Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations

Presentation Zen Design

Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations

Garr Reynolds

New Riders
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510/524-2178
Fax: 510/524-2221

Find us on the Web at www.newriders.com

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New Riders is an imprint of Peachpit, a division of Pearson Education

Copyright 2010 by Garr Reynolds

Senior Editor: Karyn Johnson
Production Editor: Hilal Sala
Copy Editor: Kelly Kordes Anton
Compositors: Garr Reynolds, David Van Ness
Proofreader: Elizabeth Welch
Indexer: Jack Lewis
Design Consultants: Mayumi Nakamoto, Mimi Heft
Book and Cover Design: Garr Reynolds

Notice of Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact .

Notice of Liability

The information in this book is distributed on an As Is basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-66879-0
ISBN-10: 0-321-66879-0

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America

To Mom, Oksan, Otsan, & Ai-chan

This book would not have been possible without a lot of help and support. Id like to thank the following people for their contributions and encouragement:

Nancy Duarte and Mark Duarte and all the wonderful staff at Duarte Design in Silicon Valley, including Paula Tesch and Tracy Barba, for their support.

At New Riders: My great editor Karyn Johnson for her fantastic suggestions and unbelievable patience. Mimi Heft for her help with the design and the cover. Hilal Sala (Production Editor) for her talent and patience, as well as David Van Ness for his great production work. Sara Jane Todd for her wonderful marketing efforts.

Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Daniel Pink, Jim Quirk, and Deryn Verity for their enlightened advice and content in the early stages of the process.

Jumpei Matsuoka and all the cool people at iStockphoto.com for their tremendous support with the images and the special offer thats included at the back of this book.

Designer Mayumi Nakamoto for always being there when I needed her.

The Design Matters Japan and business community, including Toru Yamada, Shigeki Yamamoto, Tom Perry, Darren Saunders, Daniel Rodriguez, David Baldwin, Nathan Bryan, Jiri Mestecky, Doug Schafer, Barry Louie, Michael Bobrove, and Keizo Yamada. Thanks to Markuz Wernli Saito for his beautiful garden photos. To Daniel Kwintner and IDA Japan for their contribution.

To Patrick Newell for his contribution and friendship.

A special thanks to Scott Kelby, John McWade, Maureen Stone, Stephen Few, David S. Rose, and Nancy Duarte for their very kind contributions to the book.

Back in the States, a big thank you to those who contributed ideas and support, including Debbie Thorn, CZ Robertson, and to my buddies in Silicon Valley, Ric Bretschneider and Howard Cooperstein. Also to Mark and Liz Reynolds for picking me up in the snow.

Thank you to Mark Templeton and the amazing folks at Citrix.

Id like to thank the thousands of subscribers to the Presentation Zen blog and to all the blog readers who have contacted me over the years to share their stories and examples, including Les Posen in Australia and Olivia Mitchell in New Zealand.

A very big thank you to Reiko Hiromoto at Kansai Gaidai University for her insights and suggestions.

Though I could not include all the slides in this book, I want to thank all the people who submitted sample slides, including Jeff Brenman, Pierre Morsa, Scott B. Schwertly, Dr. Aisyah Saad Abdul Rahim, Marty Neumeier, Nancy Duarte, Naveen Sinha, Dr. Bonnie Bassler, and to Elissa Fink and all the talented guys at Tableau Software.

And of course my biggest supporter in all of this was my wife Ai, who was always understanding and supportive (and kept me well fed too).

I am blessed indeed to be surrounded by such great people. Hontoni Arigatou!

Its a great honor for me to introduce Garr Reynoldss second book and to share some thoughts with you about the journey youre about to take. Indeed, reading a book by Garr is just thatan expedition into territory that feels familiar to us who communicate our ideas to each other daily, but becomes unsteady ground when our messages arent clear or dont achieve the desired outcome. Like a gentle Zen master, Garr takes us through the barriers that stifle good communication and opens our eyes to simple, yet powerful ways to create better presentations. And in the case of this book, he shows how we can achieve clear communication using time-honored design principles and lessons from the visual world around us.

Garrs first book, Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery , taught us that we (and Im including myself in this category) can be better leaders, communicators, and public speakers in any arena. He gave us the tools to think differently and more creatively about preparing, putting together, and delivering presentations. We learned how to break away from the conventional slide presentation thats run amok with lengthy, bulleted lists and busy art. And most importantly, we learned how to get our messages across clearly and with visuals that beautifully tell the story.