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These are ways to make beautiful slides. But "beauty" is not typically the measure I aim to optimize when prepping for a presentation. Given the tradeoff betwee
by gnicholas 3y ago
These are ways to make beautiful slides. But "beauty" is not typically the measure I aim to optimize when prepping for a presentation. Given the tradeoff between spending time making the content great, and finding a beautiful font, I will always choose the former. If your job is to make beautiful slides (e.g., you work for someone who gives presentations, and you make the decks), then beauty is your north star.
But for me, beauty is one small aspect of what makes a presentation good. I personally spend most of my time on the spoken content, and then build mostly-minimalist slides to accompany the content and help make it memorable. I spend near-zero time making the slides beautiful.
- adamhartenz 3y agoIt sounds like you are actually in a really good place to understand the science of graphic design. It is unfortunate the author used the term "beauty", because it make non-visual people assume something. The word is loaded, so skews how you think about the subject. But this is also how graphic design works. The visual look of your slide deck can skew how your audience perceives your content. Humans are extremely susceptible to this, so knowing a little bit can have massive benefits. The article does seem to cover the basics pretty well, which is only the tip of the iceberg.
- gnicholas 3y agoWhat word would you have used in place of "beauty"? If the author had argued in favor of optimizing the visual look of your slide deck to maximize its impact on your audience (a rough paraphrasing of one of your sentences), I wouldn't have disagreed. But if her first bullet point had been about choosing/buying the right font, I'd have demurred (and I say this as someone whose livelihood focuses 100% on the visual presentation of text!).
- adamhartenz 3y agoI think the word beauty is fine. But the problem is that it means different things for different people. For example, something could be ugly and beautiful at the same time (like every single new born baby I have ever seen :P ). So whenever I see a word like that, I usually default to trying to figure out what THEY mean by beauty. And try not to bring any baggage with me.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- user_7832 3y agoI would have called it prettiness.
- idopmstuff 3y agoAesthetics. The look/feel of your presentation - as much as possible it should feel aligned with your topic, evoke the feelings that you want from your audience, and help to emphasize the most important content.