140 slide:ology
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Remember the 3-second rule.
Presentations are a “glance media”—more closely related
to billboards than other media. It requires commuters
to process quickly as they drive past. Imagine having
a billboard full of bullets, drivers would crash trying to
process the ads.
Ask yourself whether your message can be processed
effectively within three seconds. The audience should be
able to quickly ascertain the meaning before turning
their attention back to the presenter. For comparison,
consider that when billboards first appeared, a public
outcry ensued over concerns of driver safety and visual
pollution of the landscape. Interestingly, relatively few
protests have aired against the visual pollution in meeting
rooms across corporate America.
Content should lend itself to quick pro-
cessing, and should be typeset correctly.
When Apple’s Macintosh first debuted, anyone with a
computer could now be a desktop publisher. At Duarte,
we dove in head first and were thrilled when a reputable
design firm invited us in for a portfolio review. While
reviewing our work, the Creative Director’s expressions
and line of questions made me squirm. Over and over, she
asked probing questions about our typesetting decisions.
I could tell she was not impressed. She told us that we
needed to master type if we wanted to stand out from
all the novices entering the field in droves. We took her
advice and studied the masters.
Using Visual Elements: Background, Color, and Text 141
Her advice was timely. Shortly after, we were approached
by Adobe and Apple, who both treat type as a critical
component to the success of their brands. They took as
much care around the treatment of type as they did their
concept, copy, images, and layouts. Our accurately type-
set presentations helped us land these accounts.
Some might say that typesetting isn’t worth the extra
time for a presentation. But type is a fundamental part of
our culture and has been for centuries. Most people can
inherently and easily recognize when type is balanced and
used well.
Before computers, typesetting was a specialized skill and
honorable profession. Digitization of fonts and the advent
of the personal computer spawned a massive generation
of users who don’t understand the context and beauty in
carefully typeset design.
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