Let There Be Awesome

Have a question about slides?

tweakyourlife — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:37:26 -0400

Ask Christin and Chiara. What would you most like to know about? Seen something awesome and want some advice on how to equal said awesomeness? We are awesome, so chances are, we know the answer.

“This seems to happen more now at my work than it did in...

robotsknittingcupcakes — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:23:00 -0400

“This seems to happen more now at my work than it did in college…”

loveallthis: How to build a Tardis, courtesy of Ikea. from...

robotsknittingcupcakes — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:49:40 -0400

loveallthis:

How to build a Tardis, courtesy of Ikea.

from CollegeHumor.

Design Candy + Dr. Who!

loveallthis: Inspired by jeannr, I flowcharted the Beatles...

robotsknittingcupcakes — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:48:02 -0400

loveallthis:

Inspired by jeannr, I flowcharted the Beatles classic, ‘Hey Jude.’

now you can buy a print!

Another example of beautiful design candy… and The Beatles! Perfection. :)

Needs Comparison Original from I Love Charts Recreated to be...

robotsknittingcupcakes — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:12:59 -0400

Needs Comparison

Original from I Love Charts

Recreated to be prettier and more accurate to my psychology textbooks :)

laughingsquid: Dog Owners vs. Cat Owners This is a beautiful...

robotsknittingcupcakes — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:16:24 -0400

laughingsquid:

Dog Owners vs. Cat Owners

This is a beautiful way to represent data!

We should all try to present our data beautifully! Then perhaps people might just read it!

Compfight

tweakyourlife — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:24:00 -0400

Compfight:

Flickr rules for creative commons content. Its search engine is problematic. Use compfight and enter a whole new world of picture finding awesomeness.

Second Lesson: Bullets Kill

tweakyourlife — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:02:00 -0400

Where does this disconnect come from?

tweakyourlife — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:36:07 -0400

I feel rather discouraged today. My partner in crime, Christin, shares this same frustration, though I am not sure she shares the same discouraged melancholia I feel today. What does it take for people to realize that they are awesome in theory, and that their ideas are super awesome, but that their design and delivery just stinks? I conducted a workshop today in which a perfectly good teacher (who doesn’t realize his students talk about just how awful his slides are) tried to justify using the same Blackboard template, the same color font, the same fire, sparkle, comet, flippidido transitions for EVERY Keynote presentation in a 60-hour class. He said it worked for him. I stopped for a moment and realized, yes, it does work—for HIM and no one else.

A work colleague recently asked for my help as he had never used Keynote before. He worked with me for 10 minutes, then said, “I got it” and proceeded to create what were to him “simple and organized slides.” According to a workshop attendee, he might as well have just not had slides at all. Seriously, unless your slides look like Garr Reynolds’, you probably don’t rule as much as you think you do. Even Reynolds says that every good act takes persistence and life-long learning. Even Reynolds works to constantly learn, improve, and grow (and he pretty much wrote the book on this presentation design stuff). It’s ok to admit you are powerless and don’t know how to make these better. It’s also ok to admit you don’t know what’s wrong with your slides, you don’t know how the heck to get where I want you to be, and you didn’t know there was anything wrong to begin with. But, once you admit all that, as I did almost three years ago, you have to get off your butt and do something about that—you is ALL of you who use presentation software, lecture, teach, or talk for a living.

Our presentations, and let’s face it, teaching is presenting—it is the oldest form of presenting (what do you think those cave paintings were for? Self-aggrandizement?)—our presentations should be for THEM, for the audience, for our students, clients, practitioners, conference attendees, church goers, stockholders. Presentations are not about the presenter; they are about the audience. If I explain that scientifically the human mind cannot read and listen at the same time, then how can you tell me that your students are paying attention to you while you lecture, display your entire lecture on a screen, and enable their dependency on technology by allowing them to Facebook and play Tetris for eight hours while you passionately proclaim the wonders of high definition film making?

I live on a presentation soap box, but I feel like I went wrong somewhere because most people perceive my fervor for this as being entirely related to the design and dissemination of slides. Well, yeah, I spend three weeks working on a set of slides, but that effort would be useless if I didn’t also care about my audience, about what they would gain from my conveying information, empowering their design abilities, and encouraging their ability to think critically and push outside of the standard death-by-Power Point comfort zone.

I don’t work on slides for three weeks because I just totally love slides. I do it because what matters is the entire package—the creation of an engaging, dynamic, hands-on, empowering, knock your socks off, resonating, earth-shatteringly moving experience. One cannot do this without careful attention to information, its visual conveyance/transference, and its delivery. We live in a world saturated by the mediocre, trite, overdone, overworked, and overdecorated. We should live in a world of awesome—a world dictated by the outstanding, novel, unexpected, never done, never tried, and intrepid. So, I am stepping off the theoretical soap box and stepping on to the practical, hands on, in your face pedestal of awesome. Christin—it’s on.

Let there be awesome…like now.

This is what we do. Original photo taken by Brett Jordan.

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:01:00 -0400

This is what we do.

Original photo taken by Brett Jordan.

First Lesson: Color Palettes

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:49:00 -0400

Color Palette Sites We Love: ColorLouvers & Kuler

Duarte Blog

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:48:58 -0400

Duarte Blog

Presentation Zen

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:48:05 -0400

Presentation Zen

dafont

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:47:00 -0400

dafont:

Free, fantastic fonts!

Good Fucking Design Advice

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:28:43 -0400

Good Fucking Design Advice

... and on a random day, a blog was born

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:20:00 -0400

Me: We need to start our own company, recreating slides for corporations. I'm listening/watching a webinar from a some company... I don't even know what they do actually... and their slides are AWFUL. My eyes are bleeding. UAOINASODKMAWPLEMASDSKEIWOAND omg. COMIC SANS.
Chichi: HOLY SHIT NOOOOOOOOO! Ok. We need to coordinate.
Me: We need to come up with Commandments of Good Design. Or Commandments of Design that DOES NOT SUCK.
Chichi: This is getting oddly religious hahaha Commandments of Awesome Design? The Ten Commandments of Awesome?
Me: Yes. Something. Good design IS religious!! We also should compile/refine/add to our list of resources - websites we like that also talk about good design.
Chichi: YES! We could even show people how they can incorporate design elements from non-slide thingies into their slides!
Me: Exxxacccctly. I plan to take pictures of good design in Austin - on anything - buildings, signs, menus, books, etc.
Chichi: I am excited!!!!!

Test post

robotsknittingcupcakes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:06:39 -0400

Trying to figure out my style codes. Woot.