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BOOK REVIEWS
46 MacDirectory
BOOK REVIEWS > READ THE FINEST IN PRINT... AND ONLINE
REVIEWS BY RIC GETTER
slide:ology
Anyone who has ever left a meeting
feeling like they have "survived" another
PowerPoint presentation knows how badly
speaker support slides (and the audience
forced to view them) can be abused. Yet
after a Steve Jobs keynote address, how
many people have you heard even offer a
comment on the graphics projected
behind him? Like a well-written musical
underscore in a movie, graphics that blend
seamlessly into a presentation may never
in and of themselves be noticed, but can
be the persuasive tipping point that
changes the attitudes of an entire
generation (think
An Inconvenient Truth).
Designer/author Nancy Duarte is pressing
for a paradigm shift of comparable scale
with
slide:ology — The Art and Science
of Creating Great Presentations.
After
the first dozen or so pages, your
perspective on PowerPoint (and Keynote)
will be forever changed. By the time you
reach the closing chapter, you'll have the
vision and quite understand the skills you'll
need to break out of the bounding box of
bullet point templates and create graphics
that empower your message.
One of the great things about
slide:ology
is that Duarte not only is teaching some of
the basics of design, she is training the
reader to think like a designer. The early
chapters illustrate how to brainstorm ideas
and refine them to develop the core of
your message. She then leads us through
the process of translating the utterly
abstract into the meaningfully graphic.
One of the book's most valuable chapters
shows how to pick your way through the
potentially lethal minefield of graphs and
data. The most important points are
underscored by case studies of some of
the most effective and creative presenters
and presentations.
slide:ology is as inspiring to read as it is
beautiful to look at (you would expect no
less from one of Silicon Valley's most
sought-after designers). Duarte
understands that only a small fraction of
presenters have had more than the most
minimal training in design and not all of
us can employ the services of pros. So the
author provides us with a fairly thorough
and remarkably painless grounding in the
basics of color, composition, typography
and motion—essentially the grammar and
syntax of visual literacy. Even though some
of the examples in the book go way
beyond the basics (and quite possibly the
reader's skills), you'll find out how to make
the best of the tools you're most
comfortable with.
slide:ology is a must-
read for anyone who has the need to back
up his or her presentation with slides. Your
audience may never notice how good
your slides are, but they just may walk
away something far more important.
slide:ology
by Nancy Duarte
O'Reilly