Simple & Visual: Using paper and digital video to bring clarity to complexity
April 19, 2008
Following up on the very simple visual style from The Story of Stuff presentation below, I'm going to point you to some other creative, smart people in the next few posts who are using simple drawings and other elements to enhance their presentations. Today, I'd like to point you to a very cool company called Common Craft. Here's what they do in their own words:
"We use video and paper to make complex ideas easy to understand. We present subjects 'in plain English' using short, unique and understandable videos in a format we call Paperworks."
I love the way they merge visuals from the analog world to tell stories digitally. They are fantastic storytellers. I'm sure you can apply a trick or two from their creative style to one of your future presentations in slideware, etc. The video below is their latest one which explains what Twitter is. It's very timely for me as I have just begun to use Twitter myself (I know, I'm slow. But I didn't really see the need personally. Now I am beginning to get it. Here's my Twitter page. You're welcome to follow me. I'll also post more links on Twitter from time to time that don't make it into the Presentation Zen website.) Below are a couple of samples from Common Craft.
Twitter in Plain English
• The Common Craft YouTube page (all their cool video presentations).
Thanks for posting this. These are good visuals I tend to understand information better if it's presented with a visual. It's creative way to communicate.
Posted by: Kristina | April 20, 2008 at 01:18 PM
Thanks for posting this. These are good visuals. I tend to understand information better if it's presented with a visual. It's a creative way to communicate.
Posted by: Kristina | April 20, 2008 at 01:20 PM
Agreed. They are quite brilliant. Their idea is sound and a lot of us are hit with that why-didn't-I-think-of-that-feeling. They really know how to tell a story effectively and I'm sure they put a lot of work into making it seem so obvious.
Posted by: T. Benjamin Larsen | April 20, 2008 at 04:29 PM
brilliant! I saw many examples in their website. Note that their work has nothing to do (visually) with the visual identity of the brands they work for. They use their own look (branding) - not the brand's. This is different and interesting.
Posted by: Ranen Carmel | April 21, 2008 at 01:18 AM
Thanks for linking to Common Craft, I hadn't realized that there were a number of videos beyond "Wikis in plain English", which I have already used for introducing the topic to different groups in our company.
Posted by: Susan | April 21, 2008 at 01:47 AM
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