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Assignment | Iconography Final Project (McGinley): Presentation Tools & Tips

ARTS 1301 | Prof. Mike McGinley (Fall 2022)

Tools to Use

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Style Recommendations for Best Impact

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Font Size

There's a little more leeway for a virtual presentation since no one's at the back of the room in your audience...but still keep it pretty large.

Rule of thumb: no smaller than size 28.

 Slide has "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" nursery rhyme as bullet points in a small font. Similar slide but the main text is sized larger to show up on the slide better (between font size 28-32)

Colors

Keep a limited palette of coordinated colors. Avoid putting bright colors on top of each other. Red/blue is a notoriously hard-to-read combo.

Color palette is okay but the contrast is too low using black and dark red text on top of a dark grey background.Red text on blue is hard to read. There are too many different colors on this slide, and they don't contrast well with the background.

Use greater contrast in colors, or use a lighter color in between the dark text and dark background,

Images

If you use an image in the background, make sure your text shows up clearly on it. Often this means adding a solid shape behind the text or fading/darkening the image.

If you have a smaller image side-by-side with text, make sure your text doesn't run over into it.

The busy background and color variations makes it hard for the text to be easily read.

The last couple lines of text are longer than the previous four, and they end up overlapping with the slide image.

Darkening or partially covering up the background image behind the text will keep your text readable.

The image and text do not overlap in this configuration. (A solid background was added so that the text wouldn't overlap with a default background design element, too.)

Limit Your Word Count

You shouldn't have lots of text on your slides. Bullet points, not paragraphs.

Lots of text is boring to look at! It takes up space for visuals, as well.

Plus, your audience can read faster than you speak and will be reading ahead -- but will also be distracted by you talking. Lose-lost situation.

 This slide has a whole paragraph on it! It could be worse...but it could also be better. This turned the paragraph into a bulleted list of main ideas.

 

And don't forget! Just like an essay, you need to include your in-text citations
... and consider how you can should mention them as you're speaking.