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slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

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Author: Nancy Duarte
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$34.99~~
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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

40 reviews
Sales Rank: 972

Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 294
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 8.9 x 0.6

ISBN: 0596522347
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.452
EAN: 9780596522346
ASIN: 0596522347

Publication Date: August 12, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you've delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.

Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world's leading brands. With slide:ology you'll learn to:

Connect with specific audiences
Turn ideas into informative graphics
Use sketching and diagramming techniques effectively
Create graphics that enable audiences to process information easily
Develop truly influential presentations
Utilize presentation technology to your advantage

Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced -- and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.

Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Yet another designer's book September 12, 2008
David Field (Merrimac, MA USA)
30 out of 41 found this review helpful

I have to rain on the parade of this book and Garr Reynold's book (and other ones).

The message is "I'm one of the best slide designers in the world (which is true) and I'm going to show you WHY."

The message should be "I'm one of the best slide designers in the world and I'm going to show you HOW."

You'll see plenty to interest you, but unless you're a full-fledged graphic designer you'll never recreate these slides. Imagine putting this book (and the Reynold's book) into a room with some of your worst slide creators, or even yourself. Would you see an improvement in their skills? I doubt it.

You might as well become a painter by reading books that have the world's greatest pictures in them. Even though there is explanatory text here it isn't enough to bridge the gap.

To see a book written for its audience, try the "Before and After" books by Jon McWade which deal with desktop publishing. Unfortunately John has not yet tackled slides, but you can see an page layout idea and make it yourself in minutes.

So, sorry about this, because both this and Reynold's book are "nice" books. The energy has gone into the book's design and production rather than the content. But that makes them coffee-table books, and unless you have a coffee table in your office I'd advise that you give both of them a miss.

5 out of 5 stars

AMAZING--not about slides, about mind to mind communication August 26, 2008
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
20 out of 24 found this review helpful

I just destroyed this book with folded pages and ink annotations, so the perfectionists out there may want to order two copies, one for eating and one for sharing. The price is phenomenally reasonable, especially for something that is all color and totally elegant.

This is not about powerpoint slides. If anything, it is a very subtle but explicit critique of how retarded they still are (e.g. no separation between bullet groups). This is an utterly inspiring combination of wisdom, education, visual excitement, and plain fun that "lives" what it preaches.

When I get back to the office I am going to read this book again while I create a briefing on the Earth Intelligence Network and educating the poor one cell call at a time that respects the deep knowledge being imparted by this author and her team. Mills Davis, visualization and semantic genius (Project10X) called my presentation "dense" yesterday, and I needed this book to understand just how polite he was being.

Bottom line mechanically: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 font size MINIMJM. For the advanced audiences, 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 6 minutes and 20 seconds total.

I read and reread sections, and the recurring thought in my head was that this book may well be all one needs to run a semester long course on the communication of important complex ideas. The author does not just show a correct slide, the author breaks down every aspect (e.g. fonts, color, grid layouts, use of images, creating your own art) into separate chapters with very ably-illustrated palettes covering all the options. I have a note on this, "nuances are unpackaged and illustrated."

I note the author's admonition that change across the presentation is a distraction, that animation should support the message and the continuity of understanding.

For large organizations, the author covers templates as a means of harnessing the diversity of knowledge of varied functions and employees, while maintaining a consistency of brand. BRAND is huge within this book, and in this book BRAND is not a legal term, it is a philosophical term. I am hugely impressed by a chart showing UK companies that treat BRAND as a design imperative being so much more competitive and profitable than those that do not. This book is not just asserttions and demonstrations, it is fact and case based and eminently authoritative.

I learn for the first time that powerpoint slides can be instantly made to be black and white to focus audience on the speaker, or made all white, by pressing B or W. Why didn't I learn that from Microsoft? Because their tool bar is not designed to teach....perhaps?

Special pages for me:

10-11 The Presentation Ecosystem (Message, Story, Delivery)
12-13 Time Estimate for world-class presentations (36-90 hours)
18-19 Rick Justice and 27 slides on eight topics (organization)
58-59 Making Diagtrams Work Together
64-65 Following the Five Data Slide Rules (Tell the Truth is Rule 1)
82-83 The (Financial) Value of Good Design
116-117 Lose the logo on every slide....
142-143 Dissecting a font (this section alone was HUGE eye-opener)
148-149 Typesetting a block of text (what powerpoint does not do)

The references are phenomenal, and comprise an instant library for any person, firm, or school of design. I only have ten links allowed, so below I list the reference categories, and link to a single book from the multiples identified--no disrespect intended for the others!

DESIGN
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

BRANDING
The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design

VISUAL THINKING
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands

INFORMATION GRAPHICS
Nigel Holmes On Information Design (Working Biographies)

DATA DISPLAY
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

CONTENT
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

BUSINESS BOOKS
The E-Myth Manager: Why Most Managers Don't Work and What to Do About It

The index is very good, another manifestation of the utter devotion to quality of the publisher, O'Reilly (I dislike most of their book sets, this one very properly rose to a proper high level).

Lots of white space. There isn't an ounce of fat or irrelevance in this book. It is world-class in every respect, and most publishers are so crummy about price and color that I want to end with a tip of the hat to o'Reilly for getting this one "just right."

5 out of 5 stars

Great ideas, great design! Just a very great book. August 12, 2008
Bert Decker (San Francisco, CA)
8 out of 11 found this review helpful

Nancy Duarte has designed a winner with her first book - and it's an instant classic on presentation design. Not only will anyone be able to make MUCH better presentations, they will have fun learning how. Whether beginner or expert, Nancy helps anyone get to the top of their game in making a impact through presenting their ideas visually.

It's also interesting and inspiring reading as well, and goes far beyond presentations. The success of Duarte Design is well deserved, and you'll see why in reading this book.

Bert Decker

5 out of 5 stars

Well worth adopting... August 17, 2008
J. Childs (Lakeland, FL USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

...for your personal professional library. Or, for those of you who are mentors, coaches and teachers, the book should be required (or at least a supplemental class text) for either Business Communication, Marketing Communication, or Public Speaking. Slide:ology reaches a broad audience because it offers a new way to think about presentations. It also provides practical examples and inside tips for the beginners on how to turn words into visual images. Even if you are veteran slide-jock or designer, you should find Slide:ology useful and an enjoyable read. Chapters 2 and 3 alone are well worth the investment!

5 out of 5 stars

A Must-Have for Seminar Presenters August 20, 2008
Jo Ana Starr (USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I'm a trainer, offering live seminars which we convert to video presentations for our distance learners. I'm comfortable with creating good video, but not so with creating strong slide presentations. For years, we've felt the need for dynamic slide presentations that would heighten the excitement we work to build in our seminars. The slide presentations we created or had created for us, relayed information but they seemed flat to me, not what we were going for.

If you're hoping to create a great slide presentation or a great visual presentation of any sort, you will find that this book shows you how to do so. You will learn how to avoid kicking the audience into the yawn zone by creating presentations that have power and impact.

If you are even considering the possibility of creating a slide presentation, please consider picking up this book sooner than later. The author will help you to put together a strong presentation that will get your message across to your audience in a powerful and interesting way. This book is highly recommended.

communication powerpoint presentation skills presentations visual persuasion

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