I hope you enjoy experimenting with it. Kuler has a great community and it's a wonderful online tool.

  
Colors were extracted from the photo of the salmon and rice to create the color theme.

Update: Please checkout the post on my Posterous site concerning a cool plug-in for saving your themes created in Kuler so that they show up in your Mac apps. (Anyone know if there is something as simple and powerful as Mondrianum for the PC?)

Presentación Zen: Por fin! La versión en español ya está disponible

I'm happy to announce that the Presentation Zen book is finally available in Spanish. The book follows the same design and layout as the original English version. Spanish was the most requested translation so we're delighted that it is finally on sale. I'm not sure exactly where you can get the book in your area, but here is info on the Pearson Educación website.


Above: A photo of the front and back covers.

The Presentation Zen DVD on Amazon and elsewhere also includes Spanish (and Japanese and English) subtitles. Thanks to everyone at Pearson for their hard work and to everyone across the globe who kept requesting a Spanish translation. Muchas gracias!

Muchas gracias a todos los hispanohablantes de todo el mundo.

The art of control without controlling, doing without doing

As a leader — in business, education, or design — how much control do you need? How much can you give up? Is control even the right word? Is it possible to lead without leading? Here is a great TED talk that will get you thinking that has applications for leaders of all types. Former conductor Itay Talgam today runs workshops to help people develop a musician's sense of collaboration, and a conductor's sense of leadership. In this excellent talk at TED Oxford, Itay touches on the art of creating perfect harmony without saying a word by showing the unique styles of six great 20th-century conductors. I point to this presentation for the content, but the delivery and smooth use of video clips to illustrate his points is a good example of how to connect with an audience and get them to think differently.



Questions to consider

• Can you lead with less control or a different kind of control?
• Must "control" be a zero-sum game?
• Is there joy in leading by helping other people tell their own stories?
• Is leadership only about technique or is it more about meaning?
• Are we using team members, employees, or students as instruments for our own ends or are they viewed as partners, where their development is a central consideration for us?
• Is not leadership also about creating the processes, structure, and conditions that allow team members to perform autonomously? Can you still be "in control" and let people be/feel free? Can the structure create the conditions for that freedom?

The best line of the talk: Apparently when Strauss was 30, says Itay Talgam, he wrote the "10 commandments for conductors." My favorite commandment? "Never look at the trombones; it only encourages them." As someone who played trombone in the orchestra all through my school years, I greatly enjoyed that line.

Related
• Benjamin Zander on music and passion

Tokonoma and the art of the focal point

Every good design needs a focal point. This goes for the design of interior living spaces as well. In many Western homes, the mantel place in the living room is often a focal point from which other interior design elements are added in a more or less symmetrical fashion. In traditional Japanese homes or modern homes containing a washitsu (Japanese-style room) it is the Tokonoma (床の間) that serves as the subtle focal point for the interior. The tokonoma (lit: floor/bed + space) is a raised alcove in which Japanese art such as a hanging scroll (Kakemono) or a flower arrangement is displayed. A custom of having this built-in recessed space in a Japanese room goes back more than 500 years, and while the tokonoma has lost much of its early religious nature, it's still very much an honored part of the Japanese room. Standing inside the tokonoma is not allowed. When you gather in a traditional Japanese room, the most honored guest would be seated in front of the tokonoma. However, in another example of traditional Japanese refinement and humility, it's said that the guest should be seated facing away from the tokonoma so that you do not appear to be showing off the artistic content of the tokonoma. In the West, the mantel often has a large picture or other artifact hanging above it that remains for years or as long as the residents occupy the home. By contrast, the art work in the tokonoma changes throughout the year based on the season or the occasion.

Empty "small" can seem "big"
Emptiness can create spaciousness and a feeling of openness even in relatively small areas. Regardless of the size of the washitsu, because Japanese did not use furniture but sat directly on the warm and comfortable tatami mats (historically at least), the rooms had a feeling of spaciousness. This is because there was virtually nothing else in the room to distract your attention. It is the emptiness or exclusion of nonessential decoration or other items that allows even the smallest rooms to feel more spacious and guide the eye to the focal point of the room. Because the room is not cluttered with myriad furnishings, souvenirs, and other possessions, the eye can more easily notice and then linger on the art contained in the tokonoma. A bare washitsu, built with natural elements, is a design with a close connection to nature. This harmonious balance with nature, and the garden just outside the walls of the room, is reflected in the seasonal contents of the Tokonoma itself. In a way, then, the spaciousness of the room extends beyond the room itself to the vastness of the outside world.

Above: Traditional-style tea rooms (chashitsu) can come in many sizes but are typically 4.5 tatami mats in size. The materials to build the tea room (or a tea house) are simple and rustic in the wabi style. The tokonoma in a Japanese tea room is especially situated so that it is the focal point of the room. Because you enter the tea room directly across from the Tokonoma in most cases, the artistic content is the first thing in the room you will notice. As Okakura Kakuzo notes in The Book of Tea, as guests enter quietly into the tea room, they first make "obeisance to the picture or flower arrangement on the tokonoma." The walls of a chashitsu, and traditional Japanese-style rooms in general, are kept bare and simple.

Screens, Scrolls, and Tokonoma
In this video clip below you can view a good explanation of the traditional Japanese interior and see how screens, scrolls, and the tokonoma fit with the Japanese aesthetic concerning space. For example, the folding screen served a clear function for dividing larger spaces, creating private areas, and even blocking out drafts in the winter, but the screens also became objects of art and beauty in themselves. In large Japanese rooms, the screens could also be used to form a beautiful focal point and form a beautiful backdrop for the occasion.



Lessons from the Tokonoma
A few general lessons you can apply to presentation design and other forms of design as well.

• A powerful focal point need not be overbearing or fancy.
• Emptiness creates spaciousness which assists the viewer in discovering the focal point.
• Subtle contrast can more easily create interest when there are fewer elements rather than many.
• Exclusion of the decorative and non-essential from other areas allows a focal point to be created in a composition using only simple elements (or a single element).
• An intentionally created area of contrast brings the viewer in to the primary focal point and guides the eye to the secondary focal point, the third, and so on without confusion.
• Eschew symmetry in favor of asymmetrical balance where possible.
  
  

Samples: focal point in graphics
Below are a few before/after slides. The "after" slides are the kind used in support of live talks where all of the words are coming from the speaker. The slides on the left show a rather arbitrary placement of elements and have poor hierarchy and dominance. There is contrast in the slides on the left but it is not clear why some things stick out and others do not. What are we suppose to look at first, second, third? The eye will tend to wander. The slides on the right have better design priority or focal point. First removing extraneous information from the slides on the left helped in the creation of better clarity for the slides on the right. The samples here are very simple, but the general idea can be applied to more complex slides as well. Just have it clear in your mind where you want people to go first (second, third, etc.) when the visual is shown.

 

 

 

Personal note: Mixing traditional with modern
Early this year, with the help of a great architect, my wife and I designed our new house in the Nara countryside. We'll soon leave the big city for a slower-paced and I hope more reflective life in the country. Although the house would be considered a more modern design, it is a design that includes lots of open space and natural light and includes a washitsu with a tokonoma. Below left you can see the floor plan for the washitsu; the highlighted part is the tokonoma. The picture below right shows the location of the washitsu and tokonoma (arrow) in the house which is still under construction. The elevated room is open to the rest of the house, but the screens can slide shut for privacy when the room is used to house a guest. Though it is a multi-purpose washitsu, we will indeed invite over local Tea Masters from time to time to experience chado or "the way of tea" (tea ceremony). Except for a work of art or two in the tokonoma, the room will remain always empty and free from clutter.

 

Sumi-e, color, and the art of less

A fundamental design and life lesson from the Zen arts is to never use more when less will do. This goes for the use of color as well. The problem with most slide presentations is not that visuals contain too few colors, it's that they contain too many. A common practice is to use several different vivid hues (colors) in presentation slides when even a single hue in various shades or tints would have been more effective. The ancient art of Japanese brush painting called Sumi-e (墨絵) provides a powerful lesson concerning the use of color, communication, and restraints. Sumi-e was brought to Japan from China and is an art deeply rooted in Zen, embodying many of the tenets of the Zen aesthetic including simplicity and the idea of maximum effect with minimum means. In Sumi-e, great works are achieved with only black ink on washi (rice paper) or silk scroll. Using the black ink to achieve several variations of tones, we learn that powerful visual messages can be created with a single "color" in the form of different shades and tints. (The painting on the right is by Kathleen Scott, a talented Sumi-e instructor at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.)

In Sumi-e, much is expressed through a combination of empty space and monochromatic strokes that range from the extremely light gray to black. Yet a red seal is placed in the composition when the work is complete in such a way that it contributes to the balance of the picture. Red, of course (it's more of a reddish "flesh tone" called shuniku), would pop out in a sea of black, gray, and white empty space and draw much attention to itself. But in the Sumi-e paintings the stamp is small and stands out in a far more harmonious way that serves to anchor the flow of the composition. Sometimes the stamp is meant to be the first thing that attracts the eye; in other works it may be created to serve more as the end point. Either way the lesson is clear: few colors carefully selected and positioned can be more effective than many colors indiscriminately placed.

The value of light-dark
Nōtan (濃淡) is a Japanese concept describing the use of light and dark aspects of a design in a balanced and harmonious way. Whether you use many hues or just shades of gray in your own design work, the effective creation of light and dark elements in a design is fundamental to its clarity. Imagine, for example, a colorful painting that still maintains much of its clarity even in very low light conditions. It was the careful use of light and dark in the composition that contributes to the picture's interest and expressiveness even when the hues become nearly imperceptible. Using colors can be very effective for establishing emphasis or setting a mood, but it's the careful use of the visual's light and dark elements that will contribute most to the visual's clarity. Although the sumi (ink) is black, it is possible through technique to create many shades of gray or many "colors." This use of color and arrangement of light and dark is effective for creating depth and movement in a composition. The lesson from Sumi-e regarding color is simple: more can be achieved with less, not more. 

Expressing the essence with less
The objective of Sumi-e is not to recreate the subject to look perfectly like the original, but to capture its essence — that is, to express its essence. This is achieved not with more but with less. Therefore, useless details are omitted and every brush stroke contains meaning and purpose. The minimum amount of strokes or lines are used to convey meaning. Each brush stroke is meaningful and has a purpose. There is no dabbling or going back to make corrections. The ink is indelible and you have one chance to get it right. The strokes themselves, then, are said to serve as a good metaphor for life itself. That is, there is no moment except for this moment. You can't go back, there is only now.

Sumi-e is another example of an art that embodies the very essence of simplicity and yet is in practice complex and takes a lifetime to master. This aspect of the art of Sumi-e too is a metaphor for life: One never truly masters the art of life or achieves perfection. The pursuit of perfection is the journey, and the journey is what it's all about.

8 key lessons from Sumi-e

1. More can be expressed with less.
2. Never use more (color) when less will do.
3. Omit useless details to expose the essence.
4. Careful use of light-dark is important for creating clarity and contrast.
5. Use color with a clear purpose and informed intention.
6. Clear contrast, visual suggestion, and subtlety can exist harmoniously in one composition.
7. In all things: balance, clarity, harmony, simplicity.
8. What looks easy is hard (but worth it).
   

Applying the lessons to the common slide
Below are two different designs of the same simple bar chart. If we remove the hues by changing the slides to grayscale we can then see the luminance values and the contrast — or lack of contrast — between light and dark areas of the slide.

 
ABOVE The first "colorful" slide is not only a bit unpleasant to look at, it's not clear what part of the chart is emphasized. If we change it to grayscale, the bars for USA and UK look almost the same. For those with some form of colorblindness, it may be unclear which bar is being emphasized, if any. In such a simple chart this may not be a big problem, but for more complex charts this lack of clarity will be an issue. There is a cool website called Vischeck that can check your images or webpage to see how they might appear for people with various forms of CVD (color vision deficiency). Test your images here.

 
ABOVE The orange used in the first slide clearly emphasizes the top bar. When turned to grayscale, the difference in value still makes it clear which bar was emphasized (although the bottom three have more contrast, the top bar is clearly different). Again, with such a simple chart, it may not seem like the biggest thing in the world to get right. But it all matters. And for more complex information graphics, it is essential that we use light and dark effectively.

As color expert Maureen Stone has said: "Get it right in black and white." That is, pay attention to the luminance or value in a graphic, not just the hues (colors). "Remember," says Maureen  "most ideas can be well-presented in black and white. Add color carefully and for a purpose, and your results will be both beautiful and functional." I highly recommend Maureen's wonderfully detailed book called A Field Guide to Digital Color. This is the definitive book on digital color.

Links
• Checkout Master Sumi-e artist and jazz musician Drue Kataoka's website and blog. Impressive person. I always love jazz musicians who see the connection between Zen and jazz (or the other way around).
• Go here on Google to see myriad videos on how to do Sumi-e.