colors
Loving Color
January 14, 2008 Filed in: Links
Oops, this and another post went live before I was
ready. Sorry about any surprises in your RSS feeds!
Anyway, I can't remember how I stumbled upon this website, but it's chock full of great color resources for those of you wanting to move away from the safe blacks, grays, and whites you usually see me use around here. The site is called COULORlLovers and it's absolutely filled with articles and opinions about color usage as well as several user-made and rated colors, palettes, and patterns.
Visit COLOURLovers
Anyway, I can't remember how I stumbled upon this website, but it's chock full of great color resources for those of you wanting to move away from the safe blacks, grays, and whites you usually see me use around here. The site is called COULORlLovers and it's absolutely filled with articles and opinions about color usage as well as several user-made and rated colors, palettes, and patterns.
Visit COLOURLovers
Frighteningly Friendly Fonts
August 06, 2007 Filed in: Text &
Fonts
Have you seen any of Hewlett-Packard's recent print
or web advertisements? These have been around for a
while, but I hadn't really paid too much attention to
them until two things happened: we got new HP's at
work, and I received one of their catalogues in the
mail.
In both cases, I kept getting distracted by their font selection. Here are a couple shots of their web ads to illustrate:
x
Why do I feel a sudden urge to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas?
We're in the heat of summer, and this whole campaign looks like Halloween. Even the colors reinforce that feeling. I don't know what feel they intended for this marketing, but "slightly creepy" was probably not the goal. ("They're creepy and they're cooky, the HP family...")
Font and color use contribute to the overall feel of your work – even in slide presentations. Sometimes, going with a default font is okay, but in other instances, you may want to pick and choose between fonts for the best results. I whipped these alternatives up in just a couple of minutes in Keynote, so they're far from perfect. However, I think they offer an alternate feel to the ads. (I'm partial to the laptop example, personally.)
x
How would you change these ads, or do you think they're fine how they are? Remember, if you are using visuals to communicate a message, every element is important, and this includes the font you choose. The wrong font can send your audience a mixed message, so take some time to browse those many fonts available on your computer.
In both cases, I kept getting distracted by their font selection. Here are a couple shots of their web ads to illustrate:
x
Why do I feel a sudden urge to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas?
We're in the heat of summer, and this whole campaign looks like Halloween. Even the colors reinforce that feeling. I don't know what feel they intended for this marketing, but "slightly creepy" was probably not the goal. ("They're creepy and they're cooky, the HP family...")
Font and color use contribute to the overall feel of your work – even in slide presentations. Sometimes, going with a default font is okay, but in other instances, you may want to pick and choose between fonts for the best results. I whipped these alternatives up in just a couple of minutes in Keynote, so they're far from perfect. However, I think they offer an alternate feel to the ads. (I'm partial to the laptop example, personally.)
x
How would you change these ads, or do you think they're fine how they are? Remember, if you are using visuals to communicate a message, every element is important, and this includes the font you choose. The wrong font can send your audience a mixed message, so take some time to browse those many fonts available on your computer.
Making Over Mitt
July 06, 2007 Filed in: Slide
Makeovers
Right now, a set of bad PowerPoint slides is probably
the least of Governor Romney's public relations worries, but
every little bit helps I guess. Anyway, revising
slides is a good practice, so, regardless of how
you or I might personally feel about Governor
Romney, let's take a look at some slides on his
site and how we can improve them just a little.
(Quick note: I'm checking all political opinions
at the door for this post, and I ask you the
courtesy to do the same. This is merely an
academic exercise on improving some common
PowerPoint mistakes.)
From the first slide, it's possible to predict some of the issues we're going to run into while going through Mr. Romney's visuals. Too much text is on the slide. The planet graphic is obviously clip art, and overall, the slide is pretty hard on the eyes.
x
Even though the title slide is unnecessary in and of itself, using it sets a tone for the entire presentation. You want it to look nice. In this alteration, most of the text has been cut from the slide, focusing on two words: "values" and "freedom." I retained the global theme but used a higher quality image from Corbis. Also, I used a color scheme that suggests patriotism and bipartisan qualities. The text is a very classic-looking font called Cochin.
I had a hard time deciding what to do with the next slide (only partially because I couldn't read some of the text at all), but I think it would be appropriate to divide this single slide into multiple slides – taking a thematic approach rather than chronological.
x
A strong theme that I took away from this slide is Romney's desire to discredit Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I retained the color scheme from the first slide and faded a common media image of Ahmadinejad into the background, focusing on one quote in particular. The presenter could keep this background intact while transitioning between facts and quotes rather than cramming tons of tiny text together. Font sizes on my version of this slide are 64 points and 96 points.
The final slide in this re-imagining contains a couple of quotes by Tony Blair. A similar approach to the preceding slide seems best, and this should be broken up into two slides because there are two quotes.
x
Because Tony Blair is placed in opposition to Ahmadinejad in this presentation, he is facing the opposite direction. Also, I removed "Marketing Values" as the title. Talking about war in terms of marketing just doesn't seem to fit in with the themes of freedom and values. I'm not sure what Romney was trying to communicate with that title, but I think it sends a wrong message.
Every aspect of your slides – from the graphics used to the font to the color scheme to the amount of text – creates a feel for your presentation. The visual aspects of your presentation can either be powerful tools that help create a memorable experience for the audience, or they can serve as mindless filler that facilitates the audience in filtering you and your message out. If you prepare slides, create visuals that enhance your message and that serve as an evocative backdrop to your own performance. If you are in politics, such attention to detail might even help your momentum.
From the first slide, it's possible to predict some of the issues we're going to run into while going through Mr. Romney's visuals. Too much text is on the slide. The planet graphic is obviously clip art, and overall, the slide is pretty hard on the eyes.
x
Even though the title slide is unnecessary in and of itself, using it sets a tone for the entire presentation. You want it to look nice. In this alteration, most of the text has been cut from the slide, focusing on two words: "values" and "freedom." I retained the global theme but used a higher quality image from Corbis. Also, I used a color scheme that suggests patriotism and bipartisan qualities. The text is a very classic-looking font called Cochin.
I had a hard time deciding what to do with the next slide (only partially because I couldn't read some of the text at all), but I think it would be appropriate to divide this single slide into multiple slides – taking a thematic approach rather than chronological.
x
A strong theme that I took away from this slide is Romney's desire to discredit Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I retained the color scheme from the first slide and faded a common media image of Ahmadinejad into the background, focusing on one quote in particular. The presenter could keep this background intact while transitioning between facts and quotes rather than cramming tons of tiny text together. Font sizes on my version of this slide are 64 points and 96 points.
The final slide in this re-imagining contains a couple of quotes by Tony Blair. A similar approach to the preceding slide seems best, and this should be broken up into two slides because there are two quotes.
x
Because Tony Blair is placed in opposition to Ahmadinejad in this presentation, he is facing the opposite direction. Also, I removed "Marketing Values" as the title. Talking about war in terms of marketing just doesn't seem to fit in with the themes of freedom and values. I'm not sure what Romney was trying to communicate with that title, but I think it sends a wrong message.
Every aspect of your slides – from the graphics used to the font to the color scheme to the amount of text – creates a feel for your presentation. The visual aspects of your presentation can either be powerful tools that help create a memorable experience for the audience, or they can serve as mindless filler that facilitates the audience in filtering you and your message out. If you prepare slides, create visuals that enhance your message and that serve as an evocative backdrop to your own performance. If you are in politics, such attention to detail might even help your momentum.
A Colorful Idea
August 04, 2006 Filed in: Graphics &
Images
Sometimes we want our presentations to be more
colorful than the standard subdued grays, whites, and
blacks. Often, unfortunately, the use of more bold
colors in a presentation often leads to something
that can make your audience's eyes cry out in pain.
Too often, I've seen (and I bet you have too) slides
that are just plain difficult to look at because of
the way color is abused.
Try staring at this for 60 seconds without blinking.
Unfortunately good color resources can cost a lot of money, but here is a way to gather some good color ideas without spending anything (provided you already own a scanner).Go to Lowe's paint department, and look for the American Tradition display. All along the display of color samples are tiny little booklets called "Color Ideas." The first neat thing about these booklets is the explanation of monochromatic, complimentary, and analogous color schemes.
The other aspect of these booklets I like is that they have sample color schemes that show an example of complimentary, monochromatic, and analogous (as well as pictures of rooms decorated in the selected colors). Below is one of the sample color selections from a booklet.
So how do I use these? First, I scan them and crop them down to what you see above – just the bars of colors. These color bars are stored in iPhoto, and I can use Apple's system color picker to choose one of the colors in the image. (To invoke Apple's color picker in any application, use the keyboard command "Cmd-Shift-C.") This allows me to use these color schemes as templates for any document or presentation I am working on.
The color picker in action.
In addition to these schemes, you have a color wheel built right into the color picker, and this allows you to look for your own analogous, monochromatic, or complimentary colors for your slides.
After tweaking the layout of the slide and adjusting my selected colors just a hair, the final result is hopefully much more pleasing than the slide that opened this entry:
Color is a powerful tool – it is emotional and impacting. However, color can also be distracting if used incorrectly. Here is just one way to use some free resources to make batter use of colors in your documents and presentations, hopefully helping you make a better impact when you use slides or handouts to facilitate visual communication.
Try staring at this for 60 seconds without blinking.
Unfortunately good color resources can cost a lot of money, but here is a way to gather some good color ideas without spending anything (provided you already own a scanner).Go to Lowe's paint department, and look for the American Tradition display. All along the display of color samples are tiny little booklets called "Color Ideas." The first neat thing about these booklets is the explanation of monochromatic, complimentary, and analogous color schemes.
The other aspect of these booklets I like is that they have sample color schemes that show an example of complimentary, monochromatic, and analogous (as well as pictures of rooms decorated in the selected colors). Below is one of the sample color selections from a booklet.
So how do I use these? First, I scan them and crop them down to what you see above – just the bars of colors. These color bars are stored in iPhoto, and I can use Apple's system color picker to choose one of the colors in the image. (To invoke Apple's color picker in any application, use the keyboard command "Cmd-Shift-C.") This allows me to use these color schemes as templates for any document or presentation I am working on.
The color picker in action.
In addition to these schemes, you have a color wheel built right into the color picker, and this allows you to look for your own analogous, monochromatic, or complimentary colors for your slides.
After tweaking the layout of the slide and adjusting my selected colors just a hair, the final result is hopefully much more pleasing than the slide that opened this entry:
Color is a powerful tool – it is emotional and impacting. However, color can also be distracting if used incorrectly. Here is just one way to use some free resources to make batter use of colors in your documents and presentations, hopefully helping you make a better impact when you use slides or handouts to facilitate visual communication.
Simple As Black & White
July 16, 2006 Filed in: Text &
Fonts
Text color can be a tricky thing in presentations. We
want to be somewhat color-coordinated when we
assemble our slides, but sometimes we create text
that blends in with those slides as a result. It's
not unusual to see, for example, darker blue text on
a light blue background. In the images below, the
first picture is the theme default for text color in
Apple Keynote's Watercolor theme. In the second
image, I've merely changed the text to black.
Sitting at your computer, the first example picture is not so bad, but imagine trying to read it in the back of a 400-seat auditorium or even the back of a standard classroom. See, contrast is important.
Unfortunately, we can sometimes make grievous errors in regards to contrast. Take a look at the next two examples:
The background is darker in these examples, and the text definitely contrasts the background in our first picture. I don't know about you, but that hurts my eyes, though. I've seen this more in PowerPoint than in Keynote, but it can be fixed by simply changing the text to a neutral color – white in this case.
In general, black and white are the best choices when putting text on slides. Yes, color is nice on occasion. My slides on attachment use colored text in small doses as do two of my sermon presentations. However, when playing with color, it can be easy to make your slides harder to read. When in doubt, use black on light backgrounds and white on dark, plain and simple.
Sitting at your computer, the first example picture is not so bad, but imagine trying to read it in the back of a 400-seat auditorium or even the back of a standard classroom. See, contrast is important.
Unfortunately, we can sometimes make grievous errors in regards to contrast. Take a look at the next two examples:
The background is darker in these examples, and the text definitely contrasts the background in our first picture. I don't know about you, but that hurts my eyes, though. I've seen this more in PowerPoint than in Keynote, but it can be fixed by simply changing the text to a neutral color – white in this case.
In general, black and white are the best choices when putting text on slides. Yes, color is nice on occasion. My slides on attachment use colored text in small doses as do two of my sermon presentations. However, when playing with color, it can be easy to make your slides harder to read. When in doubt, use black on light backgrounds and white on dark, plain and simple.