I've recently (mentally) dug up an old presentation: Art Theory for Engineers. I kinda irritated some co-workers a few years back, when I not-at-all-subtly suggested that their uninformative and over-stuffed PowerPoint presentations looked awful, and they'd actually be more effective if they thought about eye/brain intake and color theory. Which was true! They prompty ignored my advice and kept presenting ineffective slides.
I mean, yes, the school mascot is kinda funny to have in print and completely enhances all of your cool scientific data. Especially graphs. Totally helps on graphs and points out the pertinent information. And flying-in or swirling out bullet points? Very impressive, because no one else thought of using that.
Oh sarcasm...
Where does art theory come into slides? It's all in your eyes. What were your eyes designed to do originally? See stuff that thinks it's about to eat you. Pretty important. Therefore, your eyes (and brain) are fantastic at picking out fine movements (based on high-contrast light and shadow) and bright out-of-place colors. Bright color, fine details. Let's take a look at what makes ads effective:
Lovely turkey dinner, just in time for Thanksgiving! What's the first thing your eyes focus on? Probably the turkey. Why? It's the bright white fine twine on the leg trusses. That's detail and contrast. The second thing your eyes focus on? Probably the wonderfully fluffy mashed potatoes (and you know they've got the right of butter in there, along with the potato skins for extra contrast). They're the next brightest thing, and in close proximity to the string/turkey. Then you follow the shiny silver immersion blender across to the left, which leads you to the patterned orange and yellow dishtowel, up to a similarly-colored wine glass, and back to the turkey. On your second pass, you'll probably notice that the knife block points to a lemon-yellow cassarole pot. You probably still won't notice the bowls of Granny Smith apples or cranberries in the background, not to mention the colander of whole potatoes in the front right.
So, what are they selling? Obviously since it's Crate and Barrel, they want you to buy kitchen stuff. From the picture, it's mostly about the food that happens to be sitting in and around kitchen stuff. Food is a fantastic motivator (hooray for the primitive brain), so it makes sense to make you hungry for, uh, roasting pans.
Let's try another:
This one's actually pretty clever at moving your eye around. It wouldn't be nearly as effective if the lettering weren't there.
Okay, breakdown time. You first look at her face. It's the only non-neutral color in her cheeks and lips, as well as the brightest part of the whole picture. Details make you then look at her eyes, which (cleverly) are reading the taglines! Because we read left-to-right, you then follow the last of the text over to the white part of the pattern in the sweater, which then leads down to her hands. Because her jacket is open, you follow the V-shape back up to her face via the bright strands of blonde-highlighted hair. Repeat loop. You probably don't realize what color her shirt is, or that it's even in the picture at all.
How's that? Impressed yet? Next time will be why some ads (and slide presentations) are ineffective.
Have you got any tips for effective presentations?
